The beauty about blogging is that, unlike hacking, you’re pretty much free to talk about what you want.
So, after the settlement between George Hotz and Sony last week, Mr Hotz has moved onto focusing on the current class action lawsuits involving the removal of OtherOS, a common topic here on TSA.
“These class action lawsuits are the type that can bankrupt or do seriously financial harm to a company,” said Mr Hotz, AKA Geohot, “and finally get Sony to realize that they are not above the law as they would like to believe.”
He’s still mentioning his own particular case though. “SCEA also likes to play games with their corporate structure,” he says in his latest blog. “They are whining to the court, saying they didn’t remove OtherOS and that they are just the messenger. And that they can’t get the documents and communications saying why because SCEI has them.”
“Then at the same time they assert,” he continues, referring to his own run-ins with Sony, “well you know we can get the documents, but you have to agree to never name SCEI as a defendant. If I were the plaintiffs, the first thing I would have done is added SCEI and got a motion to compel on those docs.”
“As a quick sidenote, they claim restoring Linux to your PS3 is “not only prohibited under Sony’s agreements, but is illegal”” says Hotz. “This is an example of a lie. EULAs are not law. Sony’s beliefs are not law. You win a case cleanly against someone who restored the Linux you took away from their PS3, then we’ll talk.”
“Should I feel privileged to give you $300? If you take the privilege back, what can I do with my uncontested ownership physical PS3? If I stop using your software and install my own, you’ll sue me.”
“Basically if Sony does bad things,” he concludes, “you better not call them out, or they’ll attempt to make your life hell.”
jayjay119
All this over other OS, get over it GEOHOT, everyone else has. People buy their PS3 as a gaming device anyway. Shut up and get on with your life and stay the hell outta mine!
cc_star
One of the reasons Sony may have included OtherOS was to avoid taxes, particularly in a period when the console was making a loss on each unit sold.
PC’s carry far less tax/duty around the world than consoles (I know this was the reason Ya Basic was bundled with the PS2)
Seems to me, a greedy Megacorp wants their cake & to eat it, can’t blame them business-wise, but you also can’t blame people caught in the middle for complaining & taking action through the courts
Gotta stick it to the man
cc_star
wasn’t meant to be a reply to you. ooops
jayjay119
Fits well with my post though, and it’s something I didn’t know, still doesn’t bother me though really. I forked out 500 pounds on launch day because I wanted to play games, not because I wanted to run other OS. I can see others would be a bit peeved though.
jayjay119
NB: I like the word ‘though’ it seems.
hazelam
you bought your as a gaming device you mean, hell, i bought mine as a gaming device too, but you can’t speak for everybody.
just because they got rid of a feature you didn’t care about that doesn’t make it all right.
the license agreement will never override the law, i’m in agreement with geohotz on that one.
too many people think that because there’s a license agreement sony can do whatever the hell they want.
well, THEY CAN’T.
they’re not allowed to break the law any more than we are.
if the law says they aren’t allowed to remove a feature that was used as a selling point for the ps3, then they broke the law, and i hope those guys sue the shit out of them.
it’ll be a lesson to every other hardware manufacturer that you can’t do whatever the hell you feel like, you want be able to screw over your customers with impunity any more.
show them their customers aren’t just there for them to strip mine every penny we’ve got out from under us, while ignoring their legal obligations to their customers.
what if they took out a feature you did care about?
what if they decided the bluray drive was a major cause of piracy?
don’t tell me they’d never do that, it’d fit right in with this jihad they have against preowned sales, and frankly, i don’t see much they wouldn’t do over their paranoia about piracy.
ok so, they probably wouldn’t actually do that, but that’s probably because they know they’d never get away with it.
jayjay119
I didn’t say it wasn’t wrong, I didn’t say anything other than I don’t care about it and I’m not pretending it’s a great injustice to me personally. If other people want it enough then yes Sony shoudld return it especially considering the main reason for removing it has occurred. But let’s not pretend Geohot is doing this for us.
hazelam
i doubt geohotz has a very altruistic motive, but the people bringing this other os suit, well they’re not coming across as just using this for shameless self promotion.
what i said wasn’t meant as an attack against you, it’s just this is one of those emotive issues for me.
i do think though, that even if the other os thing doesn’t concern you, the principal of who actually owns the machine you bought should, it should concern everybody who buys any piece of hardware.
chall5
agree with Hazelam, you can’t sell something and then start removing bits of it when it suits you
Boomshanks
But is it illegal for Sony to take away OtherOS from your Playstation? I thought I heard something that Sony have the right to take away PSN at any given time without an explanation and there’s nothing you can do about it. Same goes for OtherOS I believe. Sony have the right to take it away and they have done so. It was something we probably should have known they could take away, maybe from a User Agreement. Anyways, doing such a thing will surely lose Sony customers but they have every right to do it if they see fit.
hazelam
well, no they can’t as they see fit, that’s the point, just because it’s in the license agreement doesn’t mean it’s legal.
the license agreement does not supercede the law.
if the law says that once we’ve paid for a piece of hardware that has been advertised as including a certain feature, it’s illegal for them to take it away, no license agreement in the world will make it legal.
they may not like it, but even these huge multinational corporations have to obey the law.
all it takes is enough people with the courage to stand up to them.
now i don’t know if they’re on steady ground legally with regards to removing other os, i’m not an expert on the law, but i can’t believe they can just take away a feature we paid for, whether we use it or not, that feature was paid for by part of the purchase price of the console.
but the case for this action not being legal obviously has some merit or it would have been dismissed before it got this far.
my only hope is that this is decided based on the legality of the action rather than any cheap legal tricks, or more likely, expensive legal tricks.
hazelam
can’t do as they see fit*
any chance of an edit feature for the comments? i promise not to sue if you take it away later. ^_^
willow-mouse
This kid just frustrates me, he’s like a tantruming teenager who hasn’t got his way.
