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Sony's War On Makers, Hackers, and Innovators
ptorrone writes "MAKE Magazine takes a look at Sony's history of suing makers, hackers and innovators. Over the last decade Sony has been targeting legitimate innovation, hobbyists, and competition. From picking on people who want to program their robot dogs to dance to suing people who want to run their own software on something they bought. Sony has made so many mistakes with technology choices (Memory Stick, Magic Gate, UMD!), perhaps they'll end themselves soon enough, but until then MAKE is keeping score for Sony's all-out war on tinkerers."
Tinkerers tend to, well, tinker with their parts.
Considering their (high end) TVs and cameras, and I'd hazard a guess that their Blu-Ray players as well, all run Linux you'd think they'd be FOSS friendly, wouldn't you?
Maybe someone just needs to explain things to them.
I sure hope there's no Linux code in anywhere in the PS3 code base.
It's simple. Vote with your wallet and don't buy Sony. Even if they make something which looks nice, DON'T BUY IT. Basically, they hate their customers and unless you stop buying from them, they will never stop abusing their customers.
As an added bonus, if you don't buy from them, they can't abuse you.
So, it's simple. Every slashdotter should know this by now. If you're on slashdot and complaining about recent bad experiences with Sony, then it's your own fault and you do not have my sympathy.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Sony is stuck in the 70-s and 80-s. They had their time. Now they are following old American companies in rebadging stuff made by other companies. Trinitron and Walkman were revolutionary, now Sony is reactionary.
I have a dream. One day in Tokyo, a hacked Sony robot will walk down the street, drawing hundreds of onlookers. It will stop in front of Sony headquarters. It will turn to face the building. And it will slowly raise its arm and give Sony the finger.
It's probably a part of the Japanese corporate mindset that nobody's supposed to be stealing their stuff, and they want to stay in control of everything, which is understandable to a certain extent. They're in business to make money. Some illegal downloads of music, games, etc. are lost sales, but I'd be willing to bet the vast majority of them aren't. No, I don't have proof, just anecdotal evidence. Still, I'd be willing to bet that the amount of money Sony invests in new schemes to protect their content probably outweighs the financial benefits.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
Recently I purchased a PS3 and two Bravia flat screens; they are awesome. I know Samsung makes great TVs, but the Bravia is still better in my opinion (like not requiring a cable box to pick up HD channels)
Pretty much the entire article could be summed up in one sentence: Sony abused the f**k out of the DMCA. A bit of a rant on the DMCA (might be a tad offtopic but not really): Aren't our elected leaders supposed to represent us and not JUST big content/software companies (so we can really avoid Sony coming after people's asses)?
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I find it funny that Microsoft suddenly is becoming "hobyist" friendly. When adafruit announced the contest they condemned the contest and it was "illegal" or against the EULA. That is when adafruit even doubled the bounty. They sign their hardware peripherals, they have regio coding,... . It is easy to be something if the cat is already out of the bag... .
The whole "we give geohot a WP7 because we support free tinkering" is really just a PR stunt. The day the guy would release the key to sign 360 games I don't think they will give him a free 360. They are even a member of the same anti piracy clubs as Sony... .
For non hacking, Sony do manage to be reasonably relevant. The PS3 and the win for BluRay exorcised some of the ghosts of the Betamax era (and Betamax was a superior technology from a quality point of view). Their midrange consumer equipment is reasonable, and their semi pro stuff still dominates in AV markets and provides a big range of equipment.
That being said, they're no longer dominant in home audio (though they still have reasonable CD players and stuff) since their real flagship - The Walkman - has been deprecated by apple. Home HiFi is not selling as much, the PC is the new media center and there it's Apple all the way for most of my real music-mad friends. Sony have big corporate culture issues, but that's nothing new.
Conversion Rate Optimisation French / English consultant
Don't forget Chrono(Trigger) Resurrection, as well as other projects(seems like there were more), that were allowed to go until near completion before receiving a C&D letter. While more justified than the PS3 hacker situation, they could have really pleased fans and made money while doing so. I can't imagine that they didn't even discuss it. I would have liked to be in that meeting. But I know that if it were my company, I'd be making deals instead of sending C&D letters. Especially if their content was good... which it usually is if it's made by a fan.
If you have any cell phone or Handheld computing device, you do, because Sony is attacking the very people that want to/are making it.
This seems to be a case of misguided fury where Sony is confusing its failure to to stay relevant, with losses stemming from piracy.
