PS3 Jailbreak Now Legal In Spain 113
deek writes "Spanish gamer site NicaGamerz.com have reported that it's now legal to sell the PS3 Jailbreak modchip in Spain (Google translation of Spanish original). According to the article, one reason for the legal ruling is because Sony removed the ability to run GNU/Linux on the console. One can only wonder if Sony will soon rush out a firmware update that will re-enable the OtherOS feature, and appeal the court decision. Oh the irony of that thought. The legal ruling was made on the 13th December (Google translation). There are only 5 days to appeal, starting from that date."
Its a shame (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Its a shame (Score:5, Informative)
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How the fuck did Sony think they have the "right" to ask for a suspension of sale until "the legality is decided"? It's like me asking for the PS3 not being sold until courts decided whether it's legal to sell the PS3 altogether.
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Re:Its a shame (Score:4, Informative)
Usually, this isn't used as anything but a bludgeon to try to run your opponent out of money or force them to lay all their staff off and pray they can still hire back enough of the talent to resume production/innovation/sales on finalization of the court case.
You can "win" by convincing a dumbass judge to give you "preventative measures" in the US, dragging the court case out for 3-5 years on frivolous motions and "new requests for discovery", and waiting till the small company you're abusing defaults lack of funds even if, in a society where judges actually had two brain cells to rub together, you should have been laughed out of court on summary judgement in the first 48 hours of the case.
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Irreparable harm (Score:2)
in Portugal you are only allowed to request a preventive measure if you can prove that the other person's/entity's actions would cause some permanent damage to you.
The US has its counterpart to preventive measures [wikipedia.org], but its courts have expanded what they consider irreparable harm [wikipedia.org].
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And in truly civilized countries such a strategy can backfire badly because if the court decides you just attempted to stall the competition they can sue the pants off you and get them.
Don't try that here. A friend of mine was once the target of such a "strategy". He said it's the best that could've happened to his company. Essentially, his competitor saved him.
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Here where? Based on Slashdot generally being US-ian, do you mean in the United States? This might end up being a very useful random factoid for later retrieval.
Would you say that the specific state this legal action occurs in has a large or a small influence on the proceedings? I can't imagine something like this going higher than state level.
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The judges know what they are doing.
Remember a Judge WAS a lawyer... and lawyers know who rubs their backs.
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They have the right to ask for anything they want. It doesn't mean they'll get it.
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Sony has lots of lawyers and you don't. If you asked to suspend sales of the PS3 until "the legality is decided", Sony would sue you for damages.
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Well, rest assured I will not ask to suspend the sales. A company will. Gimme a sec to found it.... ok, done.
If Sony sues, well, I guess said company will go bankrupt. After paying the court fees, I guess what's left for damages will probably not amount to much.
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uh, because in a lot of legal stuff when it's not 100% certain they get people to hold off in the meantime until the decision is made?
It's called "a sound legal decision", even if you and I and most of the world know that modchipping isn't illegal. The idea is to prevent more harm in the possibility that something could be bad.
Meanwhile, the catch is that the legal system is slow as shit so it puts things in limbo for a long time. Not unlike how don't ask don't tell has been for what, 10 years?
Custom Essay Writing (Score:1)
Other possibility (Score:2, Insightful)
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Does the Jailbreak even bring back the linux OtherOS option yet though?
Re:Other possibility (Score:5, Informative)
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Isn't it kind of interesting how this whole thing was supposedly about re-enabling the OtherOS feature. And yet the hackers still haven't managed that, but they have managed to get pirated games running. Meanwhile, we still have people here saying that it's all about getting OtherOS back. Funny how that works...
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Just as interesting as how all these hacks started occurring after sony removed a feature that advertised.
I see this is tit for tat.
Re-enabling the "other os" feature should be low on this list. People should not have to hack their machines to get a promised feature back. The responsibly for that rests with sony.
Re:Other possibility (Score:4, Informative)
Re-enabling the "other os" feature should be low on this list.
Personally I think it's the only thing that should be on the list, otherwise it just legitimises Sony's claims that they did it to stop piracy. I don't want people pirating games, and I really don't want to be playing against cheaters. I did however like that I could run Linux on my PS3 if I wanted. I tried it when it first came out and it sucked, and when I started hearing that it was much improved in the latest versions, that's around the time they removed the feature. I wasn't impressed. I already have Linux on my netbook though, so overall it doesn't matter to me too much.
