Well, it seems like Sony vs. George Hotz has ended pretty much without a bang. Sony announced on its Playstation blog that the two parties have settled the case. Under the settlement, Hotz agrees to a permanent injunction fo his jailbreaking hack, but admits to no wrong-doing. A wise and, dare I say it, mature end to the lawsuit.
Sony has made its point, Hotz walks away free without ever admitting to any wrongdoing. This seems like a perfect outcome for all parties involved, and as such, both parties are pleased. “Sony is glad to put this litigation behind us,” said Riley Russell, general counsel for SCEA, “Our motivation for bringing this litigation was to protect our intellectual property and our consumers. We believe this settlement and the permanent injunction achieve this goal.â€
“It was never my intention to cause any users trouble or to make piracy easier,†said Hotz, “I’m happy to have the litigation behind me.” Sony reiterated that Hotz had no involvement with the recent attacks on Sony websites and services.
“We want our consumers to be able to enjoy our devices and products in a safe and fun environment and we want to protect the hard work of the talented engineers, artists, musicians and game designers who make PlayStation games and support the PlayStation Network,” added Russell, “We appreciate Mr Hotz’s willingness to address the legal issues involved in this case and work with us to quickly bring this matter to an early resolution.â€
I have to say, kudos to Sony for handling this so gracefully. The lawsuit was attacking the wrong person, and it seems like Sony finally understood that. Hotz comes out unscathed, and can continue standing up for consumer rights. Let Sony take on the pirates and cheaters that ruin the PSN for users, instead of attacking Hotz. Of course, Sony could also focus a little bit on improving the PSN as it stands, because my experiences with it have been… Less than stellar.
“I have to say, kudos to Sony for handling this so gracefully.”
I see nothing “graceful” about this entire lawsuit, or the events leading up to it, on Sony’s part. Just one assholish move after another.
Handling the end of this lawsuit so gracefully.
I’m not sure I’d call it grace, but they’ve certainly done some deft balancing of the goals of:
– making the immediate problem go away as quickly as possible (namely, the injunction Hotz agreed to and, presumably, the end of the “Anonymous” backlash)
– capitulating as little as possible (looks like Sony doesn’t even have to pay Hotz’s court costs)
– and while saving as much face as possible (presenting the settlement as some sort of magnanimous gesture on Sony’s part, instead of it simply being damage control)
Exactly. It could have gone far worse, however it seems more likely that Sony understood they have no stand in front of court. We all know the Free Speech Flag.
If they would have wanted to handle the case gracefully, why did they act the exact opposite since it started until today?
If that’s the case, they didn’t willfully end it gracefully–they were forced to make the decision, because they finally realized they would lose anyway. They did what they probably felt they had to do, not what was best for anyone else. I would hardly call that graceful–especially when it’s the company that brought on the suit themselves, and got one subpoena after another that in most cases, should be harder to obtain.
Edit: Either way, it looks like GeoHot finally decided to do what’s right and abandon Sony products completely:
http://geohotgotsued.blogspot.com/
Edited 2011-04-11 22:48 UTC
Agreed. If anything this is the worst possible outcome the case could’ve had because it fails to set any sort of precedence at all. A de facto win for Sony and their tactics in the guise of a peace offering is still win for Sony.
If anyone is interested in seeing the scanned documents in PDF, they’re attached to the article at psx-scene:
http://psx-scene.com/forums/f6/settlement-george-hotz-case-84881/
Interesting is that Hotz cannot gain “unauthorized access” to *any* Sony product, and cannot assist others to do so either.
He is also boycotting Sony as of today:
http://geohotgotsued.blogspot.com/2011/04/joining-sony-boycott.html
Edited 2011-04-11 22:50 UTC
I started boycotting Sony back when they sued Lik-Sang into the abyss. Sadly, I’ve found it’s nearly impossible to completely avoid giving money to them in some form or another. My most recent letdown was learning that the LCD screen in my Nokia N900 is a Sony OEM part. They really do have their hooks in the oddest of places in the tech world.
Seriously?! Damnit, you just made me feel dirty and vile for loving my N900 (well… more so than Nokia already has recently)
Sensors in Nikon cameras (at least some models), for example.
Ahh, so they are in yet another brand I love. I have a Nikon Coolpix L12 that has been far and wide the best point and shoot I’ve ever used, even compared to my girlfriend’s newer L18. I wonder now if it contains any Sony parts?