All console manufacturers suffer some losses due to piracy, but not all of them find the need to rage against it.
Sony has had a string of flops, from over-estimating the popularity of the PS3 (are they still selling it at a loss? or has it turned a profit at last?) to failing to so much as imagine something like the Kinect.
My guess is, management has no choice but to scapegoat their failures on something - and who better than the obvious targets, like tinkerers and hackers and that omnipresent threat of piracy?
(Microsoft, oddly enough, is actually profiting by encouraging an eco-system of tinkerers around the Kinect)
I still have a functioning Sony Trinitron and Sony VCR built in the 1990s, when Sony hardware was good. They were one of the first purchases I made of electronics gear when I moved out, and at the time I would have recommended them. I *used* to be a fan of their gear -- a little more expensive, but reasonable quality for consumer-grade stuff.
Now I wouldn't touch their stuff with a 10-foot pole even if it was twice as good for half the price.
Do they understand that they've lost an entire category of users? Yeah, I know geeks probably aren't their biggest market among the vast number of general consumers out there, but when you add in the "What would you buy? Anything but Sony" advice from geeks to their friends, the numbers have got to add up to something significant.
Why don't they get this? How long can they afford not to care?
Accounting gimmicks, nothing else. Sony's reach extends far beyond its "borders" through its portfolio.
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
Sony were control freaks LONG before anything cited in that article. Even in the 80's, when I had occasion to deal with them, I was surprised at how touchy they were about their IP. I always chalked it up to a Japanese conformist mentality (not sure if that's fair, but Nintendo seem to exhibit it too). In subsequent years, I've become convinced that it's not even (primarily) about the money. I think that they would crack down on hackers even if it cost them more money than it was worth to do so.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Why are we pooh-pooing Sony, but giving Apple a come-hither wink?
Indeed. If your idea of day is an old-fashioned London fog.
Real tinkerers don't give a tinker's damn about EULAs.
How much to you get paid to be a shill, anyway.
I knew for years that Sony had been the distributor of CBS recordings in Japan (and a great custodian too; I found CDs in Tokyo of CBS releases, long forgotten in the US, whose excellent quality reflected the care given to their masters), so it seemed to be a natural fit when they acquired CBS Records. In those days, how could I think otherwise? Sony's reputation for innovation and quality were unmatched by anyone else in Japan. Whenever I brought home a Sony television, or a stereo receiver, or a reel-to-reel deck (yes, I'm that old), that was something special.
However, that acquisition, along with that of Columbia Pictures, marked the days when Sony began its long decline as an electronics provider. (Akio Morita's inevitable departure didn't help, either.) They still produce some amazing products, even though products like the Walkman, once ubiquitous, is now largely a historical fact. Their shift in focus now makes them a content provider first and a electronics provider second.
When it comes to content, I think of them as nouveau riche, in the derogatory sense. Like the person with newfound wealth sometimes behaves, Sony has behaved in a most vulgar manner. It has demonstrated an amazing lack of finesse toward its customers while attempting to protect its content. The most infamous example of this has got to be the rootkit debacle.
I miss the Sony of old. But I'm done with them.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, write technology blogs.
When it stopped being a pro & consumer electronics company, and started being a multimedia conglomerate.
Suddenly the folks running Columbia Pictures had a say in the board-room concerning what products would do and be capable of.
This is how we wound up with audio CDs that had root-kits on them, and MP3 players that didn't play MP3s. When Sony just made hardware, it was damn good hardware. Especially in the pro-area, stuff like BetacamSP was top-notch equipment.
But they lost their way, become too convoluted, too mired in internal politics and too many chefs spoiling the soup.
If they had *never* put their claws into all other media, and had just stayed a hardware company, Slashdotters would be singing their praises, and they'd probably be bigger than Apple.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
! 2 hijack the thread, but why? the "unintended accel" issue disappeared when it stopped being frontpage news, proving it 2 b the hysteria it was...
a friend who worked the audi u.a. investigation told me they found ~20% of the involved audis' gas pedals 2 b bent from the force the drivers mashing on them with...iow: driver error.
i'm sure the same goes w/toyota...
Bad analogy. Its not tinkering in someone elses house. Its using your own house. You bought your PS3.
A better analogy is that the people who built your house are keeping you locked out of most of the rooms and are still storing their crap in them, and even though you bought the whole house outright, the law is apparently on their side.
I agree that Outlook is a piece of crap (I tend to use webmail interfaces, and speaking of which, Outlook Web Access for Exchange can definitely suck it).