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Personally I think it's the only thing that should be on the list, otherwise it just legitimises Sony's claims that they did it to stop piracy.
The hacks came after what sony removed the other os feature. If the hack only re-enables the other os feature, then sony's actions cost them nothing and gains them the ability to void out the warranty for anyone that re-enables this feature.
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And the removal of the OtherOS came after that one guy (forgot his name) used OtherOS to try and hack into the GameOS.
Re:Other possibility (Score:5, Informative)
GeoHot. And then he gave up with actually enabling it again, with a total net result of.. losing Other OS. What a douche.
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GeoHot.
And he never actually hacked anything.
And none of the hackers have actually hacked anything with regards to the PS3.
They simply stole a Sony USB dongle that lets you boot a PS3 into a debug/restore/etc. mode. Even the initial tool that lets you install to and run from the internal HDD was written by Sony.
From there, Sony released new firmwares and dev kits, and then the cat and mouse game of "find the key, hide the key" began.
The only work done on the PS3 scene so far has been rudimentary tweaks to
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GeoHot.
And he never actually hacked anything.
And none of the hackers have actually hacked anything with regards to the PS3.
They simply stole a Sony USB dongle that lets you boot a PS3 into a debug/restore/etc. mode. Even the initial tool that lets you install to and run from the internal HDD was written by Sony.
From there, Sony released new firmwares and dev kits, and then the cat and mouse game of "find the key, hide the key" began.
Don't you wish to read a little bit about a topic, and educate yourself, before you open your mouth and make yourself look like a complete drooling retard?
None of the things you wrote are correct. I mean, you could have gotten at least 1 of them right, but seems it was too hard.
Sony wrote original backup manager? That's my favourite one.
Holy fuck, you are so dumb...
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Everything I said is 100% correct.
The original dongle was stolen.
The original backup manager is in the SDK.
GeoHot achieved nothing other than strobing some ram and editing a couple of text files that affect only the display of a couple of UI dialogs.
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Speak for yourself. GeoHot never hacked anything, he took tricks other people had used with practically no modicum of success (like *MY* USB trace overcurrent trick, etc.) and claimed it to be a working hack, which in itself was BULLSHIT.
You're the fucking dumb one, here.
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"And none of the hackers have actually hacked anything with regards to the PS3."
INCORRECT
The jailbreak is a bona-fide hack. It uses the USB ID of the Sony jig, but it then busts the USB driver stack and overwrites some kernel memory. This is a real exploit and not just a service mode device.
Most of the devices can now emulate a service-mode jig as well, but that only gets you the ability to downgrade software. The original hack is just that, a hack.
And the work on the PS3 is progressing, though slowly. A FO
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Oh?
I like the idea of something far better than Other OS, because "Other OS" was fucking crippleware that couldn't access half the system's power.
I like the idea of launching a real, non-crippled media player that can natively understand the MKV format from within the XMB.
I like the idea of launching freeware games, and having people able to develop/port freeware games for either the XMB or Linux options on the console.
I like the idea of launching options that don't require me to use the DVD or Blu-ray driv
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With call of duty if you move a save from one account to another you lose the ability to earn trophies. Since game companies can invoke measures like this to stop people skipping things why do we need copy protection on save games?
Last year myself and my Dad both got Uncharted 2 for Christmas, we took it in turns playing the game on one machine. When we finished I took my save hom
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Save games that will only run on the console they were created on is likely to mitigate the issue that occurred on the original XBox. That is, a specially corrupted save file would cause a buffer overflow and bypass the protection measures of the console. If you can't pass around a pre-corrupted save, then exploits like this can't spread (as easily).
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The PS3's music interface is very weak I'll give you that. The crippleware on the Linux port was annoying, but understandable. I though it was pretty admirable that it was in there in the first place, it let people tinker with the Cell without voiding their warranty. Worked fine for scientific apps, just not games.
Freeware/homebrew games? Sure, Sony could do that, but then the actual console would cost up to twice what it does now to be able to make a profit. Then nobody would buy it, and it would flop badl
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If some people want to skip 95% of a game's content, let them. It's their own money they're wasting, and their gaming skills will stay poor forever.
Some of us game to relax, and don't want frustration of having to put up with much frustration simply to unlock cars and/or tracks, and don't give a damn about our "gaming skills", whatever those are.
I "played" through Forza 2 by doing the "hire a driver" thing and proceeding to do something else while the game played itself. Once everything was unlocked, and I
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Gaming skills are the skills you use to do stuff like get trophies without cheating by using someone else's save. I can understand wanting to avoid the grinding in a few games, like GT5 Prologue which had only a couple of tracks I think. With the actual GT5 it would be pretty sad for people to not just enjoy the game and work their way up. If they can't win races with the slower cars, there's no way they will be able to control the more powerful ones properly.
I love that setup - combined with the ability to
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I'm with you there - I love going through the games, and perfecting my setups for each car and track according to my style of driving. Takes a long time, but you get a real feeling of achievement when you hook it up.
But other people may not enjoy the game in the way that I do, and they should be given the choice to unlock everything and go wild. It's their game, after all, they bought it.
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Freeware/homebrew games? Sure, Sony could do that, but then the actual console would cost up to twice what it does now to be able to make a profit. Then nobody would buy it, and it would flop badly.
You've got to be kidding me. If you seriously believe that enough people would buy a fucking PS3 just for homebrew games to actually make a noticeable dent in licensed game sales, I have a bridge to sell you. Quite a few bridges, really. All in mint condition!
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It's as cheap as a netbook, has a blu-ray drive and many media center capabilities, with full HD output, as well as having plenty of graphics capability. You can even get a TV tuner to turn it into a PVR. So yes, I think plenty of people would buy one and be happy with indie and freeware games, or no games at all. I know a couple of people that basically just use theirs for media playback/recording.
If they also had an open games platform, they'd lose even more games sales and it would make even less sense t
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I like the idea of launching a real, non-crippled media player that can natively understand the MKV format from within the XMB.
Only supporting the MKV format just isn't good enough. MKV does not have any type of standard codecs defined, it's simply a general purpose container. You can put plenty of things inside there that a PS3 just plain won't play. Sony needs to bring along versatile codec support into the PS3 so you can play a large variety of videos currently being placed into MKV. Until I don't need any trans-coding to support playback the PS3 remains a less than ideal solution for a media player. I'm considering either
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What? the PS3 supports the higher quality MP4/h.264 settings, high profile, not baseline. The problem is, most of the h.264 out there is encoded for the Apple devices which don't support that. For example the PSP supports CABAC but the iPod devices don't, the PSP is also a Main Profile device.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVC_products_and_implementations [wikipedia.org].
for the PS3, use High Profile level 4.1
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I tried it when it first came out and it sucked, and when I started hearing that it was much improved in the latest versions, that's around the time they removed the feature.
Makes you wonder if it was the security of the game development licensing model which they were protecting rather then attempts to stop copyright infringement on licensed games. Around the time of the Sony Fools day announcement Gallium3D only supported a handful of environments and one of them was the cell, though I never ran it myself as the xserver with relatively trivial video acceleration from the spu's was enough for me. My PS3 has been quite idle since they removed OtherOS as they cut off my inte
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Yeah. After the original guy who designed the PS3 was kicked out, things got ugly. I'm sure that guy who was working on Other OS is just as pissed as the rest of us, if not more..
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Personally I think it's the only thing that should be on the list, otherwise it just legitimises Sony's claims that they did it to stop piracy.
I agree with everything else you said but im not sure this is right, the piracy situation only happened at the time of the otheros removal - perhaps it was just coincidence but it does seem like an eye-for-an-eye. If Sony wants right done by them - with a banning of modchips - then they need to do right by the consumer and give them back the feature they paid for, they can't have it both ways.
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Pot, meet kettle...
So you're saying it's ok for Sony to use legalese bull to remove features that were part of the bundle they sold without giving any good reason, it's ok for them to essentially retain ownership of something I buy, but it's not ok if I use the same legalese bull to fight back?
Here's a cell, call someone who gives a fuck.
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Isn't it kind of interesting how this whole thing was supposedly about re-enabling the OtherOS feature. And yet the hackers still haven't managed that, but they have managed to get pirated games running. Meanwhile, we still have people here saying that it's all about getting OtherOS back. Funny how that works...
And when did you decide for everyone that "this whole thing was supposedly about re-enabling the OtherOS", please?
It was to get back functionality taken away with removal of OtherOS. Which includes access to LV2/LV1.
