Sony Continues Suing People Who Help Others Modify Their PS3s
from the no-freedom-to-tinker dept
The story of Sony suing Geohot for jailbreaking the PS3 got plenty of attention, and eventually ended in a settlement (with many people believing the press attention finally got to Sony). However, getting much less press attention is the fact that Sony continues to sue others who help people modify the Sony PS3. Sony has sued a guy in the UK for allegedly selling modchips, though the guy thinks it has more to do with the fact that he published a report highlighting technical problems with the PS3. After all, the lawsuit came just a day after a Sony exec wrote a memo complaining about the report. That seems like a pure case of a SLAPP suit, but the UK doesn't seem to have anti-SLAPP laws. For shame.Meanwhile, a few folks have sent over news of Alexander Egorenkov, a German guy, also known as graf_chokolo, who published a guide to Sony's DRM system. Sony not only filed suit against him, but also had the police raid his home and seize his computers and electronics. Egorenkov claims he doesn't have the money for a legal fight and will likely end up in jail. All for what? For publishing info on Sony's PS3 so that buyers could make full use of the hardware they had purchased. Egorenkov recently commented on his own blog that even though he's probably going to jail, he's not going to be silenced, and plans to "continue" his work on such equipment after he gets out of prison.
In the meantime, what the hell is Sony thinking? Why is the company being so incredibly aggressive against anyone who wants to modify their (legally bought) hardware? Beyond the ridiculousness of the whole campaign, and the fact that it's pissing off tons of folks who might otherwise be fans of Sony equipment, doesn't Sony have better things to do these days? Its stock is falling. Its businesses aren't doing well. It can't seem to secure its own servers. And all it's doing is spending its time suing people for modding the PS3? Really?
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Who Owns Who
Sony advertises products with certain features and then retroactively takes them away. Who is held responsible for this fraud? Nobody.
But just try to modify the device you yourself own, and they'll send you to prison faster than you can say "corporatist police state".
Who owns who?
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Customizing Your Car
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Re: Customizing Your Car
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Cheaters always win (war, sports, politics, business, life). So, if you want to win, just fucking cheat. Can't you learn by example? If not, you can continue to be the loser that you are. If Sony didn't put rootkits on customers systems they would not have won. They did (cheated) and hence #winning. Welcome to the world.
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Yeah, especially those bastards who are trying to run Linux that they didn't pay for. /sarc
...as well as cheating at online games which makes leader boards and achievement ladders worthless and makes it unfun to play against people who cheat
While, I pretty much agree that modded consoles shouldn't be allowed online, I have to disagree with the "unfun to play against people who cheat" part. I have always found it extremely fun to find the programming deficiencies in any game to exploit to my advantage. That's the fun of playing computer games for me. You know, things like finding the perfect spot halfway behind a wall that you can shoot enemies but they can't hit you, stuff like that.
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Re: Re: Re: Customizing Your Car
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"CONSUMERS" wish to Load Linux onto their PlayStation 3 console in order to develope and run software other than Sony's "legal and legitimate software". It has nothing to do with cheating online.
And you call these legal and legitimate consumers "bastard's" you see I do not play new DVDs or games on my Playstation computer therefore, I am quite happy for Sony to remove. Theses features that allow users to play new game and dvd titles, and I suggest anyone who complains about the removal of these features that I do not use are bastard's
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Adding NOS systems to push the burst speed up closer to the 180-190MPH range....
Obviously these are all perfectly legal activities and cars regularly cruise highways at 100+ MPH.... No modified speeding cars are ever involved in crashes or other 'accidents' that kill people. So, customizing cars in ways that allow them to perform illegal activities and kill people is not illegal, but customizing a PS3 to let some geek climb a ladder faster is????
Am I the only one who's confused?
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Buy/sell alcohol, buy/sell medication, run for public office, buy/sell stock, post stupid comments in a public forum, modify a car, become a preacher/priest, modify a cell phone, eat fungus, and almost anything that is remotely tied to money.
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Re: Customizing Your Car
I've got to see those tights. Can they be worn on public property?
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Add to this, the ridiculous extensions to copyright, and overly broad patent interpretations, and you have a modern recipe for technical stagnation.
Sony has not been able to leverage the power of the PS3. I say: let the hackers at it. Then maybe we'll get some stuff worth paying for.
