Geohot Claims He's Never Heard of Sony Computer Entertainment of America

[DonJavo]

...I didn't know SCEA existed, if it helps. I always figured Sony were Japanese. I thought they'd have a branch in America somewhere, but that was just common sense talking.

Ignorance of the law is not a defense for breaking the law.

Or in this case, ignorance of the contract you've accepted by purchasing a PS3 is not a defense for breaking the contract. (Doesn't have the same ring)

Because Sony has done everything in its power to help have the consumer understand that Sony has an American branch in California, jurisdiction has thus been established. Any self-respecting judge will see this and throw out this hackers argument of never knowing SCEA existed.

This should be a throw away case in Sony's favor since Hotz broke the terms of agreement by hacking the PS3 in this manner, but because he is trying to this legal dance this case keeps going on. This kid wants to play a battle of attrition with a global corporation, who do you think has the funds to keep dragging this out? Do I hear settlement?

Need I remind you that to assume everybody is aware of the contract settled when purchasing a 'child's plaything' is a joke? How many people are aware of the entire terms and conditions? How many mothers read it before they buy it for their children? This is not the same as an instated law for the protection of the population, this is a legal contract, whose conditions apply when the consumer is aware of them. If you go out of your way to hide these conditions, say, to hide SCEA in the manual somewhere, you are automatically void for attempted deception. I haven't read the manual for my Xbox 360. I don't plan to, either. Manuals are for setup. Not for legal bindings.

I have never read my 360 manual as well, and no one ever does read the manuals to what they have purchased, but is that the fault of the consumer or the the company? A company has the right to protect itself, as do consumers, and if Sony hid the existence of its American office in some legal mumbo jumbo, maybe Hotz has a case, I doubt that they did though. The facts still remain that a company has a duty of care to its consumers. Their duty is to produce a safe product while also telling the consumer of its product's physical limitations and the consumers' legal limitations when using the product. Does that mean that we are going to have to read a boring manual that tells us these limitations? Yes. The consumer also has duty of care to realize what he or she can and cannot due with the product. So saying because no one actually reads what they can and cannot do with the product is not an excuse. Ignorance of the law is not an excuse for breaking the law. Though if the information is difficult to obtain and process, then Hotz may have a case.

I also find hard to at least not think that Sony has an American headquarters. It is a global corporation. Google, though American, has a shell company in Ireland that acts as a headquarters there. Coke has an African headquarters,and the list goes on and on. If the argument of "it's in the manual" fails there is also the argument of common knowledge/common man/reasonable person. It is not hard to believe that a global corporation has some foot the countries it does business in? I think so, and I also think I am a reasonable man.

 

[xXDeMoNiCXx]

I sincerely hope to see a comedy released in the future about this man's adventures.

Probably a parody on Robot Chicken.

 

[Thyunda]

snip

I side with Hotz on this simply because I disagree with legal limitations on a privately owned product. However, I do think the excuse that he didn't know about SCEA is irrelevant, especially since if it really came to it, Sony Japan could quite easily knock him down.

However, IF Sony are planning to sue for these kinds of offences, they need to make the terms of their contract more accessible. A simple quicklist of what is permissible and what isn't would be nice.
You turn the console on for the first time, and you're presented with a quick, unskippable, list of things you're allowed to do with the console, and things you are not. You'll probably agree with me that a lot of the legal terms and conditions can be simplified into more understandable language. A quick hint that more information can be found in the manual could easily safeguard Sony from any problems like this in the future.

In fact, I'll bet the only reason the general audience know about Sony's legal conditions is due to this case, so although this will have brought a lot of much-needed attention to the terms and conditions, it's a shame it had to actually come to this.

Not that Hotz is a victim here. It's all pretty obvious that he's not just doing this to save his own ass, he's doing it to show himself as better than Sony. Perhaps if we had a more likeable champion of hackers, we might get somewhere.

 

[Someone Depressing]

Wait a sec!

He is hacking a Multi-Million Dollar Gaining Electronics Corporation....And doesn't know it's Based in California...

MORE BULLSHIT PLEASE!

 

[OldRat]

Now, I'm now legal experts, but I'm pretty sure nobody could actually work up the balls to object if Sony simply retorted with "We're the goddamn SCEA!"

 

[rokkolpo]

I fucking love this guy!

 

[rokkolpo]

You know, I think this whole court case can be summed up like this:

Sony: "but this and this and this and this and all this stuff!"

Hotz('s lawyers): "Oh yeah? Prove it."

Sony: "....and this and this and this!"

*repeat*

That actually every court case ever.

 

[mirasiel]

In this thread: people make wild accusations and random comments without bothering to find out anything about the case.

Other people try and explain the legal system, the stage the case is currently at and the reasoning for trying to for a change of venue.

first group of people (and new people who dont read anything except OP) ignore reasonable people and keep throwing faeces around.

This seems to be the standard pattern for any Sony/Geohotz thread.

 

[Booze Zombie]

Yay for a fellow Girl Genius fan.

I raise your "yay" a "WOOO".

And there was me thinking I was the only one who read that web comic

Depends where you look, right now I'm seeing four readers (myself included).

