Sony Hacker Lawsuits Earn the Wrath of Anonymous [UPDATED]

[JDKJ]

What does the Bleem case portend for Hotz? His ass ain't gots no real money, no matter how much he passes that Legal Defense Fund hat around. Is he also destined to be sued out of existence? Or, at least, into a homeless shelter? Just wondering what your predictions are.

It shows a precedent that Sony knowingly and willfully abuses the legal system to get the results they want, regardless of the outcome, ie, if they win or lose. If Hotz hadn't been provided with the money to defend himself, Sony would probably have already gotten some judge who knows nothing about video games, game consoles, and what have you, to declare extra-legal rights for Sony even after the point of sale.

I know this has been brought up time and again, but it's shocking indication of what corporations think they can get away with; when the DVD Player was about to come out as a mass market consumer product, George Lucas tried to get a law passed in the US that would require people who bought one to have to pay periodic licensing fees to OWN a DVD Player and/or the DVD's that play on it. Let that sink in, and let me know what you think.

Let's not over-credit the George Hotz Legal Defense Fund. By last tally, he'd only amassed $10,000. Unless his multiple attorneys are working for way below market rates, he'll be lucky if that sees him through the current jurisdictional phase.

 

[teethofymir]

Right. Sony is abusing the legal system by taking action against people who knowingly, and maliciously, violate the Terms Of Use. I mean, its not as if its a legal contract that you enter into once you buy and use a system.

Oh wait, it is.

The PS3 is a legally copyrighted piece of hardware. Does it suck that you can't mod it?: Yes. Is it illegal to mod it?: Yes. The letter of the law is clear, and the hackers knowingly violated that law.

Speaking as a software developer, I hope that they and the rest of their hacker/pirate ilk get prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

 

[phatty500]

so anonymous wants to stand up for ps3 gamers by taking down their websites and god knows what else they'll do.... am i missing something here. weren't the ps3 gamers all bitching cause the black ops servers got fucked by the jailbreak. this whole thing is stupid and i thank god i bought a 360 that fateful Thursday in September.

 

[sb666]

please tell me anonymous are not the reason i cant get on the playstation store

 

[MMMowman]

This would explain why my PS3 wouldn't download anything.
OT: I wish others wouldn't spoil what others work so hard for.

 

[succundo]

Goddammit, Anonymous were doing something good when they took on the WBC but this is just annoying and pointless.

 

[zerobudgetgamer]

Cool stuff anonymous. I think what Sony is doing is wrong, and worse, the other console manufacturers are doing the exact same thing. A publisher shouldn't have the right to destroy(read: brick) a physical product I have purchased or take legal action against me because I'm not using it the way they want me to.

I use my gameboy classic as a coaster for my tea mug and my DSi as a music player(thanks to R4), or at least I used too until nintendo patched away my MP3 player.

OK, pardon my ignorance in these proceedings, but isn't GeoHot being sued because he removed the security from his PS3, allowing him to play pirated games on it? Yes, as many have said, he bought the system, it should be legally within his rights to mess around with the hardware. But the problem should NOT be that he modified his PS3, but rather that he did so with the intent to play pirated games.

Seriously, have the years of Pirates of the Caribbean and One Piece melted away what's left of a lot of people's brains? Pirating, by definition, is taking something that isn't yours, which, since I feel I have to remind some of you, IS BAD! By obtaining a pirated copy of a game, that's money that the game developer will never see; if you share said pirated copy, then that's even more potential money just fluttering away. Unless something has changed, I believe Sony is still losing money with every PS3 they sell; even if they're not now, they were still selling the PS3 for far less than what it cost to make it, and I'm sure they're still trying to make a profit on this hunk of hardware. Add into this the fact that people are pirating their games, and it doesn't equate to anything good for Sony.

I know it may seem strange that I'm defending the big, bad game-making company and not the righteous hackers, but honestly the gaming industry is just that, an industry. If it doesn't turn a profit, it doesn't progress, and the more people try to find ways to keep their own pockets full by screwing the industry, the more the industry is going to decline. And to those who try to say "The industry is larger now than it's ever been" or some nonesense like that, just try and picture how the industry would be if more people pirated games; The best estimate I can find for the entire industry as a whole is about 30-35% of all games are pirated. What if that went up to 50%? Or doubled, to 60-70%? Think of how much potential money that is, lost forever. And if the game industry doesn't get that money, how can it afford to take risks? Push innovation? Think outside the box? If people are allowed to pirate games, the games they pirate eventually won't be worth playing.