At the end of the day, he is negating his own arguments by virtue of sharing the exploits. If we get other OS back woop woop (I didn’t use it) he still won’t shut up.
baggyg
I didn’t agree with his last lawsuit, but removing the otherOS option was wrong.
GTRsannin
Why is everybody bitching about the OtherOS thingie Sony had all the right to remove it doesn’t it even says so in the manual that they can change the OS on PS3 when ever they want via updates and if they are bitching about OtherOS they should moan about every update PS3 has gotten cause it’s not the same as it was back when it launched they have changed allot of stuff in it and if you want a computer buy a computer PS3 is exactly what it is a gaming console and that is enough pointless i say pointless
cc_star
Sony themselves may have classed the PS3 as a computer by bundling OtherOS on it to avoid the same level of taxes/duty which is applied to games consoles around the world.
The manual you refer to is the End User Licence Agreement, which as pointed out in the post, possibly (probably) isn’t law, and as Sony chose to settle out of court rather than risk a ruling against them we’ll never know if this particular EULA is enforceable for Sony to ‘hide’ behind when justifying the OtherOS removal.
Personally I don’t give two hoots about it, as it was too limited & locked down to be useful, but I do buy into the underlying theme that users should have had the option to keep it & continue to be able to update their systems (not including it on Slim’s is obviously a non-issue as it was never on them in the first place, so nothing purchased has been taken away)
Crocadillian
As much as I don’t like him, his points here are valid. They did take away a feature that was sold with the PS3, that someone potentially bought it for. It’s hard to believe that someone would buy a PS3 for that function, but everyones different.
Lordfloyd
If thats his attitude, Sony should just give him a refund on his PS3(s), then he can buy a windows machine and cock about putting Linux on that.
cc_star
At a base level, that’s essentially what’s happening, the class action lawsuits are intended to recompense people over OtherOS (or restore it)
jayjay119
Would they restore it? Considering their main justification for removing it was because it left a window open for hacking, and that has already happened, surely they have nothing to lose by re-instating it, Right?
cc_star
Don’t think they’d restore it as it is obviously a security hole waiting to happen
UltimateBox
And here we have the Sony Defence Force that is TheSixthAxis.
Why are you guys so against Geohot? It’s one thing to hack, but sony’s being plain oppressive here.
GTRsannin
Because i like Sonys products and i know if i had my own product and something like this was happening to it i would defend it at all costs
skibadee
feel the same GTRsannin.
nofi
The article’s written as fact, a totally unbiased viewpoint.
For what it’s worth, I’m personally thinking Geohot has some good points in his blog. I don’t care much for OtherOS, but I’ve begun to care for the removal of features that some find useful.
This whole situation started out with me dismissing OtherOS as something of an aside, but it’s become more about the principal and about people’s rights, and I’m starting to come around to realising how ignorant I’ve been in the past.
hazelam
did you read a different article?
looks to me like this one just reports what he said.
i’ve had disagreements with tsa staff on occasion but i’d still say they were pretty objective about almost all the things they write about.
a inferior race
Are you referring to the comments section? If so I am inclinded to agree with you in general but on this particular article – ignoring the first post and associated comments – the prevailing opinion seems to be that Sony took something away that people paid for.
hazelam
what the other os removal suit, and geohotz suit, come down to is the principal, of who own the hardware we buy.
if we own it, then we should be ale to modify it, and they shouldn’t be able to remove features we might be using.
if they still own it then why are we paying them for it?
plus they need to take responsibility for it, they should be fixing my, or is it mine, launch ps3 that died.
they want their cake and they want to eat it, well, the world don’t work that way, they cannot be allowed to ride roughshod over their customers rights like they have been doing.
xdarkmagician
Sony deserves to lose this case. And after their treatment of Geohot I’m glad he’s not intimidated to speak his opinion and keep fighting. He has nothing to gain from either case, he’s doing this for everybody, even if people don’t understand why. I’ve read the settlement from his case and he’s basically suppose to stop all actions against Sony, including verbal. He’s risking his freedom to fight for the rights of people who ask for his head- literally. To everybody who thinks this is about piracy you need to read more. It’s about companies over stepping their boundaries, and removing rights for profits. It’s not about securing a system, its about controlling everybody who uses that system. Corporations are the most powerful force on this planet. They need to be kept in check. Ironically the PS3 web browser is used for more piracy then the other OS feature but because Sony and IBM don’t lose money from people using the browser, Sony doesn’t care if you copy MP3s, Divx, ect. IMO-Sony’s a bunch of hypocrites.