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Judge Lets Sony Access GeoHot's PayPal Account
An anonymous reader writes with an excerpt from TechDirt that says "Magistrate Judge Joseph C. Spero has awarded Sony a subpoena that grants the company access to the PayPal account of PlayStation 3 jailbreaker George Hotz, also known as GeoHot, for the last two years. Emil: Spero ruled that the Japanese console maker may acquire 'documents sufficient to identify the source of funds in California that went into any PayPal account associated with geohot@gmail.com for the period of January 1, 2009, to February 1, 2011.'"
I don't think so. Their PR is bad enough as it is, and it's pretty clear that judges are getting exasperated with the trend of corporations suing thousands of individuals at once for eleven billion dollars and a lifetime prison sentence.
Their move is an obvious effort to get people to stop donating. The only sensible response from people is to donate more, to show them that it won't work and to make sure the number of people on the list is too large to arrest all of them without resulting in public outrage and that greatest of legal offenses, pissing off the judge.
Last time I looked, you *buy* equipment, not rent it. It's like a car company telling you you can't put the latest glass pack exhaust system on your car, those shinny spinning rims, or ground effects because it isn't in the EUDA (End-User Driving Agreement). Or worse yet, what about making improvements to your house, oops, I mean the bank's house. Where does this stop? If you buy it you buy it unless they specifically want to come out and say what they appear to really mean, you don't own anything. One sure way to crater the economy further is to take away peoples rights to personal property. All in the name of "unrealized" or unearned profits. I wish I could do that :S...
Haven't you noticed that for transnational corporations, "bad PR" is the new black? They just don't care how bad their PR is, because they're going to get your money one way or the other.
That's the beauty of being a transnational corporation. You can get your hands in so many pies that there's no way not to be their customer. Whether you play a PS3 or watch a movie or listen to the radio or tv or have a company that uses heavy equipment. Government contracts, supplier contracts, intellectual property. Even if you think you're boycotting Sony, you're giving Sony money somewhere, somehow. And even if you manage to be so well-informed, so well-organized that you've managed to live your life without buying anything that's made by Sony or one of their "strategic partners", there's all the patents and copyrights that they can use to sue the companies that you do buy stuff from, so your money goes to them that way.
This is where "free markets" break down. Once a corporation has reached a certain point, there is no marketplace any more. How you gonna "boycott" Haliburton, when just by driving a car you're putting money in Haliburton's pocket. Just by heating your house.
The whole world is a company store now, and we all owe our souls.
To paraphrase a Buddhist proverb, If you meet John Galt walking on the road, kill him.
You are welcome on my lawn.
If you can't see the problem with this AC you are a major dumbass. The Paypal account was being used to help his defense and now those people can be harassed by Sony. Imagine if those that donated to Manning's defense get put on a terror watchlist? After all Manning "aided terrorists" and Wikileaks is a "terrorist organization" according to some of our more clueless congressmen, so if judges are allowed to hand out lists of who has donated to a defense to the other side you have just killed ANY chance of a non rich person getting a fair trial.
The whole damned point of setting up these Paypal accounts is to give those who cannot afford a defense a chance to fight back against the rich and powerful. if you start handing out lists of everyone that donated you have created a chilling effect that will ensure others in the future won't get enough donations to buy a stick of gum.Sadly in the USA no money means no defense, as I wouldn't let a public pretender defend my dog, and in civil cases you don't even get that. So handing out donation lists is a BAD IDEA and shouldn't be allowed, okay AC?
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.