 

[Void Droid]

This is all annoying, if people want to hack or ban or whatever then I don't care, all I know is I paid for a console and because of this shit I wasn't able to go online yesterday, on my one day of work in 11 days, so Anon and Sony are wankers.

 

[slipknot4]

Christ... This is really helping. Thanks [/sarcasm]

 

[-Samurai-]

I hope that one of them screws up and gets caught, and in turn, rats out more of them.

When you mess with the PS3s software, you're not "tinkering with something you own", you're tinkering with something you're leasing. Huge difference.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/lease
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/buy
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/own
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/vest

Might want to check your English. If I 'leased' a PS3, I would only have the right to use it for a certain amount of time and/or for a specific purpose. When I 'buy' a PS3 console, I am then vested ownership in that specific console. At that point, I have power and/or mastery over that console, unless and until I decide to vest ownership to another person or entity.

In the instance that Sony in inferring, the ONLY way that I could be pirating their console would be if I were to build a device, or use a pre-made device, such as a computer, and load the entire operating system for the console onto that device, WITHOUT having first purchased a console, and/or distributing said device as my own invention.

Using the 'Means to an end' reasoning for this arguement is patently false. That's why, despite all the violent deaths caused by guns every year, gun and fire arms manufacturers don't get sued out of existence.

Legally, Sony doesn't have a leg to stand on here. But, the court system is no longer about right or wrong. It's about procedure, jurisprudence, and the process of law. Bleem is a perfect example of Sony's modus operandi in this. Bleem released a Boot Disk that you could use to play PlayStation (PSOne) games on your Sega Dreamcast. You had to BUY the Dreamcast AND BUY the PSOne games, so technically, no piracy was taking place. In lawsuit after lawsuit, the makers of Bleem were found not culpable for the charges Sony brought against them. However, Bleem as a company no longer exists, because Sony sued them out of existence, even though Sony was legally in the wrong every time.

So, as far as I'm concerned, Anon can go right on screwing Sony over just like they're trying to screw over every one of us.

You may want to check your reading skills. I didn't say you're leasing the console, I said you're leasing the software. It's written clear as day in the manual, and it's been re-written, word for word, over and over in the recent threads on this topic. I'd type it up for you here, but I won't waste my time because I know you'll just refute it, and I really don't care about the opinion of anyone else on the subject anymore. Reading and typing the same things over and over got boring really, really fast.

 

[Bobbity]

I can't decide if I love or hate anonymous. Some of the stuff they do is actually good, but a lot of it is dickish like this.

Sure, Sony came on strongly, and removing the other OS option was most certainly illegal, :S, but they did have reasons for it, and some pretty serious ones, at that.

 

[mnjiman]

I think the reason for this is to draw media attention to what is occurring. Its working.

 

[Emergent]

You do know, of course, that trying to baffle them with bullshit is the oldest trick in the book, don't you?

So what were you responding to, again? I think you're avoiding my question.

The PS3 is a legally copyrighted piece of hardware.

As a software developer, which is it that you do not understand, copyrights or hardware?

 

[Emergent]

1. No money 2. I have spoken to them off the books and they all say the same thing. I would be a new study.

I'll just leave it at this: if you're genuinely having lots of violent thoughts about real people all the time, you should probably be sure that you talk to someone about that pretty regularly.

 

[Twilight_guy]

So according that logic patents and trade secrets should be illegal because they limit people's abilities to tinker or learn about a product? That'd be nice if we could afford to make everything publicly available and open source but as for me, a programmer, fuck you guys. I actually want to get paid and nobody is going to pay me if the product will inevitably be free.

This self-righteous "I know better then everyone else and will force the world to see my view" attitude is a pain in the butt and the idea that attack someone is a good way to convince them to see you view is just plain short sighted. Not to mention that in hurting Sony they also hurt all of Sony's customers by denying them access to Sony's website. This whole thing is a big ball of bad ideas to me.

your product is inevitably free weather you want it to be or not as has been proven time and time agin, the question is how are you going to make sure the maximum amount of people buy it.(this is a ethics and morality free statment I am mearly stating facts)

There is a difference between "I can't legally sell this for money" and "People might pirate this." In the former, it literally becomes impossible for companies to sell software products because they would no longer have the legal right to maintain the secrecy and artificial scarcity of code. If the company develops something then anyone could request the code and get the product without having to pay a dime. Companies would no longer be able to make a profit on software and would simply go out of business. Open-source and free stuff would still thrive, but someone like me who has skills in programming that would like to make money off them would be up a creek.

