Despite being entrenched in full-on legal warfare, George "GeoHot" Hotz managed to find time to make an appearance on G4's Attack of the Show last night to discuss his history and, more importantly, his current suit with Sony. While Hotz himself doesn't support piracy, the code he and other prominent hacking outfit, fail0verflow, helped produce to allow the PS3 to run unsigned code can be used for such a thing ... but that's not why Sony is suing him. In his own words, he's being sued for "making Sony mad."
Hotz says that with his jailbreak tool, he made "a specific effort while working on this to try and enable homebrew without enabling things [...] like piracy." Of course, that doesn't console Sony at all -- people are doing things on the PS3 that Sony never meant for.
How does a minor "violate" a contract agreement, when they can't even enter into one in the first place? Oh wait... the parents are supposed to be the ones entering into the contract on the kid's behalf, right?
I wonder how many parents actually handle a game console past the point of handing the box to their kid? Most of them don't even have the technical know-how to get their VCR to stop blinking 12:00, let alone knowing anything about what an HDMI port is used for.
Besides, do these companies ever print their EULAs on the package so even the most informed of us can decide if we agree with it or not *before* dropping $300+ at our local Walmart? And how easy is it to return opened equipment to a store when it's not defective and may include software in the box that may have been copied by the end user prior to returning it?
Finally, how many parents actually differentiate a game console from any other toys their kids might have? Shouldn't it be against the law for companies like sony to sell products your kid could potentially commit a felony with (say violating the DMCA) while marketing it as a completely harmless product for families with children?
the difference between an Apple iPhone and a Sony PlayStation is that the PlayStation has a network devoted to keeping an even playing field amongst players. By jail breaking the PS3 this network feature then comes into major question. That is why Sony is suing him and not because he made them made. Running pirated and modded software on the PS Network defials all reason to the purpose of the network.
Hi everybody! I've one question that I think it's relevant and an interesting lead to pursue: I've seen news that the US Military bought a lot of PS3's, and bundle them together to make some super computer. Well, to make such thing they had to modify Sony's code or something alike. My question is: Will they be prosecuted too? I mean isn't what they have done a hack of sorts?
Wow what a tool, seriously this guy needs to crawl in a hole an die some where. I hope he looses this case and the attorney fees bury him in debt so bad he has to work 3 jobs and never sleep just to keep them at bay. I also hope he is never able to enjoy many of the liberties like a warm bed and a roof over his head. Listen up GeoHotz no one asked you to "fight" for our rights, so quit pretending thats why you did it. This guy is a self serving egotistical bastard who did this to increase the size of his epeen, because despite his age he still acts like an agnst ridden 16 yr old who wants to "go all 1337 on yo azz" Guys a tool, plain and simple. Also man is he F'N ugly.
Wow. Bottom line, it's money. Sony took the other operating systems out because it posed a security risk to their operating system. If they can't secure their infrastructure then game companies wont make games, that can potentially be hacked, for that system. For gamers, this will mean less games being made, games being hacked and made unplayable, rampant cheating and who knows what else. With the exception of the government, who really needs to have another o.s on the PS3 that you can't already have on a computer. I would rather have a stable system that I can play games on, that's what I'm here for. What this will cause is more delays in significant/beneficial updates from Sony and more 'security patches' taking up our time. So, when you get that next update patch that takes 'yesterday' to finish and you can't play anything without it, you know who to blame.
We think Sony is going home empty handed. LASIS, a legal journalism blog, has reported on the legal implications of this case. We encourage you to take a look:
