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

Missing from the summary

[millennial]

"Sony is now requesting every buyer to transfer the rights to request the package back from customs over to Sony Computer Entertainment and to agree on the destruction of the device." Only happening in Germany, and likely has to do with lenient laws there that would allow it.

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

[Eraesr]

You're right in that they're going about this the wrong way. However, I think the closed nature of the console is exactly what causes these cracks and hacks to appear. What Sony should do is open up a sandbox environment in the PS3 in which homebrew developers can run their own software without problems. I don't see why piracy and homebrew are always treated as one by these console developers. I do understand that it's probably harder to combat piracy if homebrew is allowed, but if this is taken into account when designing the system, the problem is probably much smaller. At least you take away the incentive of the homebrew communities to crack your system. That just leaves the pirates and you can continue fighting them while supporting the homebrew community.

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

[Pikoro]

[HOWTO] Arduino Duemilanove Playstation 3 Jailbreak - Part 1: Hardware Build

That should do it right there.

Re:Well, I'm not buying one

[Gaygirlie]

I wasn't planning to buy a dongle at all, I own a Nokia N900 which can be used as a dongle if I just install PSFreedom on it.

And what if they refuse?

[Viol8]

Are Sony seriously going to sue people for not handing over their legal property to Sony?

What is it with this company? Just how far up their own arses can they go?

Re:And what if they refuse?

[Drakkenmensch]

Far enough that Ouroboros itself will think they're pushing it up a few inches too far.

Re:And what if they refuse?

[mcgrew]

What is it with this company? Just how far up their own arses can they go?

As far as they want; XCP showed them that. Root and vandalise people's computers (including mine) and have no repercussions whatever -- nobody went to prison, even jail, they not only didn't go bankrupt it didn't affect sales at all. I can't for the life of me figure out why ANYBODY, especially nerds, would buy computer equipment from a company with a history of rooting their own paying customers' computers.

If there is anybody who still buys stuff from Sony, please tell me how you can trust them any farther than you can throw a car?

Useless

[xenobyte]

How do they expect this to work?

Sure you can sue if they use trademarked names like "Sony" or "PS3", but a dongle with a name like "Freedom" and containing no code or hardware copyrighted by Sony cannot be stopped.

Yes, it is a device to circumvent copy protection but far from all European countries have laws banning such devices, and once they're in a European country the device can be moved freely to other countries.

I would buy such a device, mostly just to spite Sony and their megalomania.

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.

Is Litigation all Sony Has?

[BoRegardless]

If Sony didn't plan for this in the beginning, then I understand why they have resorted to this as a last gasp. That means there was a major hole in their business plan.

Sony once held the mindshare Apple has now. For me, so many Sony items have had problems, that they are off my radar.

The world moves on and a major player must move ahead of it, or at least with it or it dies. I just don't get the concept of a company suing the retail consumers of its hardware.

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.

Other OS was shut down

[tepples]

What Sony should do is open up a sandbox environment in the PS3 in which homebrew developers can run their own software without problems.

It did, until the slim PS3 came out and Sony left out the Other OS drivers to cut cost. Then the first hints of cracks came out with the stated goal of reenabling Other OS on the slim PS3, and Sony pushed out PS3 system software 3.21 to shut them down on the original PS3. Then the cat and mouse game started in earnest.

I don't see why piracy and homebrew are always treated as one by these console developers.

I explained the rationale against homebrew in another comment.

Re:Other OS was shut down

[Lumpy]

Yes.

Why has everyone IGNORED the glaring fact in the room.

None of this crap was going on with any strength until sony became idiots and shut down the OtherOS function.

It's their fault. They caused it, and they will lose.

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...

Re:People still buy shit from Sony?

[Lumpy]

Why do I buy SONY?

Because nobody makes a better Professional HD camcorder.
Because nobody makes a better Windows Video editing platform outside of AVID. (No Adobe's products are not pro level)
Because nobody makes a LIVE video production suite that is as capable...
Because nobody makes a digital Video recording format that is as good as AVCHD or XDCAM.
Because nobody makes a better digital video stream processor like Sony's.
Because nobody makes a pocked field editing system like the PDWHR1.. I can have only 2 guys in the field to shoot and edit a small event and upload the thing before they pack up the car and leave, the thing will DIRECT SFTP the files to the server as they drive down the road.

That's why. SONY OWNS the commercial production video market hands down. Because the other choices are mediocre or half assed with bad work-flows. Panasonic and JVC utterly suck in workflow.

Re:People still buy shit from Sony?

[L4t3r4lu5]

Just how many of those examples of professional video creation and editing equipment are in any way comparable to the consumer PlayStation 3 game console?

This isn't apples and oranges, this is 12w food blender electric motor and Ferarri Type 056 2.4L V8 petrol engine.

Re:People still buy shit from Sony?

[BigSes]

My 52" 240hz Bravia Z series was a pretty damn nice tv until a Wii-mote cracked the LCD. I wanted to blame Sony or Nintendo, but in the end, had to blame Captain Morgan.

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

[Anonymous Coward]

Here you go, current and a copy from 2006

Re:The public is Never Gonna Give Sony Up

[Narishma]

So?
You asked why are people still buying from Sony and he gave you a few reasons. They make popular movies, music and games. Whether you like it or not is irrelevant.