dathwampeer said:
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I disagree in that he didn't actually hack into anything other than his own console.
People can argue that he technically didn't own the software and so had no right to hack it. But he owned a console that had functionality removed from it. He was re-opening that functionality.
I know sony have taken him to the Cali courts becaus... Well they're a bunch of dicks on stuff like this. But that in of itself should ring some alarm bells in peoples heads. Sony aren't playing a fair game here.
They're stomping around to show their power. What geohot did is not illegal. This shouldn't even have reached the courts. Especially after what happened with the jailbreaking stuff.
He did more than that actually, a big part of this is that he went out and told other people how to do the same thing.
What's more, there are other issues involved in this kind of thing like the protection of trade secrets.
It goes beyond just the software. Basically Sony owns the PS-3 and everything that it is. Someone can't buy one, take it apart to find out how it works, and then decide to produce their own versions of it. The same applies to the software under which it operates. This gets into the issue of things like "robber economnies" with countries like China analyzing products and then knocking them off despite it being illegal.
What this guy is doing is not only hacking his system, but sharing proprietary information with other people. Had he just hacked it, and then not told anyone else, I doubt Sony would have actually cared about it, other than voiding his warrenty, if they even found out about it.
The problem here is that if Sony *doesn't* go after someone for these kinds of violations, especially when they are this public, then they hurt themselves because in the countries that DO take the trade secrets seriously (ie nations that aren't robber economies) someone can point to the fact that Sony wasn't defending their trade secrets, and thus lost the right to their protection.
To the law context doesn't matter, what this guy is doing to "restore functionality" is no differant than some guy who is say ripping the entire operating system to use as the basis for his new SP-3 system which he will be selling for half the price. You can say that one thing doesn't follow the other, but the bottom line is the law doesn't discriminate a differane in attempt. To the law the central issue of modding the system and playing with that information is universal and intent doesn't enter into the equasion. It's either protected and nobody does it except the owner, or everyone can do it.
It's also noteworthy that previous rulings like the jailbreaking of phones and the like don't nessicarly mean much. Sure, they established a precedent, but then again other precedents might have been set in other less well known case, or as a result of that ruling the laws in play might have been amended. You can't go after the people for jailbreaking again, but with changes to the laws it does mean that doing something similar is still
going to be legal. The fact that Geohot seems to be losing definatly implies that the laws are differant in the venue he's in, or the laws have changed since the last time we saw a similar case fought. I haven't followed it closely enough to say.
The bottom line is that while I wouldn't put it past Sony to have bribed people, a decent number of eyes seem to be on this one, so I'm not sure they would have taken the risks. Without knowing all the laws or the specific arguements being made, it's also impossible for me to say with any kind of authority as to whether this case is reasonable.
As I said, I think Sony have been a giant group of jerks recently, but at the same time I'm able to see both sides of this arguement. If I was in their position I'd be fighting to prevent people from mucking around with my software/OS too.
We're ultimatly going to have to agree to disagree, but I can see why things are probably going this way. I might be wrong on the reasons , but as the reports are saying right now, things are not going Geohot's way, so I'm probably pretty close to the logic being used, right or wrong.
