It was bound to happen. Over the past few weeks you’ve probably read the reports regarding the PlayStation 3’s massive security breach, which has lead to full-scale jailbreaks, homebrew and emulation. Sony said they were looking into it, and the first hammer has fallen.
When you mess with the big dogs, you’re bound to get bitten. Sound words to live by, but George Hotz, aka Geohot, and fail0verflow tried to push the envelope as far as they could. Sony hinted that they would take action, but other than that no one really knew what they meant. Whether they could somehow stop these exploits through network updates (which the hackers claim is impossible) or through some sort of “backdoor” within the PlayStation 3, we’ll have to see. But for now, the full side of the law is weighing down on those who opened up the console. Sony Computer Entertainment America is currently seeking a temporary restraining order against all involved in circumventing the PS3’s “technological protection measures.”
The documents accuse Hotz and company of violating the Digital Millenium Copyright Act as well as the Computer Fraud and Abuse act after knowingly cracking the PS3 open to piracy. Also in the suit, Hotz is accused of taking financial benefit through “unlawful conduct” through his public PayPal account. We can’t say if he was really soliciting for money or if it was legitimate donation, but Sony seems to have their own opinions.
This seems to fall in the gray area between what Sony’s jurisdiction allows and the consumer’s ability to work with their own product. All we know at PlayStation LifeStyle, is that we don’t support how these hackers seem to be going at it, with piracy being an inevitable outcome.
You can check out the two documents for the lawsuit here and here, courtesy of Kotaku.
