Sony Must Show It Has Jurisdiction To Sue PS3 Hacker

RedEaredSlider writes "A California court today asked that Sony show it has jurisdiction over the hacker who publicized a 'jailbreak' for the PlayStation 3 console. Judge Susan Ilston, in the US District Court for the Northern District of California, said Sony has to show that George Hotz, a hacker who posted a method of 'jailbreaking' PS3 consoles, has some connection to California if Sony is to claim damages for his work on the PS3." For his part, Geohot has moved quickly to fight back against Sony's accusations. His legal team issued a statement (PDF), and also pointed out, "On the face of Sony’s Motion, a TRO serves no purpose in the present matter. The code necessary to 'jailbreak' the Sony Playstation computer is on the internet. That cat is not going back in the bag. Indeed, Sony’s own pleadings admit that the code necessary to jailbreak the Sony PlayStation computer is on the internet. Sony speaks of 'closing the door,' but the simple fact is that there is no door to close. The code sought to be restrained will always be a Google search away."

Re:Great Legal Team!

[synthesizerpatel]

No.

It just says that the information is out there, not that their client is responsible.

They know that, but that's not the point

[alvinrod]

Sony knows that they can't put the cat back in the bag, but that's not the point. The point is to make life as hellish as possible for the person who let the cat out, so the next bloke who considers doing it might find something else to do. If nothing else they can haul him to court, ruin him financially, and hope for some kind of favorable legal precedent so that next time around it's even easier for them to come down with a hammer on the next poor bastard that dares to do whatever he wants with his own property.

Saw this one coming

[genfail]

And so apparently did George Hotz. This the best case you could have against an Anti-Circumvention suit. Really he could argue that all he was doing was restoring features Sony removed from the PS3 (after many customers bought it) and the fact that he took several anti-piracy stances on his website only helps. I hope it goes all the way to the supreme court.

Re:Great Legal Team!

[geekprime]

Exactly. No different than publishing a guide for hopping up your car.

"Breaking into" is simply pointless pejorative wording. Pointless because the car is already yours. You paid for it, you should be free to do whatever you want to with it.

Imagine if ford decided that you could no longer use their cars on expressways and reprogrammed the engine control unit to prevent the car from going over 45mph AFTER YOU HAD BOUGHT THE CAR.

Oh you fool!

[Anonymous Coward]

The code sought to be restrained will always be a Google search away.

Now they're going to seek injunction against Google. (Yes, I DO think they're THAT RETARDED.)

Re:if there was ever a time for a fully informed j

[Hatta]

It is one thing to tinker with your own stuff. It's another to tell everyone else how to do the same with the full knowledge that most of those who listen will misuse it to commit illegal acts, and even those using it legally would be just as well served doing said legal activity on any number of other platforms.

Yes, those are two things. Specifically the first is exercising your property rights. The second is exercising your free speech rights.

Re:Great Legal Team!

[wierd_w]

More accurate would be a how-to on how to read and recreate/reprogram the logic tables used by the ECM, so that the existing ECM can be repurposed/have its behavior changed.

Especially considering that the released information on the PS3 is not about how to alter hardware; Rather, it is about how to read software built into the hardware, and how to gain full control over that hardware and convince it that the software you are running on it is legitimate.

In short, this restraining order is like Ford issuing same against somebody researching proprietary ODBII protocol data, out of fear that it could be used to circumvent said rev limiter with a forged firmware "factory" update.

The argument should be that this falls squarely within the "enable compatibility" clause of legal reverse engineering, much like research into the allegorical ODB protocol would be, (allows creation of compatible 3rd party ODB based code readers and diagnostic tools for one thing, also allows new code tables to be pushed to the engine), and that the restraining order is further useless since this research was not strictly original, and the resulting information is widely publicised. (meaning it is a waste of the court's time and a frivelous and vindictive move by the plaintiff which should be dismissed.)

Re:Voice chat

[PReDiToR]

You mean Skype that you could install under Yellow Dog Linux before they broke my VOIP device with their mandatory (penalty being not being able to play online) and unfair (took away advertised features) firmware update?

Seriously Your Honour, all I was doing was trying to do was fix my phone!