I love you for that reference.

Much thanks for the love.

 

[Worgen]

hmm I wondered what scea stood for

it's hard to get sarcasm across in text form

actually I never remember seeing that acronym explained, I would regularly hear it associated with sony but I never cared enough to find out what it really stood for and never saw anything say scea (sony something something america) dammit, forgot what the forgot what the full thing was already.... sony company entertainment of america? bah, whatever

 

[dmase]

... yeah i believe him, this guy is fucking retarded, he's taking the fall for someone who did the actual hacking. I'm gonna go with that.

 

[rickynumber24]

Hey, guess what guys! I know it's hard to tell the difference sometimes, but Sony Computer Entertainment of America isn't actually the law yet! That means he doesn't have to obey them if he isn't even aware of their existence. Funny how that works.

Still I gotta give the guy some credit. It takes pretty huge balls to lie under oath like that.

Fun fact: this isn't about knowing whether SCEA exists but if it exists as an independent corporate entity completely separate from Sony. Which is something I didn't know until I read this article.

This is relevant because Sony would either have to sue him in Japan(which tends to tell corporations to go fuck themselves when they present an EULA of dubious validity as a law) or New Jersey(which is also much less biased) instead of the SCEA's home of California(which has a law basically going "if you are sued by a company, you are guilty of wasting their time and time is money so pay the fuck up already").

I was getting really disappointed with this thread until I saw this post because everyone seemed to be missing what was actually going on. As the guy I quoted said, these legal proceedings aren't even the trial! This is just to figure out where the trial should be held.

To further reiterate, since people seem to have missed it, George Hotz's position is that the hardware itself mentions nothing but Sony Japan, and, therefore, he should either be sued in his home state (because the guy with fewer resources should be accommodated) or in Japan (because it's Sony Japan whose stuff he circumvented) but certainly not in California. He's definitely *not* arguing that, because he didn't know SCEA existed, he's not responsible for what he did. What he *is* arguing is that the wrong guys are suing him for his actions!

Groklaw has an excellent summary (as always): http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20110327185437805
Unfortunately, it makes SCEA look even worse, because they seem to do a lot of stalling for time, making misleading statements, and concealing evidence. I could go on, but you should really just read the stuff on Groklaw if you're curious, and it'd make my post even longer.

As a postscript, I'd like to add that I could easily believe he's never played a game on any PS3 he's worked with... a lot of people who do stuff like this are too busy hardware hacking or contributing to the Open Source community, because it's their hobby, to have time to play computer games. (Sad but true... I went to college with a bunch of people like that.)

 

[Dogstile]

Actually, this is a good thing for him, because that is true. Feigning ignorance is playing by typical court rules and sony are being complete assholes about this court case so far.

I'm pretty sure claiming you didn't know something isn't exactly a defence that's going to hold up for very long.

And Sony are being arse holes? Heaven forbid they would want to protect their own products and investments.

Well, the thing is, he's rather correct in that SCEA isn't exactly clear.

Secondly, Protecting your products is fine. Gathering the IP's of everyone who accessed a website is being an asshole.

 

[rory12345]

He's just playing Sony's game. Look at what they said about his trip to South America!

 

[GonzoGamer]

This is getting quite silly now, and the more i hear about the exploits of Sir Geohot i'm starting to doubt his innocence.

Oh he's definitely not innocent.
But at this point, the more I hear about him the more he?s starting to amuse me. And the more sony pisses me off, the more I want him to get away with it.
Like his ?vacation? to South America right after sony gained access to his paypal records... No doubt to settle his money in an off shore account.

At this point, I hope that he frustrates them enough that they throw their hands up and go back to supporting the ps3 for the actual legitimate users rather than this futile war with the hackers. Not that they did much with the thing when they weren?t fending off hackers.

 

[Aries_Split]

Seeing the people who fail to grasp what this is actually about is far more frustrating than actually watching where it's leading.

 

[BrotherRool]

This is getting quite silly now, and the more i hear about the exploits of Sir Geohot i'm starting to doubt his innocence.

Innocence of what? This is going to be a purely technical case to decide whether hacking into a console, breaking the security measures and then creating the ability to pirate games and distribute said ability to the world is legal or not

The only thing from our perspective is, did he do it for the challenge and the homebrew, or the actual piracy?

At first this made me disbelieve him even in that, but when you're playing a game for such high stakes as he is, you do what your smart expensive lawyers tell you to do or risk going down for several million in debt

 

[Canadamus Prime]

He doesn't actually expect anyone to believe this, does he? To have not have heard of Sony Computer Entertainment of America you'd have to have been living in a cave all your life, and there's no way you could be a professional hacker while living in a cave.

 

[Frank_Sinatra_]

Actually, this is a good thing for him, because that is true. Feigning ignorance is playing by typical court rules and sony are being complete assholes about this court case so far.

As police officers in this town always say: "Ignorance is not an excuse for breaking the law."

OT: How the heck can you not know about SCEA? If he's played anything released by Sony from say, Zipper or Santa Monica, it'll say Sony Computer Entertainment of America as one of their publishers.
*facepalm*