Judge Allows Subpoenas For GeoHot YouTube Viewers, Blog Visitors

PhrostyMcByte writes "Stepping up Sony's lawsuit against PS3 jailbreak developer George Hotz, this Thursday a judge approved multiple subpoenas which seek logs of all viewers and commenters to his YouTube video, visitors to his blog and website, and all information associated with his Twitter account."

Comments

I'm really getting tired of all this..

[intellitech]

I really hope SCEA crashes and burns. I personally won't ever support their products again.

Re:I'm really getting tired of all this..

[ShadowRangerRIT]

How did you miss all the other bullshit Sony has been pulling for the last decade and a half? Microsoft has a generally improving trajectory (from a low starting point no question), while Sony puts effort into finding new ways to lower the bar. I swore off them five or six years ago and haven't regretted it for an instant.

Re:I'm really getting tired of all this..

[ElephanTS]

Yeah absolutely. I'm an audio engineer for over 20 years now and when I started Sony owned the broadcast equipment market. Then some time during the nineties we began to realise that this stuff was going wrong *a lot*. Their DAT players although standard in many ways failed like no other brand. Panasonic took over that one and I changed my preferences to only buy Trinitron products - which in the CRT days were the best. Then they started failing quite badly too - but not before they'd mugged me for a large multisync CRT that died after about three years. Something very wrong with Sony and has been for years.

Re:I'm really getting tired of all this..

[netsharc]

Here's one

Here's another one.

Is getting asked to speak at a mostly Republican event, and getting "reimbursed for the flight and hotel" enough of a payout for you? How about if it was a first class flight and 5-star Penthouse room with "order anything you want from room service.". Sure, no cash exchanged hands, maybe he just got lobster dinners and got it "reimbursed" because he was traveling to be a guest speaker, and he surely had to eat right? Is that still kosher?

And Thomas' wife works with tea partiers and get money from them. OK, neutral much?

Re:I'm really getting tired of all this..

[commodore6502]

>>>unbiased protectors of the individuals that make up the nation and her constitution

Where did you ever get the illusion the Supreme Court was "unbiased"??? That was never, ever, never the case. Even as early as 1805 Thomas Jefferson wrote, "You seem... to consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions --- a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy.

"Our judges are as honest as other men, and not more so. They have, with others, the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps.... Their power is the more dangerous as they are in office for life, and not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to the Elective control. The constitution has erected no such single tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands confided, with the corruptions of time and party, its members would become despots. It has more wisely made all the departments co-equal and co-sovereign within themselves.

"...But the Chief Justice says there must be an arbiter somewhere. True there must, but the ultimate arbiter is the People, as represented by their deputies in the State Legislatures. Let the States decide to which they meant to give power, and amend the constitution if necessary."
.

Since the power of Judicial Review is not expressly granted to the Supreme Court by the Constitution, this power is "reserved to the States respectively, or to the people" per the Constitution's OWN words. It is not the Union judiciary's responsibility to protect individuals. It is the responsibility of the People and the States, standing-up for their rights against an overreaching central government-megacorp tyrant, and nullifying unjust laws whenever the occasion warrants.

Re:I'm really getting tired of all this..

[ElephanTS]

I used to work for xxxxx many years ago and we had a massive joint project with Sony to create an open reel digital multitrack standard. It failed ultimately but I did learn of the prejudices of the Japanese engineers. Even then (late 80s) the word was that Sony was making deliberately short-lived consumer products which reflected the extremely fast turnover of their domestic market. In the rich parts of Tokyo you could (apparently) retrieve fully working VCR's etc from trash - things discarded for the latest model. Sony I think built this planned obsolescence into their products as they thought consumers were not interesting in having a VCR work for say 5 years.

Probably the peak of Sony design was late70s to early80s and since then it's been laurel-resting and marketing. I too miss the old Sony but I guess Apple have taken that now.

Re:I'm really getting tired of all this..

[canajin56]

In the age of the Sega Master System and the NES, both Sega and Nintendo tried to use "drm" to lock out third-party developers, so only Sega/Nintendo games would be able to run on the respective hardware. Developers didn't like this, so they bypassed it. Both companies sued these "hacker" "pirate" developers. In both cases, the cases were thrown out with prejudice, but not before the judges verbally tore Sega/Nintendo a new one. One judge said if they ever hear a peep from Sega again on the issue, they will invalidate their trademark on Sega. (Sega's lock-in technique was to have the console check to see if the first 4 bytes of the ROM were "SEGA" and then sue for Trademark violations).

Not that much later, even watching a video about installing software not signed by the cartel can get you arrested and thrown in prison for a decade or longer. Obviously something has changed. But you're right, it's not the courts that were bought and "convinced" to change their minds. Installing third-party software was made illegal by the DMCA. It was politicians who were bought. And for how much? It's all public, just look at how much Sony and Microsoft and Apple and Nintendo (etc.) have paid to various politicians, with the "understanding" that if they don't get the laws they want, those payments will stop. This is not a bribe because the money comes before the "request", I guess, or something. I'm sure a politician can explain why it's not a bribe.