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"but the UK doesn't seem to have anti-SLAPP laws"
Actually the UK's "super-injunctions" are anti-anti SLAPP laws.
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Case in point, I just bought a new TV. When shopping, my husband and I walked right past the Sony TVs. The sales rep tried to point us to them and I informed him we weren't looking to give Sony any money, and he said he understood and that he had been hearing that quite a bit.
I really don't see this ending well for Sony. They had better wake up and understand that they can do NOTHING to stop people from doing what they want. The people out there who do this sort of thing are smarter than most of the people Sony has on their payroll.
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Once upon a time Sony was a company that learned from their failures. Even something as big as losing the VCR standards war could be salvaged. When Betamax lost to VHS, they adapted the technology to create the 8mm camcorder format. They eventually figured out they had tried to pound a square peg into a round hole and found a square hole that needed filling. Now they just look for a bigger hammer.
It's no different than what the companies they dethroned all those years ago were doing, except for this. Thanks to the size of modern megacorporations, their hammers are made up of legislators, judges, and even heads of state. Ultimately it won't stop their demise, but it does mean their death throes will be far more damaging to society than their predecessors.
Sony's problem isn't their mistakes. It's that they forgot the importance of learning from those mistakes. That's the natural cycle of business.
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I don't understand companies today
There are tons of jobs and innovation that spring up around mods, just look at what happened in the auto industry. So copyright in this case is not creating jobs, it is killing them.
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Re: I don't understand companies today
With no understanding of the issues, they also have no way of recognizing when the so-called experts are giving them bad advice. All advice is assumed to be good and what's good for Sony (or whatever company) is assumed to be good for society.
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Re: Re: I don't understand companies today
Nowadays, not so much
Lobbynomics - it kills men and leaves dead husks in its wake.
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stupid
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Didnt Apple install some sort of software to track people on their iPhone? dont see you complaining.
Sony any leaked anybody's info over the internet and if they are guilty of it, they will be fined, simple
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Was this article about Apple? Nice strawman, but not gonna work. Please try again.
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Guess what - you don't get to fight piracy using my personal info or property, especially when I've BOUGHT the damn product you're selling.
I'm surprised SONY's permitted to operate within the US or Europe at all. Their current and past behavior over the past 5-10 years has shown a complete disregard for customers' personal info and property. Fines and sanctions are too good for them.
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Yes I own six(6) Playstation 3's, 1 is at home (and if Mike ever wondered who the PS3 that accesses TD from Aust is... *waves*), the other 5 at work where 3 run Other OS and 2 don't. Out of those 2 that don't, one is what could be called stock standard and is used for specific testing purposes, whereas the other one has been fully modded (or hacked as you call it) without the consent of Sony, for legal purposes. [look at my profile and you might understand what I would use them for]
If Sony want to come after me with legal C&D's, writs, whatever, I'd look forward to it especially knowing that they have no legal standing to do so.
Interesting that you talk about Apple and the iPhone, the phone that is now legal to be modded, which Apple at one stage called hacking (and still do) and tried to make illegal.
And NO they didn't install some software on the iPhone to track you.. It was already built into the phone, as it is on all smartphones (or even symbian phones) that have GPS capability.. makes my work life easy and also why I don't own a smartphone just an older Nokia 6300 with GPS removed.
Your original comment in the thread here alluded to people downloading games illegally, strange that this NEVER occurred until after the Other OS was removed, and in fact is very rare for it to happen now. Though it happens every minute on the XBOX, Nintendo platforms. As for the so called online cheating, this was only able to be done because of poor security on Sony's part via the PlayStation Network, and not because of any mods at the time. Hmmmm Maybe that's another reason why it was hacked...
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Trying to stop piracy is no reason to act like total douches with your customers, removing desired features, installing ILLEGAL rootkits, or suing people for doing what is probably legal in their jurisdictions.
In the end, 'hacking' a PS3 or a car or whatever can lead to significant legal, 'ethical' uses. Just because the unethical uses exist doesn't mean that modding should be banned.