However, Word does frankly come off as better than Writer (interface, look and feel, et cetera)
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
Tape machines in the 50`s.
I happen to like particular products on their own merits (in this example, some music on Sony labels), and that's not negated by the horror stories since said horror stories just don't seem to affect me.
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
Trademarks and trade secrets definitely benefit from vigorous defense in this manner, but not so much for other forms of IP
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
I agree - it was an incomplete analogy. A better analogy would be if I had known what's in your house, all your private info and passwords to your bank accounts and had posted them online - for academic purposes.
Your analogy is also incorrect: the correct one would be is you rent an apartment in an apartment complex. You can enter any room in your apartment, you can't enter your apartment complex's maintenance areas and you can't use their equipment. And there are also restrictions on what you can do in that apartment (you can't make illegal drugs, for example - even if you OWN, not rent).
Again: you pay for what you're granted by the EULA. You don't agree with the EULA - you don't buy it and instead buy what let's you do what you want it to do. In case you haven't heard - PS3 up until recently has been sold at a loss, presuming that various fees from stuff sold for it would compensate the loss.
But anyway, like I have already said: those who wanted to play with the Cell could do so without hacking. Sony's was the most open gaming console. The hacking only began when the PS3 became more popular and more cool games started coming out for it - now there's a good reason to hack it.
And all I see from my perspective is this: now I can't install Linux on my PS3, and I don't want to hack it, because I like playing online and don't want to get banned - or get into legal trouble. So the only ones who are interested in this hack are indeed the cheaters or pirates, who don't play online anyway.
My mindset also entails looking at the particular products themselves
Apparently, you're saying that it simply doesn't concern you that much since you don't want to hack your PS3, etc. anyway.
non-car analogy time:
w/r/t the Comics Code, the censorship pissed a lot of people off, but Stan Lee had once said that he wasn't too concerned since he hadn't wanted to do edgy comics anyways.
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
Quick note, remember Sony's claim to fame was not only the Walkman and the CD player but their line of TVs back during the CRT days: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinitron
That out of the way it is easy for someone like me who does like to hack every bit of hardware that I own and thus will 'vote with my wallet' for hardware makers who allow that. But people like me are such a fringe, these days called enthusiast, market that it is really not a viable plan.
An no mass education campaign is going to stop Joe/Jane Blow when they go to Target/Walmart/Best Buy and shop based on a whole different set of criteria. Price, features, what looks good, heck even color matters A LOT to some people.
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
Bullshit. I pay at the store, I take it home. Copyright and/or patent law might forbid me to use my replicator on it, but it's mine.
You don't see the stupid EULA at the store, moron.
Sony's broken business model is not my problem, and the courts should not be propping them up.
so that people don't own it. Problem solved.
Buy a license to use some SONY gear, and during the term of your license, if you have trouble with it, drop it off or ship it to a depot, and get a new one, no worries.
When you are done, return the device and carry on.
That's really what they are trying to do, only they are trying to leverage the benefits of ownership, without also dealing with the realities of what people do with their stuff.
If it's really that big of a deal to open the PS3, don't sell them to people. Simple as that.
Blogging because I can...
Sony violated copyright law by distributing a copyrighted work without a license.
The distinction is important and we should always describe this type of action as violating copyright.
Make sure people know that are Sony the pirates!
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
- The PS3, even in its dumbed-down form, is still many times more open and interoperable than the XBOX 360, and surely million times more open than Nintendo's hardware.
- The same can be said for Sony's Android phones versus the iPhones and WP7 handsets.
- Sony's attempts to stop piracy and online cheating on their gaming platforms differ in no way from the equivalents efforts from competitors.
- The PS2 and PS3 were the only gaming consoles to *officially* support the installation of Linux.
As a consumer I don't feel I've ever been screwed by Sony, except perhaps by their ridiculously high prices.
I do feel I'm damaged by piracy, because it makes honest users pay for the dishonest users' fun. And it means that honest users' gameplay is spoiled by "tinkerers" and "innovators" that artificially dope their stats.
Besides the PS3, I have a PC that allows me to do all the tinkering and innovation I'd like to do - so Hotz's efforts are of no use to me.
All the Sony bashing I use to read here is no news for nerds, it's passive repeating of nerd memes.
IM glad you know me and can speak for me. I have a shelf full of PS3 games bought day one at retail. I used and enjoyed OtherOS and considered it a vaulable part of my purchase. I never had ANY desire to crack my machine until Sony went too far. Removing OtherOS was too far. I paid for it, i expect to use it. I consider it theft of property.
