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Lol at the playstation network


Guest RastaGanja

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Guest RET.SSgt.Haterade=US=
Hotz did NOT break the law. I suggest you look further into the case and see the final ruling. Imagine if Sony sued you for figuring out a way to make YOUR (purchased by you with your money) PS3 better? Think of it in a broad scale, Sony tried to sue him for doing nothing but tinkering with his own legally purchased device. A similar situation would be if Apple sued you for jailbreaking your iphone/ipad/itouch. Breaking the law and voiding your warranty are 2 very different things.

 

No one can say definitively that he did or did not break the law. The lawsuit was resolved before that determination was made. Here's what happened:

 

1) Sony made a claim for injunctive relief (basically to stop GeoHot from doing what he was doing) and damages (money) based on GeoHot's "unlawful circumvention and distribution of circumvention devices in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act 17 U.S.C. § 1201, et seq. (Chapter 17, Section 1201 of the United States code and following sections); contributory copyright infringement arising under the Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. § 501, et seq. (Chapter 17 section 501 of the United States Code and following sections); as well as related state and common law claims for violation of the California Comprehensive computer Data Access and Fraud Act, Cal. Penal Code §502, et seq., (Section 502 of the California Penal Code and following sections), breach of contract, tortious interference with contractual relations, trespass and common law misappropriation." Everything with the quotations was alleged by Sony and everything in the parenthesis is my trying to make things clearer for those not accustomed to reading court documents.

 

2) In response to this (after a bunch of other stuff), GeoHotz filed a motion to dismiss "for lack of personal jurisdiction and improper venue." Sony wanted to sue him in California where they felt state laws were most in favor of Sony. GeoHotz basically argued that SCEA does not make the PS3 (Sony, Inc. does), he did not direct his actions toward California, and he did not live in California. All this meant that he was not subject to the jurisdiction (i.e. legal authority) of California.

 

 

So what you got here is two plausible competing views as to what the law means and how it should work in this particular dispute. Before any of these issues were decided by the court the two parties involved came to a confidential settlement. There are many reasons why this could have happened and it may have nothing to do who was right about the law.

 

We can't say whether or not what he did broke the law, but what we can say is that there was at least a question as to whether he did or not. After all, if there was completely no basis for the lawsuit, the defendant's lawyer would have filed for summary judgment (basically a ruling that the case has no merit before any facts are discovered). Instead, what the defendant's lawyer filed was a motion to dismiss based primarily on narrow technicalities (i.e. Sony filed the suit in the wrong place). Granted, his lawyer could have filed another motion to dismiss had the judge ruled against his improper venue motion but you want to lead with your best argument.

 

Original complaint: http://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/california/candce/3:2011cv00167/235965/1/

 

Motion to dismiss: http://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/california/candce/3:2011cv00167/235965/57/

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Guest RET.CW4.ThievingSix=US=
I doubt Sony had a case, large corporations with large law teams can bend the law to their will. If Sony did have a case i can guarantee you they would have happily seized the opportunity to sue Hotz, there was no way Hotz could pay Sony to settle the matter out of court. Hence Sony must have decided that there was a lack of evidence and decided to drop the case without stating they "dropped it". On the DMC law i believe it has largely lost its purpose, its not protecting individuals and their rights to make music and content that was theirs anymore its protecting large corporations that use individuals as names on their own content. Thats just my opinion though. Copyright laws need serious revisions as their largely out of date and contain way to many loopholes and escape clauses.
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Guest RET.SSgt.Haterade=US=
I doubt Sony had a case, large corporations with large law teams can bend the law to their will. If Sony did have a case i can guarantee you they would have happily seized the opportunity to sue Hotz, there was no way Hotz could pay Sony to settle the matter out of court. Hence Sony must have decided that there was a lack of evidence and decided to drop the case without stating they "dropped it".

 

Not really. They did sue him and there was a plausible case; if the case wasn't plausible, there would have been a motion for summary judgment filed. The fact the defense decided not to file for summary judgment shows that they knew such a filing would fail. They might've settled for a number of reasons. The first reason is they simply wanted him to stop what he was doing (and never do anything similar again). If so, mission accomplished. They also might've decided that it would have taken too much time and money to completely litigate the case. Instead of paying to litigate the case (Hotz, if found liable, would have likely be ordered to pay Sony's legal fees. But his ability to pay irrespective of a judgment against him is probably limited and they wouldn't have recouped the money), they settled out of court for a smaller amount of money. It's likely a bit of both: they got him to say he would never do anything again and likely got some financial settlement out of him.

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Guest RET.CW4.ThievingSix=US=
This is terrible the playstation network is down so you can't even check if you have any credit cards still linked to your sony account. So what are are gamers supposed to do, cancel all their credit cards??
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  • 3 weeks later...
Guest MAJ.Kaossilator=US=

You know... all arguments aside about who's right, who sued who, who pressed charges in what state... Sony's got issues.

 

How did 3 independent security agencies miss this? http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-05-18-sonys-psn-password-page-hacked

 

PSN sign-in unavailable... AGAIN. Granted, they did clarify there's no impact for PSN on consoles, but you can't change your password because of this; that was the biggest impact of this whole mess to begin with!

 

Sincerely,

Happy PC Gamer

 

 

P.S. I won't be at all surprised if XBox Live, WoW, and Steam are the next targets after PSN... they are the biggest ones out there, savvy?

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