Yeah, my first month with the N900 was bordering on “magical” (in the Steve Jobs sense), but for the past few weeks T-Mobile USA’s service has gone from outstanding to worse than I thought possible. Random disconnects from 3G internet every few minutes, missed calls, texts and emails that arrive hours after they were sent. Combine all that with learning of the origin of certain parts in my new phone and I’m starting to regret buying it.
At this point Virgin Mobile’s $25/month Android plan is starting to look mighty tempting, and with the money I could get out of selling my gently used N900 I could buy the LG or Samsung Android phone they offer and pay for a few months’ service to boot.
Edited 2011-04-13 03:46 UTC
First of all, Hotz gets sued by Sony. Promises to fight the fight to the end or until he gets a settlement with Sony that allows for an authorized path to homebrew on PS3, OtherOS and an apology from Sony to the scene.
Then, he proceeds to ask for donations. Many people donate to him because of his promise and all the good that would ensue.
Hotz settles with Sony, breaking his promise and letting down all those people who donated to him.
That is the reason why people are so angry at him.
As for the court case itself and why he should NOT have caved in:
It was a civil case, he couldn’t have gotten into jail even if he had suffered a complete, and total defeat in court.
The worst outcome for Hotz would be that he would have had to pay quite a large sum of money to Sony, in which the community would most likely have helped simply out of respect for going through the whole thing. As for general populace: well, atleast we wouldn’t anymore be in the grey area and would actually know for a fact the legal footing. Actually knowing your footing is still a positive outcome so you really know where you’re standing.
If he had won the case it would have set a very, VERY powerful precedent and enforced general consumer rights in that you are indeed allowed to modify electronics you have legally bought without fear of facing legal difficulties. Also, it would have created a large barrier for these large companies for trying to bully consumers into submission, and would have helped all consumers in general, not just PS3 owners.
Especially the fact that it would have had nationwide (in the US, that is.) effect on consumer rights is the reason why it was so god damn important to go through with the whole thing.
As for the court case if he had settled as per his original promise to the scene:
We would have an authorized way of using homebrew without having to resort to hacks, and we would also be able to enjoy OtherOS. While this is a LOT less important than the precedent I mentioned earlier it would still have benefited atleast the PS3 scene.
The result:
Well, people lost the money they donated to him, he broke his promises, and there is no way of getting the donated money back. Donations are not covered by the credit card company rules and thus cannot be disputed.
Hotz can try to move to China if he wishes to continue hacking, but no one will take him seriously anymore. Or he can release stuff anonymously, but that will still not change anything, the scene has gained absolutely nothing.
Actually, settling was always one of the options Hotz was willing to accept, but he flubbed that one up as well (per his own geohot.com page):
Hmm… I didn’t see that part anywhere in the court documents.
Hmm… I guess I gotta correct myself, apparently many of the settlement details are “confidential”, and excluded from the court documents. Per Hotz’ Blog:
Guess we may never know what the results of the settlement were.
Well, let’s not judge until you or I get the full might of a massive corporation on our ass. Remember – WE live in relatively sane Europe, but he lives in the US. I would not like the prospect of going to court in the US with a large company.
Well, he already had the legal fees covered, so it would have only been a long and annoying hassle, it wouldn’t have had much other effect than being tiresome.
heya,
Lol, I have a question for you – have you actually ever been involved in a lawsuit? Seriously?
Have you actually been to court?
Look, criminal or civil, large or small, it can still be either an annoying hassle, or a very intimidating experience. Even if you know you’re in the right, it’s still incredibly draining (although some people do thrive on that feeling).
While I personally think Geohot should have pushed on, at the end fo the day, I’m not in his shoes, so I’m not going to begrudge his call. And yes, I’ve been in court, ok, even for civil matters it’s still a royal pain in the a*se, and expensive to boot. Why do you think most people prefer to settle?
Maybe the guy’s got a life to live? See, Sony’s lawyers are being paid to show up – he’s not.
Cheers,
Victor
Yeah well, it’s a bit different if you take donation’s and say you’re gonna do one thing and then you do something else.
Let’s hope he’ll give people their donations back, what’s left of it, otherwise he’s just an ass.
Pretty sure he said settlement was an option – but on “his terms”. Since we don’t know all the details of the settlement (they’re “confidential”) – it’s hard to say if he did that
Otherwise, he did also say that any left over donations after his legal fees were paid would go to EFF.
Pretty sure all of that was specified up front…
The answer is no to both of these questions, I simply don’t do anything interesting or am anybody worth suing.