Good-bye
I find it funny that the "Evil" microsoft corporation doesnt go around suing people left and right. Xbox1 media server or running emulators? w.e Xbox 360 HDD hack. w.e Xbox 360 DVD hack. Cant play on xbl if you get caught but wont get sued. Kinect. People are controlling goddamn tiny gundams with this thing. Maybe thats why they dont get sued? Daaaaamn you evil microsoft!
...anyone who's posting damning Sony comments on here from a Mac, iPhone or other locked-down Apple device is a hypocrite.
I'm typing this from Linux, so I'm allowed to wear open-toed sandals, not shave most days and hate Stony and Snapple.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Only... it's not Sony's apartment. And while you may believe it is, the point of view that control of an item should rest with its maker (rather than its putative owner) is not one a tinkerer can take, by definition.
If it's really that big of a deal to open the PS3, don't sell them to people.
While I agree with the "don't sell if you don't want people to own" concept, it's not like it's a practical thing for Sony to do.
If nobody owned their PS3, this means that they'll be returning them to Sony when the Next Best Thing comes out. And if people aren't going to own their PS3, you can bet nobody's going to bother -buying- the games that go with it. They will rent.
So if Sony is forced to only rent the both of them, it means at the end of 5 years they would have 40 million PS3s or more and probably a billion game discs to dispose of.
Like I said - as long as it remains within your apartment, do whatever you please - you can even smash it into pieces and nobody will say a word.
What I'm arguing against is _public release of a hack_, which with 100% certainty will result in piracy and cheating (already has, as a matter of fact), so that clearly indicates its intentions. Which makes this posturing "we're just tinkerers" even more ludicrous - as if you're smart enough to circumvent the security measures, but stupid enough to not realize what the outcome of its public release will be? "Oh, I didn't know if I release the hack it will be used for piracy!" - really???
George Hotz has stated under oath the he NEVER agreed to any EULA and his attorney demonstrated that firmware updates were provided without requiring it. EULAs cannot be arbitrarily enforced against parties that never agreed or for that matter had any opportunity to agree to them.
The fact that you want to stand up for Sony and their egregious behavior shows just how brainwashed the masses have become. Just because you want to grab your ankles when Sony or any other companies claim bogus ownership rights over something you paid for, doesn't mean the rest of us do. As far as I'm concerned, Sony can suck my balls.
For the record: I do not own a PS3, or any other Sony hardware for that matter. My last Sony purchase pre-dated Sony deciding to screw customers with its "Memory Stick" abomination.
Ah, so it's not freedom to tinker you're opposed to. It's freedom of speech. Hack all you want, just don't talk about it? Excuse me if I don't find that point of view any more acceptable. And for the record, no, just because a side effect is known does not mean it is intentional.
You're getting increasingly insane. Now you're asserting that Sony, because they make the PS3, can prevent people from talking about it? From where does that power derive?
If you're using their property (hint: their security code and encryption key is their property) - sure, they can. Why do you think the "Intellectual Property" term has that second word in it?
Now, if you take a box, in which the PS3 sold in the store, there's a very prominent text on the back side of it, one piece of which reads as follows:
"The system software included within this product is subject to a limited license from Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. Refer to www.scei.co.jp/ps3-eula for further details" - in three languages (in North America - I'm sure it is in proper languages in the countries where it's sold).
Like I said - vote with your wallet: take your money elsewhere. Nobody forces you to buy Sony PS3, so if it's not doing what you want it to do - then you're a moron, who bought a wrong product.
You're saying Sony has ownership of a set of random numbers, to the point where they have the right to forbid people from talking about them?
To confuse people. Looks like it worked.
Yep. What's theirs is theirs - even if it appears like a random set of some values to a simpler organisms ;)
What amuses me most is yours - and other people's who rare arguing with me here - lack of ability to see the whole picture, beyond the tip of your noses.
1) Sony gave the option to tinker by providing OtherOS option
2) Sony provided a _license_ to use the software - you don't own it, you only own hardware
3) Somebody found exploit in it and used it - good for him and maybe all two other "tinkerers"
4) Sony removed that option - bad for many who used the option to play with Cell
5) The "somebody" then found another exploit and used it, and distributed it - good for him, the same two tinkerers, and plenty of pirates and cheaters
6) Legitimate users now a) have no OtherOS option, b) are forced to update their systems too often, c) can't play some games online because of cheating, d) potentially face the requirement to enter serial codes or deal with some other DRM measures, or otherwise inconvenienced.
