Sony Offline Entertainment (Hacking of PSN and SOE)

[*Shinzon*]

Doesn't matter if he foresaw it or not, he still has the right to do his tinkering and release the results.

Just because a gun can be used to kill people does not make the gun manufacturer responsible for how people use their products.

You're right but there is still liability to attached to it. Even if it is indirectly. It's why sony is trying to establish a base for the other elements of the case.

[aurik]

There's no liability attached to it if the work has substantial non-infringing purposes.

[*Shinzon*]

True, if proven that's the case, absolutely true.

[aurik]

You don't think that running your own binaries on a system sold on the promise of being able to run your own binaries is a substantial purpose?

[*Shinzon*]

To be frank I don't think he was outside his rights to do what he did. Nor do I think it is right to be bullied by a giant corporation. But Hotz isn't a slouch and I think he's more than capable of explaining himself, aiding in his defense and doesn't need to be propped up by a community of pirates(lol) looking to benefit from his discoveries. I believe it is highly conceivable he knew that doing what he did could enable piracy. That doesn't make him guilty of anything though. I just want to see whether or not it can be proven that he benefited from the piracy before I go slamming Sony for defending their product, that's all. No more, no less since that is where the indirect liability issue will rest. I understand completely that they shouldn't of locked the linux functionality but I don't think they deserve to have their property pirated as a result.

[aurik]

Indirect liability is a slippery slope. After all, I argue that Sony should have realized that without giving tinkerers who bought their product to tinker, when unilaterally locked out, can be expected to try to pick the lock, to which the end result is naturally the incidental enabling of piracy. And, in fact, the timeline of events actually suggest that this is exactly what happened.

As for whether he benefited directly from piracy, that's a straw man argument.

[Melchiah]

You cannot hold a man responsible for conscious decisions and actions made by others, even if those others take that man's work and alter it for illegal purposes. That's a slippery slope no one should try to traverse, ever, period.

Is Anon a bunch of tools for doing what they did? Yes. And they're wrong in their actions.

Is Anon wrong for being hacked off about Sony trying to hammer hotz's dick? Absolutely not, fuck Sony for trying to make an example of hotz.

Also, what aurik said.

[*Shinzon*]

You cannot hold a man responsible for conscious decisions and actions made by others, even if those others take that man's work and alter it for illegal purposes. That's a slippery slope no one should try to traverse, ever, period.

Is Anon a bunch of tools for doing what they did? Yes. And they're wrong in their actions.

Is Anon wrong for being hacked off about Sony trying to hammer hotz's dick? Absolutely not, fuck Sony for trying to make an example of hotz.

Also, what aurik said.

Legally, you absolutely can when it is reasonably foreseeable that your action causes someone else harm or damage. That was my point. Just has to be proven. Regardless of whether or not it is a slippery slope, direct and indirect liability are pillars of Tort law.

[aurik]

No, you aren't automatically liable for harm if the consequence of your action is foreseeably said harm.

For example, if there's a hot dog vendor who sells his wares for $2/ea. I could open a competing stand across the street for him and sell for $1.50 each. By doing so, I am causing him harm: he profits are diminished. It's foreseeable that my actions would cause this harm. In fact, I would expect it. But he's not going to win a civil case against me. Why? Because I have every right to do what I'm doing.

[*Shinzon*]

You're right, it's very difficult to prove indirect liability. It isn't something that is used very often. However there are circumstances where it's possible to be indirectly liable, and I didn't claim to know this is case is one of them but it is possible. I wish I could find the text I had for the Tort law class, so I could explain it as it was explained to me.

Edit: This website came up on a google search, it's a journal article about indirect liability and copyrights which seems interesting, I just can't read it now where I am.

Abstract:
When individuals infringe copyright, they often use tools, services, and venues provided by other parties. An enduring legal question asks to what extent those other parties should be held liable for the resulting infringement. For example, should a firm that produces photocopiers be required to compensate authors for any unauthorized copies made on that firm's machines? What about firms that manufacture personal computers or offer Internet access; should they be liable, at least in part, for online music piracy? Modern copyright law addresses these issues through a variety of common law doctrines and statutory provisions. In this essay, we introduce those rules and evaluate them from an economic perspective. In the process, we emphasize that every mechanism for rewarding authors inevitably introduces some form of inefficiency, and thus the only way to determine the proper scope for indirect liability is to weigh its costs and benefits against those associated with other plausible mechanisms for rewarding authors.

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.c...ract_id=379201

Should someone want to read it.

[OWS_Tonx]

http://ps3.ign.com/articles/115/1159426p1.html

Greetings, Sony Customers And PS3 Users. We are Anonymous.
During the last few days, Anonymous has been targeting Sony for their outrageous treatment of not only PS3 users and jailbreakers, but also of the general public. Their propaganda regarding jailbreaking implies that it encourages piracy and thereby makes people lose their jobs, whereas jailbreaking actually just means you are making YOUR device do what it should do. Imagine if Microsoft forced you to use Internet Explorer instead of Firefox or Chrome. Imagine if they denied users from using any other web browser than their own. Many people would obviously be pissed... but then, why aren't you pissed at Sony?

