GeoHot VS Sony

[D!LL]

So here's the skinny. Well known jailbreak hacker George Francis Hotz AKA: GeoHot was the first person to hax0r into the iPhone and has been pretty relevant in writing Jailbreak codes for things online for a while now.

His most recent conquest, the PS3, allowed players to use things on their PS3 such as homebrew and PlayStation 2 emulation. This has gotten him into some legal trouble. Sony sued him on on 8000 counts for violation of the DMCA on January 12.

He appeared on G4's "Attack Of The Show" on January 14th and stated, quite plainly, Sony is basically suing him because he made them mad. And quite frankly. That's exactly what it seems like.

I personally think that he's right. I've discussed this with a few people already, and a lot of the debate against GeoHot states that "Well his hack could be used to pirate" and "Sony worked rrlly supr hard on their console" and that's pretty much it. But GeoHot's hack was designed specifically so that it could not be used directly to pirate.

What do you people think? Do you think Sony is violating his rights? Do we really own the things we buy from large companies like Sony? Should we be able to break free from what the large cooperation spoon feed us? Or is GeoHot a terrible criminal?

Go.

[AsphyxZero]

What he did was illegal. But it's awesome. Sony not making the PS3 not backwards compatible for PS2 was a shitty ****in move.

[D!LL]

Expound upon that statement. What about it was illegal?

And if it really was, should it really be illegal?
.

[COTMFreak]

I don't think it should be illegal. But as long as piracy and homebrew are considered one and the same to the big corps..it's very well gonna be contested sadly.

I just find this whole situation hilarious really.

[Crashfan3]

Originally Posted by D!LL

Sony sued him on on 8000 counts for violation of the DMCA on January 12.

Eight thousand?

Did Sony just make up a number and the US courts went along with it? If you kill ONE person, that's ONE murder. If you hack ONE console, that's ONE copyright violation.

[nuclearsamurai]

Originally Posted by AsphyxZero

What he did was illegal. But it's awesome. Sony not making the PS3 not backwards compatible for PS2 was a shitty ****in move.

iirc, the 40GB models (or 60GB, one of those) were the only backwards compatible consoles. The fact that they stopped making them backwards compatible was a shitty ****in' move.

[Reincarnate]

First off, let me state that geohot technically did NOT break any laws.

Just wanted to clear up that misconception.

Considering that Sony sold PS3 consoles at a loss in order to recoup through software sales, it's not hard to see why Sony would be pissed off at geohot for basically stripping the PS3 of its defenses. Now you can run whatever the hell you want on a PS3.

So, of course Sony would sue. But to what end? Ultimately, it's just sending a message. "Screw with our security and make it public, and we'll come spank you with as many lawsuits as we can." They really have no chance at actually winning... it's just a defensive maneuver. While there is a TOS regarding use of Sony's networks, geohot didn't use such networks to hack/research anything (and even if he had, recent cases like Facebook vs. Power Ventures and United States vs. Drew pretty much make it clear that violating TOS is not, in itself, a crime). So all Sony can do is complain that someone is using his own system in a way they don't like.

Basically, the thrust of Sony's arguments is that they want to use the DMCA to silence speech that reveals stuff like the PS3 security flaws, while simultaneously trying to argue that they have permanent control over what you do with their hardware via the Terms of Service under the threat of criminal punishment. While console developers would *love* to win those battles, it's not going to happen. One glaringly obvious reason is that the DMCA doesn't protect this sort of thing, and secondly, trying to win that TOS battle is an impossible feat in terms of trying to gain more control than you really have a right to in a TOS agreement (geohot didn't even use the PSN so the TOS argument is completely shot anyway). Sony's lawyers are IDIOTS for even trying to pull this.

It was recently declared not illegal to jailbreak the iPhone, for instance. You own the iPhone and therefore you own the hardware/software that is bundled with it. You might void your warranty by jailbreaking it, but you certainly can't get in trouble for it. Geohot is trying to use similar logic with the PS3: "I bought the PS3 -- I own it -- so I should be able to do what I want with it. It's not my problem if your security had holes and exploits to be leveraged."

Geohot has outright claimed to be anti-piracy. Clearly the release of the key can facilitate piracy, but all Sony has done is quote internet chat boards to make its case that all people will use the key for is to pirate software (as opposed to developing homebrew creations that might enhance a PS3 experience). When it comes to piracy, legal recourse has two flavors and two flavors only:

1. Using pirated software for financial gain, either through selling or using (e.g. if your firm is using pirated copies of Flash to make animations that you profit from, you can be sued for this)

2. Distributing copyrighted material (this is what the RIAA tries to use to argue against torrenting/P2P services. Because a user is "uploading" copyrighted material through these services, the RIAA tries to call this an unlawful "distribution" of said material).

What's hilarious is that Sony tried to nail geohot on #1: Sony SENT geohot $1 via Paypal in order to prove that he was indeed out to profit from all this. *TOTALLY* stupid lmfao. Badly attempted and illegally performed. Geohot outright says on his website that he doesn't want donations, and he doesn't charge for anything. As for #2, Sony can't own a copyright over an encryption key -- it's just a small series of numbers, and you can't own a copyright over a simple string of numbers that has no underlying creative process/work. It'd be like trying to own a copyright over a CD's digitized form and then arguing that since you've converted it to MP3, the numbers are different and therefore copyright doesn't apply. The underlying WORK is what's copyrighted. In this case, a root key is just a root key. Geohot isn't breaking #2 by distributing it.

Sony is shooting themselves in the foot and stepping on their own cock. Their reaction to this whole this is really funny to me. Everything Sony's thrown at geohot has been riddled with misunderstandings of the law (especially IP) -- they're just shotgunning this and hoping something sticks. They're throwing a big tantrum because they really have no basis, but what makes matters worse is that they're pulling really boneheaded moves in their desperation. When the iPhone was jailbroken and rendered not illegal, Apple responded by creating new features that were once only possible through jailbreaking (custom wallpapers, third party multitasking, etc). It looks like Sony is taking a different (read: retarded) approach. Removing OtherOS was probably a poor move in the first place (all it ultimately wound up doing was kicking the hornet's nest and catalyzing the next wave of aggressive hacks). All Sony is doing is trying to give a guy grief for exercising his free speech rights.

Geohot simply gained access to his own system and isn't responsible for what you do with your own.

[Reincarnate]

tldr: Sony is butthurt and they probably won't be able to do shit.

[ghost-]

GeoHot is god.