Sony Lawsuits Target PS3 Jailbreak Authors

StikyPad writes "PS3News is reporting that Sony's latest legal salvo is targeting the creators of PS JailBreak, PSFreedom and PSGroove-related PS3 hacks, citing numerous court documents for those interested. From one of the documents: 'Having considered the Motion for Expedited Discovery of Plaintiff Sony Computer Entertainment America LLC (oeSCEA) [...] the Court hereby grants SCEA's Motion. IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that [...] SCEA has leave to serve similarly targeted subpoenas or deposition notices to any other third party who SCEA learns may be involved in the distribution or sale of the oePS Jailbreak software, known as, for example, "PSGroove," "OpenPSJailbreak," and "PSFreedom," or who may have knowledge of the distribution or sale of this software.'"

Comments

Sony should have lost this already.

[pecosdave]

I'm under the impression Sony has already lost this case. Very recently it was decided that you CAN hack your own phones. I don't see what would make the PS3 so special that Sony can declare they can police what you can do with hardware you yourself have purchased and is in your own living room, especially since phone manufacturers have been told they don't have the power Sony is claiming to have. Granted the PS3 is not a mobile phone, but take away that particular radio I don't see what differentiates it from a mobile phone in those same regards.

But the Copyright Office concluded that, “while a copyright owner might try to restrict the programs that can be run on a particular operating system, copyright law is not the vehicle for imposition of such restrictions.”

I think the Wired article the previous and next quotes come from address this case almost as well as the article covered in the parent.

A federal appeals court came to the same conclusion last week in an unrelated dispute about “dongles,” or keys that grant access to software. “The owner’s technological measure must protect the copyrighted material against an infringement of a right that the Copyright Act protects, not from mere use or viewing,” the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in a case concerning a software licensing flap between MGE UPS Systems and GE Consumer and Industrial.

I hope Sony gets shot down. The PS3, and for that matter the PSP are both incredibly powerful systems with so much to offer but with a big dolt called Sony sitting on them saying you can't use them for that. This attitude is why I ditched my iPhone, which I refused to hack even though I could, for an Android phone - which I wound up hacking - but to keep it from doing what I didn't want to instead of making it do what I thought it should. My PSP is hacked and I like it that way, the battery last much longer and I don't have to carry all those UMD's with me. For that matter I can buy my UMD's at fair market price at a store instead of having to buy them from a website that has Sony setting an outrageous price for them that has nothing to do with what they're worth on the market.

Re:Sony should have lost this already.

[Dalzhim]

Jailbreaking to bypass a carrier lock-in isn't a better reason than jailbreaking to run your own software that didn't go through the app store.
The only difference is that bypassing a carrier lock-in might be a more widespread reason than running software that didn't go through the app store.

If the reason for allowing jailbreaking is to allow people to bypass carrier lock-in, then there is a serious problem. The rationale for allowing jailbreak should be that you fucking own the hardware. End of discussion.

Re:Sony should have lost this already.

[rs1n]

While you don't need to jail break your PS3 to hook it up to XBOX live, you (apparently) need to do so to run other applications). The real issue here is how Sony will fight this. _IF_ they plan to use the copyright argument, the surely they will not prevail.

To reiterate a quote from the GP:"The owner’s technological measure must protect the copyrighted material against an infringement of a right that the Copyright Act protects, not from mere use or viewing" If the jailbreaks somehow infringe on copyrighted material, then Sony has a case with respect to copyright. If I'm not mistaken, there were reports that the software used in some of the jailbreaking may have made use of an illegal copy of Sony's SDK.

Re:Sony should have lost this already.

[DragonWriter]

Wow - using an SDK is piracy?

Insofar as "piracy" is a common, if somewhat informal, term for acts which violate copyright law, sure. At least, it is if the SDK is protected by copyright, if the work you create is a derivative work under copyright law, and you have neither a license to use the SDK for the purpose nor the protection of an applicable exception to copyright law.

While, absent litigation on the specific cases, there's may be some room for debate, I'd expect that most uses of a leaked Sony SDK to create homebrew PS3 software, and the copying and distribution of such software after it was created, be "piracy".

Re:Sony should have lost this already.

[marcansoft]

lol! "the piracy code"!

I would normally prefer the term "the copied-game-loading code", which is more correctly neutral, but sometimes I get so irritated by all the lying smartasses who use the term "backup" as a thin veil (and thus discredit the minority of people actually legitimately backing up their own games) that I feel like using a term that is biased the other way just to make it blatantly obvious what most people end up using the code for.

Specifically, I'm talking about the Blu-Ray redirection patches which are still present in the PSGroove code (which is just a version of the PSJailbreak code hex-edited to trivially break, but not remove, this functionality). In other words, the PSGroove is technically a pirated PSJailbreak (not that I care about commercial game copying products getting copied, but there are legal implications to basing your stuff too much on a piracy device). It's a lot cleaner if you just take the required core concept of the exploit and develop an open product around it that shares nothing more than what is strictly necessary with the original.

Wow - using an SDK is piracy?

Torrenting it and then distributing code compiled with it both are, which is what everyone who is using the Sony SDK did. Copyright infringement is copyright infringement. If Sony didn't grant you a license to use the PS3 SDK, then you aren't allowed to legally use it.

Re:Sony should have lost this already.

[internettoughguy]

hmmmm targetting a segment of the market of whom the majority have gone out of their way to avoid having to purchase games, yeah that sounds like a successfull business model for those struggling indie developers.