I know going to court and fighting over it is really draining and I never claimed the contrary. But well, Geohot himself proclaimed himself the champion of consumer rights, kept on saying he’ll fight the fight to the end, hell, have you seen that stupid rap video he made? If he hadn’t been boasting like that people would have reacted differently. It’s all his own doing right now.
I agree… no one can force SONY to make available the “OtherOS” option but the jailbreak is out in the wild anyways. GeoHot made his point, and there was nothing to be achieved by keeping the trial going on. SONY gained nothing.
If you’re talking about the US, I don’t think there’s any question on where consumers stand legally. If you jailbreak something that’s not a phone or an ereader, you take it up the ass.
I’m not saying it’s right, but really… where is the confusion here?
It is in fact a grey area now that the DMCA exception for mobile phones was made. The question remains: would such an exception also be made for consoles, and what types of consoles? Especially with the case of the more powerful ones that are indeed capable of being used as a general-purpose computer too. And yet in addition Sony itself was telling both publicly and in legal documents that PS3 is a computer, and in other cases that it isn’t, and if it is indeed deemed a computer one could for example try and use interoperability laws as a lever for more rights to it.
You see, there’s lots of stuff that is now in the grey and a precedent in either direction would have cleared the matters.
That isn’t how the DMCA exception mechanism works. The Librarian of Congress issues a list of exceptions. That is *the* list. If it’s not explicitly on the list then it is not covered by an exception. If the Librarian of Congress wanted more than just cell phones on the list, they would be on the list. There is no grey area there unless there is a question as to whether or not the device is a phone. I don’t think that question exists for game consoles however.
The DMCA would mainly cover Sony’s operating system. IANAL, but you can still do whatever you want with your own hardware. If you found some way to completely remove Sony’s original software and replace it wholesale with your own, that would be perfectly legal, as far as I know.
Unless you had to circumvent encryption to be able to do so. That is also forbidden by the DMCA.
did you notice that sony withdrew the charges against fail0verflow team as well?
that’s a suspicious coincidence. maybe it was a part of the settlement.
i think that’s the best that could be done at this time. it’s just a matter of geohot’s bloated ego, when he self-proclaimed himself a personification of consumer rights, more of less – he basically raised the bar too high for himself.
so, in the end geohot cannot hack around with ps3 anymore, fail0verflow case is dropped and there are no further restrictions against console hacking, or any negative precedent. i think it’s not that bad after all.
i wonder what about graf_chokolo, and his case.
I cannot verify this but I heard Graf’s case was solely based on the outcome of Hotz case, and since it never actually went through Sony has to re-sue Graf now.
Unfortunately I have absolutely no knowledge of German laws, especially their IP and DMCA-like laws, and Graf himself is totally unlike Hotz in that he is never seen in public except when he drops yet another bomb of PS3 goodies.
If what I heard is true Graf should be receiving his hardware back soonish, and he’ll no doubt just continue doing what he’s been doing all this time anyways. I don’t know if Sony can sue him again in such a short timeframe, someone living in Germany should know better about such laws, but if I have to guess anything I’d say they cannot sue him again for a while under the same arguments he was sued before.
All in all, I just hope he’s doing fine, he’s earned quite some respect in the scene.
Edited 2011-04-12 06:58 UTC
It’s easy for others to be angry at him, they are not the ones who would have gone to jail…
The guy decided to walk as a free man while he still had the chance. I would have done exactly the same if I was him …
*sigh* You didn’t read a damn thing, did you? It’s a CIVIL CASE, you can’t go to jail even if you lose.
Indirectly, you can. If something is proved in a civil case, it can be used in a criminal prosecution later, which might not otherwise be brought for lack of evidence
A case in point, Oscar Wilde sued the Marquess of Queensbury for Libel as Queensbury had described Wilde as a sodomite. When Queensbury won the case by proving Wilde was a sodomite, Wilde was immediately arrested for the then crime of sodomy and after being convicted served 2 years hard labour.
Nice copy/paste:
http://geohotgotsued.blogspot.com/2011/04/joining-sony-boycott.html…
He actually copypasted my comment from psx-scene forums.
I don’t know the full details so perhaps he did willfuly ignore his promis and community support. From the other side though, he may also have realized how long Sony could keep him running through courts. Sometimes the indavidual cost of becoming a martyr doesn’t add up. It could simply have been a 20-something year old considering what it’ll be like to turn 30-something before the case is finished.
