Word just in on the PlayStation US blog that the court case against George Hotz has been settled. Apparently the agreement to settle was reached, in principle, on March 31st. That’s before the Anonymous attacks.
As part of the agreement, Hotz has consented to a permanent injunction which we assume means he will no longer be allowed to legally own or work with the PlayStation 3.
George Hotz made the following statement:
It was never my intention to cause any users trouble or to make piracy easier, I’m happy to have the litigation behind me.
Which is hardly surprising, given the ferocity with which SCEA have been pursuing this litigation and the concessions that the Californian courts have allowed them.
So, an outright victory for Sony or a degree of face-saving for the man who made himself marginally famous by breaking one of the most successful security systems of modern times?
Source: PS Blog
BIGAL-1992
Please let this be the last we hear of him for a while, at least.
GregHorrorShow
I sincerely hope Sony’s lawyers also included something to make his rap videos illegal as well.
Tuffcub
I thrink the correct phrase is “PWND!!1!1!!”
Kled
That’s too hard to rap, Tuffcub!
Tuffcub
Wel let’s face it, Sony won. George can’t touch Sony products and has been shown up as the big mouthed little twat that he is. Previously he has said
“What if SCEA tries to settle?
Lets just say, I want the settlement terms to include OtherOS on all PS3s and an apology on the PlayStation blog for ever removing it. ”
Aaaaand anybody spotted that of the PS blog? No? Me neither.
Kled
I agree.
I didn’t see that on the blog neither, but… I bet he will sing a song for us saying they did post an apology, we just have to wait!
LOL!
Bladesteel
We have to give them time to make a new firmware to put otheros back in, and the apology needs to be written and then geohot approved ;)
Seriously though I don’t see this as a win for Sony but for geohot. I don’t believe for one second that Sony settled to be nice. There are four reasons i can imagine they would settle:
1. They think they’d lose.
2. They think the bad press isn’t worth it.
3. There are details they don’t want to become public through a court case.
4. Cost outweighs the benefit.
I’d say 2 and 3 are possible and 4 is probable. (Though if the laws were written for the benefit of the people, not for corporations then 1 should have been)
The Lone Steven
I just heard from Tuffcub on twitter that his supporters want their donations back and are angry with him for settling.I’m surpised that they didn’t ban him from using any Sony product. I hope Sony can get him to provide them with the code he used to hack the PS3 so they can stop people from hacking the PS3. Something tells me that Anonymous will be very annoyed at this news.
Tuffcub
“What do you plan to do with the money that was donated to you to provide a cushion for the legal battle? I hope you will be paying all those people back since you obviously didn’t live up to your word.”
“Hotz I paid because I thought you were fighting our fight, not just to save your own ass. Its ok it was only £10 but I feel cheated and I feel that you misrepresented yourself in your appeal. Factually thats fraud. I’m kinda putting you and Sony in the same boat now, you know false advertising ”
Oh deary me.
TSBonyman
I’d forgotten about his request for donations but doesn’t he still have to pay his lawyer and legal costs? If anyone donated to him after watching his rap video i would be surprised. He’s no legal crusader.
baconsarnie
Geohot can’t hack any Sony products. If he does, he has to pay $10K per violation & $250K per violation if he distributes any tools or code.
yogh_wayne
Good. I really hope that’s the last we’ve heard from egohotz.
TSBonyman
That is a surprise, i didn’t expect it to be resolved so soon. I wonder if Anon’s actions had any effect on speeding up a resolution?
There’s a part of me that still wanted to see this case hammered out in court but i’m glad it seems to be resolved agreeably between both parties.
squashme
will teach geohotz and other hackers that breaking the law has consequences which include imprisonment and hefty fines modifying copyrighted software code is illegal unless its open source
Bladesteel
No it’s not. Unless of course you think your country’s laws apply everywhere. OTOH distributing that software without permission (modified or not) is illegal in most places.
squashme
thats exactly what I said cant you read
BrainDiver
It wasn’t his fault, your lack of any sort of grammar makes your comments all but incomprehensible.
I know it’s really too late to post, I was reviewing the comments made and felt like saying something about this one.
TSBonyman
Just found this and thought i’d share it..
GameSpy writer and legal expert Eric Neigher breaks it down for us: “A permanent injunction is basically a ruling by the court (in this case, as recommended by Sony’s legal team), saying that Hotz is precluded, permanently, from engaging in certain activities. Likely, in this case, that means the procurement, cracking, and dissemination of Sony’s security codes. What happened here, most likely, is that Hotz got offered a money payment (or some in-kind payment) — or else Sony’s lawyers made it very clear that he had to back down or get laid out — in return for agreeing to abide by the injunction.”
It’s the latter, surely or he wouldn’t have announced his hencefroth boycott of all things Sony.
cc_star
wow been out the loop today so not sure if I’m interpreting this correctly:
Sony were happy to settle out of court in case they lost like Apple did when a judge declared Jailbreaking legal & the movie companies over CSS Copy Protection on DVDs
Geohot was happy to settle because he doesn’t have the millions of dollars to see it through so thought the slap on the wrist was worth taking.
Consumers are left in limbo as EULAs haven’t been tested yet, nor has the fact whether you can run programs you want on your property.
Even if Sony had of won, which they must have believed was reasonably doubtful else surely they’d have seen it through? But anyway it was clear they were starting to lose the PR battle which would have been far worse