Now, does that majority of legitimate users, who paid their money to play conveniently play games, watch movies, listen to music etc., give a flying fuck about supposed "liberties" or "rights" of that minority? In what universe?
Now you're asserting that Sony, because they make the PS3, can prevent people from talking about it?
No, that is not what was said. Written. You can blog on your own site to your heart's content about it. But if you use a Sony-run service, Sony are free to delete your rants against them since the 1st Amendment does not limit their actions.
From where does that power derive?
Usually from something called "Terms of service". You are not entitled to using somebody else's private or corporate service.
A sheet of ruled paper beats Quickbooks - at least if you look at it wrong it will not corrupt the database and the last week's worth of entries. I'll take vi (maybe Eclipse for some projects, or notepad++) over suffering through VS any day. Watson is running a Linux cluster with a huge foundation of FOSS. Chromium IS open source. Excel (except for install base) and Powerpoint really dont have much going for them except the cruddy ribbon bar that (almost) everyone hates. 7zip/LZMA2 is on par or better than winRAR again except for install base - better compression, slightly lower speed. GMail as an interface is on par with Zimbra - the cloud factor allows Gmail's spam filters to be more intelligent, but the UI and usability are similar - at least Zimbra can sort! I do not know any FOSS products that have led to more virus infection vectors than Adobe products... so I cannot dispute Adobe's dominance there.
That leaves Vegas, and TurboTax. I've never used Vegas, to be honest. Given their (Sony's) current stance as a company I doubt I ever soon honor them with my patronage. Turbotax is in an odd boat - They have the great ability to reap funds from people every year, for an evolutionary product. In that instance FOSS fails (though I'm happy to be proven wrong), in that it does take significant effort to change it each year, yet there is guaranteed funding stream.
Exactly!!
I understand they want to have it all their way, but doing business costs money. A rental program is expensive, and more expensive than dealing with the things that people do when they own stuff.
They need to deal just like everybody else does, and realize that selling things isn't just a free ride.
Blogging because I can...
Yeah? Why fuck with geohot then?
Blogging because I can...
Well, tough.
When we mix hardware together, and the company blatently abuses their position, harming a lot of people, fair is fair. Perhaps SONY should seriously consider not fucking people over, and there would be less of a reason to modify their OS.
One of the DMCA exceptions is for interoperability, and the recent jailbreak exception demonstrates the validity of this. You are quite right in that it's not explicitly allowed.
But, there are moral issues here, and decisions that will last a long time. The idea that we can't deal with our hardware isn't a good one longer term, and when hardware and software are mixed together, something has to give.
What? You a SONY fanboi or something?
Blogging because I can...
Well, that's not the response I expected.
Casual gamer maybe? Somebody clueless, who buys the line SONY writes on this stuff? Hard to believe a real slashdotter would even bother going down the road you are right now.
Blogging because I can...
So you have the hackers to thank for it.
Actually, the people they have to thank for it are paranoid imbeciles who would rather take away from their own customers than let a few cheaters/'pirates' slip by.
Had there been no hacking
But there was hacking. It was done by a few people. That does not justify completely ruining something for everyone.
You may not like cheaters. You may not like 'pirates'. You may think that they are both partly to blame. However, the one who harmed their own customers and removed the feature for everyone is also to blame.
Most those who argue with this
"Most"? Can you prove that?
One would have to be a complete moron to assume that hack such as this won't be used for piracy
Other people know and don't care. Not everyone feels the same way about 'piracy' as you (although that is irrelevant either way).
Making it available to the average joes just proves what your true intentions are.
To inform others about how you tinkered with your own property so that they could potentially get enjoyment out of your work?
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
it only applies to government institutions
Who do you think Sony is attempting to convince to stop the people who talk about it?
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Who gives a rat's ass.
People who read "news for nerds".
It's kind of like, WSJ reporting that government is trying to take direct control of all stock trading, and then some reader asking "Who gives a rat's ass."
Xerox tried that. A black market sprang up in photocopier machines. People like to OWN the stuff they use.
Ive been pretty pleased with my Sony entertainment system and parts the only complaint i have would be durability. My television kicked out twice due to the replacement lamp. I think sony should relax and let people moderate themselves, this is getting a bit ridiculous. Good luck spending all this time and effort on something that is probably going to occur anyways. Just my 2 cents.