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The feature was removed by Sony for the same reason backward compatibility was removed by Sony. They never earned revenue or profits from these features so they remove them,
Sony Would like you to use the PlayStation 3 console. Only in a way that maximises their profits not how you the consumer choose to use your console
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People download games and not paying for it, will kill the console, sooner or later, developers will say, why should i invest money on your console without getting any return? Imagine Call of duty black ops for example, sold over 10million copies, imagine 20% of those 10million downloading it illegally? Also this hackers enable god mode, making harder for genuine players to play
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if they can make a loss on that they're doing it wrong! (or, more likely, practicing holywood accounting).
for future reference, black ops is basically a gimped modern warfare 2 clone with new maps. (the number of features they Broke in splitscreen is apauling.)
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idiot.
Imagine games like enslaved that only sold 500k copies
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THAT is how you make money from pirates. Money that Minecraft doesn't even need, because it's clearly doing awesome without raising a finger to stop piracy of their game.
The fact of the matter is, for all the illegality of it, pirates are non-buyers. They're outside the economic ecosystem. If ten people buy your game but 200 pirated it, that doesn't mean you lost 200 sales, it means your game sucks! Because guess what? If your game was 100% pirate-proof, you'd STILL only have ten sales!
Blaming pirates for lost sales is just a face-saving tactic by shitty developers and content creators.
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Oh wait, we have that already. Its known as the PC.
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That's the same argument used by some studios against making pc games. I understand where they are coming from but do not entirely agree. When sharing games on the inter-tubes happens more with console versions there will be nowhere else to make games for and I wonder how the argument will change. I'm waiting to see what happens with The Witcher 2's GOG version. It was released with no DRM whatsoever. Didn't find any article about the profitability of it yet.
God mode in a multi-player game is just so not right when there are mere mortals in the mix. There should be a god-mode only club.
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Re: stupid
When they can't come up with an argument, they insult the messenger. Typical twelve-year-old mentality.
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FTFY
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That's what they were going for, right?
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A company will only become or remain successful be convincing people to pay for their products and services. Any action that discourages more potential purchasers than it attracts should be avoided. Sony don't seem to realise this.
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And we won't do anything about your personal details, we'll just give them away, instead of selling them to marketing companies.
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I own a PS3
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Re: I own a PS3
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I'm hoping you spot the irony in your own statement.
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I fail to see what sort of offense against society this guy has engaged in which warrants jail time, seems to be more of a civil matter where one party takes their little bitch session to court. AFAIK, civil matters do not result in jail time - that's retarded.
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http://www.computerandvideogames.com/308059/news/new-playstation-3-model-announced-for-japan /
Will they ever learn?
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duh :P
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This is the link about Sony's next version of the PS3 containing even more DRM. Sigh.
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/308256/news/new-ps3-features-additional-security-repor t/
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*waits for more Sownage*
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Anyone wanna guess which brand I didn't purchase?
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We have dismissed that claim.
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Priority Network Adapter on Sony Blu Rays
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Sure, it upset some folks that bought the PS3 just to run another OS on it (Linux...) when Sony turned that off with a firmware update. But you know the reason why? Because those few that ruin it for all were pirating movies and games.
And the others are cheats that ruin gameplay for those that are honest.
So whine and hack all you want, but protecting commerce means enforcing the laws. You do understand economics and industry, right? Or do you feel you are entitled to everything?
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And judging by the retarded shit you say on the internet, I sure hope the manufacturer who built your keyboard does exactly that.
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Are you really surprised?
Since then, they have gone downhill. Not necessarily in quality, but rather in their scarcity view of the world. They added themselves to the list of vendors I will not use or recommend to friends or clients (as a technology consultant), because of their business practices.
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Re: Are you really surprised?
I don't make the rules.
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Re: Re: Are you really surprised?
He loved Big Brother :)
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Open letter to Sony
I stopped buying your stuff years ago because of they way you lock your equipment down. Now I add to my list of reasons about the way you treat us as human beings. I can't buy any of your products when I know that not only do you restrict what we are allowed to do with it, you actively bully people who try to make your equipment useful. Unconscionable!
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Re: Open letter to Sony
**You actively bully people who try to make your equipment useful in ways you were too stupid to think of***
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Sony and PS3 madness
Have you considered a "call to arms" to find funds to help the German guy?
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heheh
Sony is currently a corpse but doesn't know it yet and every well respected investor is staying the hell away from the funeral......
Few weeks left and Sony will be filing for bankruptcy/protection from creditors etc worldwide, they just aren't prepared to go public with the death of the company just yet......
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Re: heheh
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selling off
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Mr. Egorenkov
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