In terms of donations, what was the total collected and how much has been spent on legal fees? He promised to donate any remaining amounts; is that happening and to what cause is it due to be donated?
I think he should at least be given the chance to do right by the community and supporters within the legal limits of the case outcome. Maybe save the torches and pitchforks until there is valid reason to point fingers. For us third parties it’s easy to sway with the fickle internet trend of the hour and voice outrage but how many have actually been in the possition of being personally dragged into court by a multi-national corp?
I haven’t commented on osnews for years, but I had to bite in response to this:
If you trivialize the potential severity of a civil lawsuit then you are misunderstanding the positions of individual people and corporations in western market economies today. I’m in the USA, but I’ll put forth a European example for you — Jérôme Kerviel. It’s a somewhat incongruous example because Kerviel was found guilty of a crime and forced to pay restitution to Societe Generale as a result — to the sum of about 5 billion euros (and he got effectively 3 years in prison). However, courts can award both compensatory and punitive damages in civil cases. To use an American example, consider the OJ Simpson trials. The dude was found innocent of crimes but then lost a subsequent wrongful-death civil trial with a judgement of $38 million in damages.
In Europe, as in the USA, most people spend most of their lives working for money. You need money to survive in our societies. When you work, you are trading your time for money. Well, what then is the implication of being forced to pay millions or billions of dollars to a corporation? For most people, it is comparable to a life sentence in prison. If you earn any money, the courts can garnish a cut of any wages that you earn to put toward civil legal claims.
My sister (a lawyer) used to work for a firm that processed debt claim lawsuits. Some of the claims were large (housing-loan foreclosures) but some were small (person defaulted on a used-car loan). The courts would garnish maybe as little as $100/month from someone who is living at the poverty level and has to feed a family. It’s no Dickensian debtor’s prison, but how much better is it? Maybe it’s not hell but it’s purgatory. You have to work to eat and feed your family, but anything you earn above the poverty level is taken away from you by the state — possibly for life.
So say a multi-billion dollar international company is suing you and you could possibly face a judgement of millions of dollars in compensatory and possibly punitive damages. Go ahead, call Geohotz a pussy or a wanker, but I know what I’d do if I were in his position and had the option to settle the case permanently and ensure that I won’t spend the next 50 years paying out any money that I earn, above what it costs to buy a few loaves of bread each week and live in a poorly maintained rental unit 100 miles from an urban center, to a megacorporation.
For Kerviel, what’s worse — 3 years in the can or paying back 5 billion Euros? Societe Generale has put forth public statements that they won’t go after the money, but they *CAN*. The reality of that can basically destroy someone’s life.
Geohotz should pay back any donation money leftover after he pays his legal fees. If he doesn’t, he’s a wanker. But he has absolutely no moral obligation to face a lifetime paying back legal claims to become a free-speech martyr.
Edited 2011-04-12 13:46 UTC
“The community” turned on Geohot faster than a mongoose catching sight of the Bronx Zoo’s Cobra.
If he had won the case it would have set a very, VERY powerful precedent and enforced general consumer rights in that you are indeed allowed to modify electronics you have legally bought without fear of facing legal difficulties. Also, it would have created a large barrier for these large companies for trying to bully consumers into submission, and would have helped all consumers in general, not just PS3 owners.
Especially the fact that it would have had nationwide (in the US, that is.) effect on consumer rights is the reason why it was so god damn important to go through with the whole thing.
As for the court case if he had settled as per his original promise to the scene:
We would have an authorized way of using homebrew without having to resort to hacks, and we would also be able to enjoy OtherOS. While this is a LOT less important than the precedent I mentioned earlier it would still have benefited atleast the PS3 scene.
The result:
Well, people lost the money they donated to him, he broke his promises, and there is no way of getting the donated money back. Donations are not covered by the credit card company rules and thus cannot be disputed.
Hotz can try to move to China if he wishes to continue hacking, but no one will take him seriously anymore. Or he can release stuff anonymously, but that will still not change anything, the scene has gained absolutely nothing. [/q]
“Our motivation for bringing this litigation was to protect our intellectual property and our consumers.” How is suing [one of] your consumers protecting them? I’m glad geohot came out of this fairly unscathed, though.
Hey Sony? Blow me!
“Our motivation for bringing this litigation was to protect our intellectual property…”
Sure.
” and our consumers”.
Ah ah.
Good one, Sony, that’s a good one.
Oh, maybe you mean “our consumers LOCK”?
That would have made sense, at least.