On the other hand, the DMCA has exceptions for breaking DRM for the purpose of third-party compatibility, so maybe the OP was right, judges just might have been paid off to ignore such exceptions and enforce vendor lock-in, outlawing jailbreaking. This is bad news for people who jailbreak iPhones, too, as it shows that even explicit exceptions to the law can be ignored if you just throw enough money at the legal system.

Go for it

[MonsterTrimble]

I will watch the youtube videos just to make extra work for Sony - even if it's only a second or two of their time. I would love for them to come knocking - I don't own a PS3 (nor intend to), never owned a PS2 and my wife's PS1 is collecting dust in my basement. In fact, except for the PS1 only Nintendo has made it inside the walls of my house.

Oh, and I'm Canadian. *flips Sony the bird*

More About the Judge

[BooRadley]

This says less about Sony, and more about the judge in the case. According to several ratings websites, Hon. Joseph Spero is pretty new to the Magistrate bench, and has the reputation for being predisposed to siding with government and business 100% of the time. Hopefully there will be an injunction and appeal coming soon on this.

Go after him, not his viewers

[Kenshin]

As much as GeoHot put himself in this whole legal mess, with his publicity-seeking and taunting of Sony, it's asinine of Sony to go after his YouTube viewers and commenters. I guarantee that 99.9% of the viewers are just bystanders who wanted to see what all the fuss is about. He created the content and put the video up, people who simply clicked "play" did nothing wrong. In fact, YouTube holds more guilt than all of them simply for making it available.

This is getting ridiculous

[Pecisk]

Maybe they will ask Google for people who have searched for certain terms, code names, utt.? What's next, going after people who criticize this witch hunt from Sony?

It is funny that some lawyer drones are capable to destroy everything company tried hard to build. It is time to require lawyers to have not only knowledge of law, but also understanding of common sense and intelligence. Otherwise modern society will slowly kill itself with such attitude.

Re:Get rid of your private, individual IP numbers

[Zastai]

Once IPv6 really starts being used (granted at this rate that's years off yet, despite IPv4 having officially "run out"), with its huge range, I would not be surprised to see a push from large corporations to try and mandate that IP addresses are directly linkable to people.

Oops, here it is again...

[Anonymous Coward]

Haven't we learned yet that threats of legal action don't stop anything?

erk: C0 CE FE 84 C2 27 F7 5B D0 7A 7E B8 46 50 9F 93 B2 38 E7 70 DA CB 9F F4 A3 88 F8 12 48 2B E2 1B
riv: 47 EE 74 54 E4 77 4C C9 B8 96 0C 7B 59 F4 C1 4D
pub: C2 D4 AA F3 19 35 50 19 AF 99 D4 4E 2B 58 CA 29 25 2C 89 12 3D 11 D6 21 8F 40 B1 38 CA B2 9B 71 01 F3 AE B7 2A 97 50 19
R: 80 6E 07 8F A1 52 97 90 CE 1A AE 02 BA DD 6F AA A6 AF 74 17
n: E1 3A 7E BC 3A CC EB 1C B5 6C C8 60 FC AB DB 6A 04 8C 55 E1
K: BA 90 55 91 68 61 B9 77 ED CB ED 92 00 50 92 F6 6C 7A 3D 8D
Da: C5 B2 BF A1 A4 13 DD 16 F2 6D 31 C0 F2 ED 47 20 DC FB 06 70

~geohot

props to fail0verflow for the asymmetric half
no donate link, just use this info wisely
i do not condone piracy

if you want your next console to be secure, get in touch with me. any of you 3.
it'd be fun to be on the other side. ...and this is a real self, hello world
although it's not NPDRM, so it won't run off the hard drive
shouts to the guys who did PSL1GHT
without you, I couldn't release this

Over 600 reasons

[tepples]

A personal IPv6 address will be assigned at birth, burned into an RFID capsule, and injected into your body. For backup purposes, the number will be tattooed on your forehead

I can think of six hundred sixty-six reasons why that will never come to pass at least in countries with a strong Christian right-wing.

Re:They are going after him, dolt

[b4dc0d3r]

The entire purpose of getting IP addresses is to establish that many people from California downloaded information. Why is this important? Because Sony wants to sue in California, instead of where GeoHot lives. That's the purpose of this exercise, determining where the case is filed.

I think the judge should have required a neutral third party to analyze the data, instead of trusting Sony, but otherwise this is legitimate.

Re:They are going after him, dolt

[DRJlaw]

The entire purpose of getting IP addresses is to establish that many people from California downloaded information. Why is this important? Because Sony wants to sue in California, instead of where GeoHot lives. That's the purpose of this exercise, determining where the case is filed.

Then it is not a valid purpose. Caselaw concerning the internet and personal jurisdiction has been clear for at least the last decade: you have to specifically transact with someone within the jurisdiction. Offering "static" information to the entire world does not subject someone to to personal jurisdiction within every court within the United States. Bensusan Restaurant Corp. v. King , 126 F.3d 25 (2d Cir. 1997). Sony has to show that GeoHot made a "purposeful availment of the benefits and protections" offered by California, not that he posted a video that even a horde of Californians viewed on YouTube. Bensusan; International Shoe Co. v. Washington , 326 U.S. 310 (1945).

I think the judge should have required a neutral third party to analyze the data, instead of trusting Sony, but otherwise this is legitimate.

An unsupported conclusion is no conclusion at all. Cite your authority.