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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.'"
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.
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, "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 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
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
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...
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
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 ?