Is that true? I find it hard to believe those people would get a console in the first place, PC games are a great deal easier to pirate.

Re:Sony should have lost this already.

[Schadrach]

The jailbreak itself doesn't use Sony's SDK. Pretty much all currently available homebrew (except maybe PSPong?) does use it however, since there isn't a stable open alternative...yet. Building a complete, mature, and stable SDK for a newly accessible system in, what, a month? is frankly an unreasonable demand.

Sony should be driving legal action to stop the current PSJailbreak scene, but they shouldn't be targeting the creators of PSGroove, PSFreedom, or OpenPSJailbreak -- they should be attacking the people who have released actual homebrew to date using the Sony SDK (which is, admittedly, basically all of it so far and includes the original creators of the PSJailbreak hack). That would protect their copyrights while also encouraging the creation of an open SDK as an alternative to the leaked Sony SDK.

Re:Sony should have lost this already.

[xMilkmanDanx]

Sony made it's initial money off a sliver of non-infringing purpose with the vcr (with its ability to record, not play that is). almost all uses of it were infringing but there was the one case of time shifting that was deemed non-infringing and that sliver was enough that the lawsuits were denied.

Soooo, as long as there's a non-infringing use for it, even if 99% of the capability is infringing, it should be allowed as was allowed by the prior ruling.

Of course, as IANAL and the law rarely does what is right (or even remains self consistent) when faced by big money.

Re:Sony should have lost this already.

[jedidiah]

It bears repeating that the PS3 used to allow for alternative software and was at one time sold specifically for this purpose.

The fact that this crack is merely re-enabling features that were sold with the hardware might make a bit of difference to the judges.

The fact that these cracks only came about when those features were disabled might be of some influence too.

Re:Sony should have lost this already.

[jank1887]

I'll add a second anecdote: I have a hacked Wii. I have my whole (20-30, 90% used from gamestop) game library loaded on a hard drive. I like the convenience. At this moment, I could pull out any game disc for anything on my hard drive you'd like to see. For me, it's about convenience. The same reason people want a media library of ripped DVDs even through they own all 400 the discs. Heck, it's even easier to FIND the game you want when the count gets high. I first figured out the USBloader process after my 4 year old rendered the Wii sports disc unreadable. (it was able to rip, luckily). could I replace a disc? probably. is there a convenient way for me to avoid needing to replace discs and avoid that hassle? yes. so that's all I need.

Then again, I also don't know you. so you're point stands. maybe you just need friends with a bit more moral fiber.

Thanks!

[Anonymous Coward]

, "PSGroove," "OpenPSJailbreak," and "PSFreedom,"

Okay Sony-- thanks for letting me know what to google for. Can you save me some search time by suing someone who might have a walkthrough or tutorial?

I Don't Understand Why...

[BlueStrat]

I don't understand why Sony doesn't just send the jailbreak software authors a few select "complimentary" Sony music CDs. They could then simply delete the code at their leisure.

Strat

Re:I Don't Understand Why...

[Ant P.]

And would want to listen to the contents of Sony music CDs instead of putting them in a blender.

It is silly...

[Darkness404]

It is silly that Sony and the US government through copyright laws, seems to think that Sony should own our consoles that we paid for, and quite honestly it sets a disturbing precedent against property rights. If Sony wants to try to block people from accessing PSN for this, if Sony wants to make firmware updates to prevent this it should be well within their rights, but don't tell me what I can and can't do with -my- console. The idea that I don't own the hardware that I bought and should be able to run whatever on it is quite scary. Property rights need to be balanced to have a free economy, Sony should own their services and I should own my own console.

The next thing you know, people are going to sue for removing the OEM copy of Windows off of your new computer...

consoles or PC's ?

[volcan0]

Seriously, where does the line between a console and an embedded system lies ? I mean, if this would go through, does this mean that DELL can ship a computer running windows and legally refrain you from installing another operating system or restricting you to an app store with pre-approved apps ? I understand that one is a general purpose computer while the other is a game console, so the intended usage is the difference. But under the hood, they are the same hardware ( ok, not litteraly... ) and can do exactly the same things. Can you imagine the legal precedent this would set ?

Re:consoles or PC's ?

[slinches]

I understand that one is a general purpose computer while the other is a game console, so the intended usage is the difference.

To muddy the waters even further, the PS3 was originally advertised as being a general purpose computer as well a game console through the "Other OS" capability. Sony, with their decision to remove Other OS in a required software update, effectively made PS3 owners choose between their hardware being a general purpose computer or a game console. Assuming the firmware update EULA is upheld, I think Sony may have an argument that by updating to firmware 3.41 (necessary to use the current jailbreak exploit) the console owners would have to accept the removal of the device's ability to be a general purpose computer. Although, that could be complicated by a release of jailbreak code that works with firmware 3.15 (last one with Other OS) which is supposedly being worked on right now.

I don't envy the judge and jury in this case.

Re:consoles or PC's ?

[Anonymous Coward]

One of the reasons Sony initially put OtherOS capabilities into the PS3 was so that they could claim that the PS3 was a "General Purpose Computer" and dodge a bunch of European taxes... If I was a citizen of one of those countries I would be asking why they are not now suing Sony for those back taxes and/or the reinstatement of the OtherOS functionality.

get ready for your subpoena

[aethogamous]

...or who may have knowledge of the distribution or sale of this software.'"

I think by now this includes everyone on slashdot...