Sony Gets Nasty With PSBreak Buyers

YokimaSun writes "The war between hackers and Sony over the PlayStation 3 has now taken an even more sinister turn, with Sony going after not just shops but actual buyers of the PSBreak dongle, threatening them with fines of many thousands of Euros and forcing them to sign cease-and-desist letters. It seems Sony will use any means necessary to thwart both homebrew and piracy on the PS3."

Comments

Well, I'm not buying one

[guyminuslife]

A PS3, I mean.

It's not really a principled stand, but it could become one.

Re:Well, I'm not buying one

[somersault]

I'm unsure how to feel about this. I think Sony are going about it the wrong way. If they have security holes in the system they should patch them up, and if the holes are in the hardware then I suppose they should just make sure to fix them up in the PS4. I am however happy for them to remove as much possibility as possible that there will be people cheating on online games. That's one of the few real benefits over playing on my PS3 as opposed to PC gaming online.

Re:Well, I'm not buying one

[Gaygirlie]

I am actually rather tempted to buy a PS3 now and one of these dongles, and then take several pictures of me using the said dongle and send those over to Sony. Oh, and advertise the pics and the dongle on my website, too. Sony wouldn't have any legal leg to stand on if they tried to sue so I'd just get to laugh and annoy the hell out of them :]

Oh, sometimes I'm just so glad to live in Finland :]

Re:Well, I'm not buying one

[somersault]

The USB system that they're using to do this hack probably won't be that different from the PS4's USB setup, and whether the rest is similar or not, they can still learn from past mistakes. They probably shouldn't be allowed to go after people doing hardware mods, but if it's within their legal rights to do so then I won't complain about their actions yet, though I will complain about the laws allowing them to do so..

Bubble

[kurtis25]

This rash of crazy lawyer stories leads me to believe we are in a law suit Bubble. Eventually garbage law suits, Cease and Desists, threats, extra will come to an end bursting the bubble lawyers have grown so accustom to.

The anti-homebrew stance explained

[tepples]

Why oh why is it so difficult for companies to allow the end user to use their devices to the fullest extent possible?

So that they can squeeze more money out of developers. If homebrew were easy, or even as easy as it is on iPod touch, iPhone, and iPad, major labels would develop and sell their games through the homebrew path to market to cut overhead.

HOW ABOUT THIS: why not allow for home brew, but prevent media copying?

Allowing homebrew will inevitably result in media copying. This could be through cloning of patented games (such as Dance Dance Revolution), through cloning of games on whose rules the developer makes a flimsy copyright claim (such as Tetris), or through infringing ROM images that run on homebrew emulators.

Trademarked names

[tepples]

Sure you can sue if they use trademarked names like "Sony" or "PS3", but a dongle with a name like "Freedom"

And in countries with sane trademark law, nominative use to specify compatible products made by other companies is not an infringement: "FREEDOM service tool by TropeCo, for use with PLAYSTATION 3 console by Sony".

and containing no code or hardware copyrighted by Sony

Sony can claim non-literal copying. But even in the U.S., whose Digital Millennium Copyright Act is widely thought on Slashdot to be stricter than its European counterparts, copying small pieces of code solely for interoperability has been shown not to infringe. Sega v. Accolade; Lexmark v. Static Control Components.

People still buy shit from Sony?

[WCMI92]

Really? After so many years of producing shit that they can't even sell TV's (something Sony used to be famous for making the best) under their own name anymore, why do people still buy ANYTHING Sony?

The premise of threatening OWNERS of a piece of hardware for doing with that hardware whatever they please, which they have the absolute right to do (including burning it or running over it with the car) is ridiculous. And if someone is finally going to be stupid enough to sue a customer over violating a shrinkwrap, unilateral, "we reserve the right to change anything at any time at our SOLE discretion" EULA, please, PLEASE for the love of God let it be a company as stupid, corrupt and intellectually bankrupt as Sony.

Threatening end users who make modifications to the console that they PURCHASED is as ridiculous as Ford suing me for buying one of their cars then changing the rims so I can put a different size of tire on them...

I bought a psjailbreak device to repair my ps3

[Bert64]

I bought a PS3 to run linux and play around with cell programming...

Sony broke my ps3 by updating the firmware to 3.30, so i bought a dongle which i intend to use to repair the otherwise broken system:

http://www.ps3hax.net/2010/10/asbestos-running-linux-as-gameos/

All i'm doing, is fixing advertised functionality which was present in the ps3 when i bought it.

Re:I bought a psjailbreak device to repair my ps3

[Erinnys Tisiphone]

I couldn't agree more. They ought to have *rented* the boxes out like 1970s telephones if they wanted to attempt this business model. Its funny. I had intended to buy a PS3 until the Other OS lock down. I considered it again once that was dealt with. But now, their heads are so far up their arses I don't want to give them a dime. Glad to hear their market share is still terrible.

Re:And what if they refuse?

[Anonymous Coward]

That clearly depends on how the device stands legal in a given country. The DMCA and it's offspring around the world has very intended consequences. Strange coming from a country where it's fine to have firearms designed to kill, yet we mustn't have a device that *may* allow copying entertainment media.

Re:Other OS was shut down

[gorzek]

That certainly makes Sony sound like an innocent victim or at worst a hapless bystander, which is laughable. Seems more likely some companies approached Sony about their ideas to sell emulated games on the PS3, and pointed out that the Other OS feature significantly reduces the sales potential of emulated games. "Don't worry," Sony said, "We'll take care of it." After doing the math and figuring up how much more they'd make in license fees, of course.

Will sony sue the air force over there use of ps3

[Joe The Dragon]

Will sony sue the air force over there use of ps3 for non gameing / PS3 media use?

Will sony try to say you are braking the EULA by not installing the update that removers other os?