We got it back v0v
Re:Other possibility (Score:4, Informative)
Does the Jailbreak even bring back the linux OtherOS option yet though?
Yes, it does. There are two ways so far.
AsbestOS - needs to store the data on a network drive (for now) but has full access to the hardware including the RSX GPU
Downgrade - If you have a PS3 that originally had Other OS, you can downgrade to version 3.15 which was the last to have the Other OS option.
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People own the device and that includes _that copy_ of the software, yes. I don't see why they shouldn't. And PSJailbreak isn't distributing any of Sony's IP.
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I don't think Spain is a large market as far as video game consoles are concerned.
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Out of those countries, the UK is the biggest video game market(43M current generation consoles + PS2), followed by France (29M), Germany(23M), then Spain(13M). The figures come from vgchartz, so while the may not be exact they are close enough for it not to matter in this case. For instance, Sony sold less than 2 million PS3s in Spain, out of 20 million in Europe. So even if they quit Spain it wouldn't affect them very much, especially since as others mentioned retailers can just get them from other Europe
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"Pull out of the market" seems to be the standard /. expected response whenever a company doesn't get its own way in court.
I don't think I've ever actually seen a company do that, though. Well, not unless the result of the court order was essentially to shut down every avenue of business for them, and then the typical net result is for the company to close down altogether (cf. Lik-Sang, Psystar). It doesn't make any sense - you'd be turning turning a potential (relatively small) loss into a guaranteed hug
Re:Other possibility (Score:4, Insightful)
Interesting. I was about to ask the same, why does software reside in a realm of its own? When I usually buy something, I get to use it, modify it to fit my needs (funny enough, the copyright of my country explicitly grants me this right, to "modify software to enable interoperability") and most of all, I also get the right to resell it when I do not need it anymore or consider the money more interesting than the right to use the item.
It's oddly different with software, ya know...
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Now this should be interesting, at least for the rest of the EU. Because one of the core "features" of the EU is the ability to buy and sell across country boarders within the union, and no union member shall make laws that interfere with the free movement of goods.
This door swings both ways, dear corporations!
Pressing Questions (Score:4, Interesting)
Would this mean that sony can no-longer lock out users of modded PS3s from things like the Store , etc? As , that was a feature that was also removed if the user continues to make use of the OtherOS function ?
N..
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Does the Jailbreak work on the current Firmware? If it doesn't then Sony can simply say that the store uses a feature in the latest firmware that isn't present in the older versions and suggest you upgrade.
Even if it does, I don't think Sony's under any obligation to grant you access to the store or any online features.
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Yet another company to add to my blacklist of companies not to buy from:
----- Google, Yahoo, MS, Amazon, Comcast, Sony. Man this thing is getting long (and it looks my new console will be a Nintendo).
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Nintendo also try to stop hackers getting into Wiis by issuing regular updates. Admittedly they didn't have a Linux feature which they later removed though.
You forgot Intel btw. I'm against buying from them where possible at the moment.
I eventually gave in and bought an Xbox 360 recently though. The hardware is getting pretty reliable, and Xbox Live is generally better than PSN (plus a lot of my friends can't afford PS3s, and I want to play online with them).
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You only added Sony now to that list? They've been on mine since the minidisc recorders that didn't allow you to export your own recordings (ya know, the ones that you own every possible right to) digitally.
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Never owned a Minidisc.
I had the Digital Cassettes from Philips, because I wanted the backwards compatibility with my analog collection. Of course they had the same "no copy" limitation but to be fair, that was the fault of the US Government not the manufacturers. RIAA sued in court, won the case circa 1990, and forced manufacturers to block copies of digital cassettes or minidiscs. (RIAA's been acting like MAFIAA a long, long time.) Anyway: Sony was actually on my blacklist, ever since they did that
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Whoever was responsible for the "no copy" bull, Sony sold those thing explicitly as a convenient tool to make high quality recordings. Being unable to get those recordings out of the MD recorder kinda defeats the purpose entirely.
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Add Nintendo to that list as well. They regularly issue firmware updates to try to stop people using the homebrew channel.
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I just built a new gaming HTPC cause I was tired of the Xbox360/PS3 shenanigans. I want to log in to buy DLC, but I don't want my machines to lose features through the required updates.
HTPC game selection (Score:2)
I just built a new gaming HTPC cause I was tired of the Xbox360/PS3 shenanigans.
