albino boo said:
mjc0961 said:
albino boo said:
If they prove that he owns a PS3 he done for. If he owns one, then he has entered in a contract with Sony and breached it.
Uhm, no. That was never true. It was obvious that he owned a PS3. We all knew that; he couldn't crack one without owning one. But buying a PS3 doesn't mean you have entered into a contract with Sony. It's only signing up for the Playstation Network that does that.
And as Sony still hasn't sufficiently proven that he has done so (only that SOMEONE used one of his PS3s to create one; they have yet to provide proof who that SOMEONE is, so at this point it's only an assumption that it's his), he didn't do anything wrong on that front.
Ok so if you buy a PS3 and doesn't work then you cant take it back because you have no consumer rights which are based on the existence of a contract between buyer and seller. Those highly paid lawyers taking out a class action against Sony about the other 0/S issue fitness for purpose of that contract are just ignorant compared to you. You agree to Sony's terms and conditions when you open the box and unless you show that those terms are illegal you, which no attempt has been made, its game over. You don't have sign anything or tick a box for a contract to exist.
This is incorrect. Or at least, some of the details of your position is.
In the USA, all electronics are required by law to have a 1 year warranty by the manufacturer. If it is faulty upon purchase, you have the legal right to be provided a new one that works.
The case that Hotz was fighting, and many supported, was ownership rights VS product clauses by companies. Hotz believed (or at least claimed to believe) that if he purchased something, he had every right to do what he wants. He believes we all have the right to tweek our devices to our hearts content, as we have purchased them, and they are not on loan. You know that tag on mattresses that says "do not remove?" Well you bought it, you can remove it. It was on Sony to prove otherwise.
There is a license agreement to signing up onto the PSN. Where the confusion here, I feel, is coming to play is that there is a difference between a service and a product. It hasn't been until recent years that this has been a blurred distinction. With our products being tied to services, where do we draw the lines. With a service, we sign agreements. The provider of these services has to right to render services null and void should they find you in violation of their service. Blizzard has the right to ban you from their servers, Netflix can stop sending you DVD's, a store can say "we refuse to serve you." This is the nature of a service.
But the blurred line here, where things are fuzzy, is what if the product is tied so strongly to the service, that it can't function without it? Some DRM is this way, many idevices are solely dependent on their connection to itunes. The PS3 can function without the PSN just fine, but Sony seems to have forgotten that it can be a stand alone product. They do NOT have a right to sue someone because he modded his product so hard, that it's now a jailbroken machine. This part of the lawsuit would probably have been a no contest for Hotz.
They do however have the right to sue for damages (if they can prove it) if the data Hotz posted online has lead to any. If there are damages, sure, sue away.
But what is damages? Is telling others how to modify their own devices damages? Doesn't sound like it to me. Is telling people how to jailbreak your idevices damaging? No. What you do with these modifications can be, yes. Once people log into the PSN with these modded PS3's, their service agreements can be nullified. Sony would have to have proved something akin to a piracy ring in progress for damages to have worked out.
However, all this is null and void since Hotz bugged out. Should Sony ever face a case where product ownership comes into question, they will have stronger footing to stand on. The US Legal system rarely operates on logic as generally accepted, but there is a principle form of logic under the methods usually coming to bare.
Hotz got good enough legal counsel to have probably been informed that he would win the case on ownership rights, but still get jail time/owe for damages because he [em]posted[/em] the root key for the system. That's, I'm guessing, the point where he decided to bug out of the country. Counsel probably estimated for him that he'd owe several million in damages, which would cause anyone to bug out.
(I got kind of off track, didn't I?)
[edit]
just saw the update. The good fight is still on.
updated post said:
UPDATE: George Hotz, via his blog, explained that he is indeed in South America, but just on vacation. He planned the trip back in November, way before he was ever sued by Sony (or allegedly posted the PS3 root key) and I respect that he has decided to take some personal time while he still could. Hotz made sure to state that none of the funds he raised to defend himself were used to travel.