In the scheme where software gets pirated and used without paying the owner, some copies that might otherwise had generated revenue if bought are made or sold but some people will still legally buy the thing, ensuring that some profit is made. I doubt if any software has a 100% piracy rate and anything less then that ensures some money is made and thus makes holding secrets superior profit wise for companies that make software. That means they can still exist and I can have a job.

Yeah I'd like to live in a world where all software was free and we came together in one big programmer happy family to make the world a better place but I'd also like to eat and my skill set is tailored towards programming so my hands are tied for practical reasons. It's not an issue of piracy being wrong or right or whatever, its an issue of potentially driving companies and employees out of business by making their profit essentially illegal.

 

[Emergent]

@Tankichi: That's pretty much the same thing, really. It's about the frequency of the violent thoughts, not the visual or other sensory component (though those are, uh, warning signs). Anyway, not really my place to go much further with this line of reasoning.

 

[Keava]

Right. Sony is abusing the legal system by taking action against people who knowingly, and maliciously, violate the Terms Of Use. I mean, its not as if its a legal contract that you enter into once you buy and use a system.

Oh wait, it is.

The PS3 is a legally copyrighted piece of hardware. Does it suck that you can't mod it?: Yes. Is it illegal to mod it?: Yes. The letter of the law is clear, and the hackers knowingly violated that law.

Speaking as a software developer, I hope that they and the rest of their hacker/pirate ilk get prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

Slow down cowboy.
First of all Terms of Use/Terms of Service are not legally binding document. They are nothing but internal rules of service provided, where as service we understand something like PSN - not the hardware. For hardware to be considered service or it's part it can't be sold, only rented.
Sony pretends breaching TOS is equal to breaching a contract. Till this case, the only contract you made buying anything in any shop was the receipt bill which you finalize by paying for product. It's a case about your fundamental laws as customer.

Next thing is copyright does not affect hardware. Hardware, like toasters, can only be under protection of patent, and even then you are in full right to disassemble and modify it to your will. What is illegal, is using the parts of patented piece of hardware to create a copy of it and selling it as a new product.

Funny how in discussions about hacking always about 25% brags about how they are software developers, and yet they seem to have no idea what they are talking about...

Finally, hackers don't play by the rules of law. The whole hackers manifesto is about granting everyone free access to knowledge. It has both good and bad sides, but binary understanding of morality is the least of concerns of hackers scene.

 

[FalloutJack]

Boy, you know what's funny about all of this? None of it even applies to me.

I have Playstation equipment: First, Second, Third, and PSP. I play games, I go on the net, I Gameshark, I watch movies - all the regular stuff. To me, none of this can even matter to me because nothing's at stake. To those who use the entertainment medium as just that, this is an SEP moment. I'm not a hacker. I've had code experience, on and off college, but I wouldn't even know how to mod my PS3 or want to. (With respect, that's what I have a regular PC for.)

So, this entire issue...which has basically become a war...is a battle between Belgium and Luxembourg. It's a damn shame, but it's as removed from me as Earth is from Alpha Centauri. In the end, whoever wins - or if even both sides somehow lose - I'm largely unaffected. I won't even reap the rewards if Sony relents. And it really is all crazy, but like alot of the wars I hate, I don't have much of a side. I sit back, I drink a Dr. Pepper, and I wait for something to explode.

It's funny because it doesn't even MATTER who wins or loses. If Sony loses, Sony just recovers. It's Sony. It has that power. If Anonymous loses, they just recover. They're weird like that. And if Geohot loses, that thing he did recovers without him. Why? Because it's basically too late. Something learned can't be unlearned, and people who like to mess with things will mess with things regardless of rules and regs.

That's just truth there, truth and history. Virtually everything that is forbidden exists, because it is desired and because it's forbidden. The more you deny a thing wanted, the more it will go underground. The more you dig it out, the deeper it goes. There's basically a massive internet "You're Doing It Wrong" happening here, and I have to find it funny because they can't see it.