Because of low penetration [pineight.com], very few games made for PC are designed with a mode optimized for HTPCs. In a lot of cases, the features that would make a game perfect for HTPCs are present on the Wii or Xbox 360 version but cut from the PC version. These include, for example, gamepad support and split-screen cooperative play. In other cases, major label games in some genres rarely reach the PC at all, especially fighting games and other arcade style games whose multiplayer mode doesn't need to split the screen
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Google, Yahoo, MS, Amazon, Comcast, Sony. Man this thing is getting long (and it looks my new console will be a Nintendo).
O rly? Nintendo has successfully sued [slashdot.org] a distributor of "R4" modchips for Nintendo DS. I'm done with consoles, and I'll be playing PC games even if I have to make them myself.
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----- Google, Yahoo, MS, Amazon, Comcast, Sony.
Don't forget GM. And Toyota (engines overheating & sludging at 20,000 miles; batteries dying in priuses; brakes the computer is programmer to ignore; warranties that are blamed on the customer ("you only changed the oil every 7000 miles") instead of being honored).
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"engines overheating & sludging at 20,000 miles"
Change your fucking oil more often.
Every 3,000 miles and my old '87 Tercel kept going until 115,000 miles, when a ROD snapped.
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Yea, that's 2000+ models.
I'm talking about an '87 Tercel hatchback.
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Yet another company to add to my blacklist of companies not to buy from:
----- Google, Yahoo, MS, Amazon, Comcast, Sony. Man this thing is getting long (and it looks my new console will be a Nintendo).
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I don't see anything about that in the rulling; probably Sony can continue to lock them out, since it's a separate service with its own rules.
Great news for Europe (Score:5, Interesting)
Great news for Europe as a whole, due to our common market importing these from Spain means they wont face customs checks.
Sounds like Spain will make a good distribution base for them.
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A phyrric victory, really. Spanish "reforms" outside economics can't do the EU any good due to its waning strength (ratings) [proactiveinvestors.com] relative to its stronger EU neighbors. It's been warned [marketwatch.com] since around summer at least [wsj.com], and is now the EU's next Ireland-bailout-like candidate.
Countries with good laws and no economic [ergo, political] power can do little positive for their neighbors, let alone be a game-changer in America and Japan till it can get its economy back together. They've got too many problems to worry abou
will only discourage Sony from supporting Linux (Score:2)
FTFA:
From what I can tell, the reason it's okay to jailbreak is because,
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France
In Spain, consitution protects the jailbreakers. (Score:5, Informative)
It wouldn't be illegal to jailbreak anyway. Spanish constitution grants you the right to do whatever you want in your place has long has you keep it to yourself.
For instance, you can plant cannabis, as long has you don't sell it to anyone, keep it inside all the time and don't use it with other people there.
It's a great principle in my opinion. If what you are doing it's just for you, it can't harm anyone and if you are an adult you should be able to do whatever you want in your privacy.
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Having the tools to commit a crime, doesn't make you a criminal.
Being a male you should have a penis, did you find it fun to incarcerate you just because you have the tools to commit a rape?
About your particular case, the possession of weapons in Spain is forbidden, except in very special cases. More than handling a lunatic stockpiling weapons at home, the police should care about people selling the guns in the first place.
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really? so building an unshielded nuclear reactor should be OK just as long as it's kept in your own home?
Clearly there are limits to this principle. The trick is figuring out where they are.
In that case, the radiation won't be kept in your own home, so that's not a valid point. But if you shield the thing right, you can for sure build your own nuclear reactor, in Spain or otherwise (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10385853)
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Article 18 of the Spanish constitution:
"1. Se garantiza el derecho al honor, a la intimidad personal y familiar y a la propia imagen. 2. El domicilio es inviolable. Ninguna entrada o registro podrá hacerse en el sin consentimiento del titular o resolución judicial, salvo en caso de flagrante delito. 3. Se garantiza el secreto de las comunicaciones y, en especial, de las postales, telegráficas y telefónicas, salvo resolución judicial. 4. La Ley limitará el uso de la inform
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Well, if you grow cannabis inside, it's not visible from anywhere and you don't share it with anyone, there wouldn't be any reason for anyone to even check or suspect you in the first place :p
Watch out Spain (Score:2)
Viva Espana ! (Score:2)