Consumer George Hotz Settles, Consents To Permanent Injunction

[x3sphere]

PS3 hacker George "Geohot" Hotz's legal battle with Sony Computer Entertainment America has come to a close, with Hotz agreeing to settle under terms of a permanent injunction. The ruling is quite broad in scope, effectively barring Hotz from hacking or collaborating with efforts to hack any "Sony product" going forward. What exactly does this entail? Here's a snip from the filing:
IT IS HEREBY ORDERED AND ADJUDGED by consent of the Parties that Hotz, whether as an individual or as a principal, officer, director or employee of any business entity, and his agents, servants, employees, distributors, suppliers, representatives and all other persons or entities acting in concert or participation with Hotz who receive notice of this Judgment, shall be and hereby are permanently enjoined and restrained from:
A[...]

Continue reading: George Hotz Settles, Consents To Permanent Injunction...

 

[YoKo]

softare?
I think Sony bought Hotz as a part of security..no thinking about it!

 

[january39]

It might sound effective in principle but i cannot see how it can be policed effectively, certainly in terms of mainstream he is stuck but 'underground' he can still do as he likes.

If only Sony allowed some provision for 'homebrew' they might never have had to go to these lengths.

Btw whoever released that press statement needs to check for typo's

 

[FrozenIpaq]

So, all those donations to Geo for his legal fees....yeah, those went a long way. A very disappointing end to the case but was probably getting too much for him

 

[Josey Wales]

So nobody won, which means Sony won.

Like I said from the start...

 

[XsavioR]

Geohot won, he walked away. But did so at the expense of his own right to hack what he buys. And because of this sony won. We didnt win because the fight was never fought. We lost a brilliant contributor , and a chance to reinforce our rights.
Overall a good day.

 

[Spiros]

Wow, I had higher hopes for this case, I'm surprised geohot folded after asking for donations to help beat sony, guess he just got tired off the stress that comes with it. Too bad. I wish I could say I had it in me to boycott Sony as well, but that NGP looks too tasty.

 

[Alex]

That really is a shame, i was hoping something big of this, like, its our product, we should be able to do what we want.
We just need to build our own OS for it, so that way, we werent bound to any stupid tos.
At the the end of the day, Sony sucks. We all know it. The only reason why we buy there **** is that its good.
if that makes any sense...

 

[B2K24]

So what would happen if George Hotz legally changed his name xD

 

[El Diablo]

If only Geohot had as much money to waste as Sony...sigh.

 

[Sousanator]

he announced that he

 

[Spiros]

Personally, I think it was the stress that got to him, for sure he would've gotten any funds he needed (seeing as how fast he received the money he needed when he did ask for donations), but imagine being sued by a huge multinational corporation with almost limitless funds and a total disregard for their PR image.

 

[x3sphere]

Personally, I think it was the stress that got to him, for sure he would've gotten any funds he needed (seeing as how fast he received the money he needed when he did ask for donations), but imagine being sued by a huge multinational corporation with almost limitless funds and a total disregard for their PR image.

I have to agree. People make the argument that it's just a civil suit, he's not risking jail time. That's true, but in reality you never can take a break from the case, you have to communicate with lawyers daily. It can get exhausting, I'm sure.

Plus Sony kept hounding him for information throughout the case and barely gave him any time to reply. I remember they were complaining about a missing part in one filing when he'd had already mailed it out, despite being on vacation.

 

[Zero]

While theoretically he can work underground, I highly doubt he will risk breaching an injunction for that.

Think this is the last we'll see of GeoHot in the PS3 community. Can't blame him, I would have folded too.

 

[AcheNone]

I kind of find this ridiculous as a proper company would more likely find his skills to be an asset to enhance the security and probably improve product's in the future. I personally found 'Homebrew' creations by modding communities or hacker's skills rather impressive in there ways of reverse engineering and recreation for things like emulators are one of the best products to come out of their ideals.
Piracy was exploited on the PSP very quickly, and the feat of cracking the tight security inside the PS3 and being able to use other software on it should be good enough a reason to hire him.
But instead of trying to resolve the issue in a fair and ending in a more win-win situation it is concluded with a law suit and more damage to the face of Sony as a company.
Yes, they have won this case completely, but hackers have already found ways to tinker and gain complete control over the PS3 in a matter of days after the firmware update to stop any more of their kind of activities.
Now, today, I cannot even use their PSN service due to an complete outage over this easter holiday. Can I really still enjoy Sony's products from any faultiness? Am I really simply getting what I don't pay for? Or am I left to return to the somewhat more reliable PC?