The fact that their litigation demanded information on everyone who had viewed the material, was completely unacceptable. This is a threat not only to the gaming community, but to freedom of information in general. The fact that the privacy of individuals can be violated, simply for accessing information, and legal action can be taken for doing something with something you own, are steps far beyond the line. Anonymous decided it could not allow this to stand. If jailbreaking a phone for use of legal (unsigned) apps is found legal, why would this be any different for the Geohot case, seeing as Geohot explicitly states he does not support piracy?

Anonymous is not attacking the PSN at this time. Sony's official position is that the PSN is undergoing maintenance. We realize that targeting the PSN is not a good idea. We have therefore temporarily suspended our action, until a method is found that will not severely impact Sony customers.

Anonymous is on your side, standing up for your rights. We are not aiming to attack customers of Sony. This attack is aimed solely at Sony, and we will try our best to not affect the gamers, as this would defeat the purpose of our actions. If we did inconvenience users, please know that this was not our goal.

This operation is a response to Sony's attempt to deprive their customers of products they bought and therefore own, wholly and completely. Anonymous will not attempt to fight this by following the exact same course of action. We have plenty of tricks up our sleeves.

As a last point, we would like to point out that different operations are "run" by different people. Those who are involved in the organisation of OpSony, are not necessarily those involved in that of SonyRecon. Anonymous Operations are generally independent efforts, and it would be a mistake to assume that the same individuals are responsible for every action taken. Anonymous is comprised of people with diverse points of view, of which not all coincide with one another.

That being said, our campaign against Sony and others that would trample on the idea of free information will continue, until we are satisfied with the outcome.

tl;dr: they're stopping the attacks on psn

[Silenka]

They need to bring back the guy who wrote the HBGary letter, he was much more eloquent.

[aurik]

Lawsuit is over, SCEA settled, Hotz won.

[*Shinzon*]

http://www.engadget.com/2011/04/11/s...wless-victory/

Well, after all the talk of TROs, tweets, and YouTube user info, it seems that the SCEA vs. Geohot litigation has come to a rather uneventful conclusion. According to Sony's Playstation Blog, the case has been settled, and Hotz has agreed to a permanent injunction preventing him from distributing his PS3 jailbreak hack ever again. Of course, while this settlement has cowed the man who did the initial distribution deed, the jailbreak genie's out of the bottle, and no court order can ever put it back.

After a short but rather storied history, infamous PlayStation 3 jailbreaker George "GeoHot" Hotz and Sony Computer Entertainment of America have settled, with a statement on the PlayStation Blog stating the two parties "reached an agreement in principle" around 10 days ago. According to said agreement, Hotz has "consented to a permanent injunction," meaning he super swears he won't do it again (legally speaking, of course), though no other terms are given. We were told by an SCEA rep that the terms of the settlement (beyond what was disclosed) are confidential.

Unsurprisingly, both Hotz' legal team and Sony's were excited to resolve the legal dispute so quickly. "It was never my intention to cause any users trouble or to make piracy easier. I'm happy to have the litigation behind me," Hotz said in the announcement.

Previously, Hotz had strict terms for a potential settlement. "Let's just say, I want the settlement terms to include OtherOS on all PS3s and an apology on the PlayStation blog for ever removing it," Hotz wrote on his website during the trial. "It'd be good PR for Sony too, lord knows they could use it," he continued. "I'm also willing to accept a trade, a legit path to homebrew for knowledge of how to stop new firmwares from being decrypted." Apparently the case spooked Hotz enough to reconsider.

The settlement announcement also absolves Hotz of any potential wrongdoing associated with recent PlayStation Network attacks. "Hotz was not involved in the recent attacks on Sony's internet services and websites," the statement reads.

To fully drive the point of the blog post home, SCEA general counsel Riley Russell said of Hotz, "We appreciate Mr. Hotz's willingness to address the legal issues involved in this case and work with us to quickly bring this matter to an early resolution."

For his part, Hotz announced via his blog this morning that he is "joining the Sony boycott," and that he "will never purchase another Sony product." It could be that he's mad after the legal case ... or it could just be that he's broke.

[aurik]

Funny how Sony's trying to spin this as anything but a total win for Hotz.

[archibaldcrane]

Good for him, looks like Sony had dick for a case. Sucks that he'll stop developing for Sony products though.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S 4G using Tapatalk

[archibaldcrane]

Funny how Sony's trying to spin this as anything but a total win for Hotz.

Hilarious that Engadget is declaring this somewhat of a victory for Sony.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S 4G using Tapatalk

[aurik]

Total victory...Hotz can no longer publish widely distributed and well known information!

Looks like SCEA was deathly afraid of setting a negative precedent. Wouldn't be surprised if they ended up paying his legal fees.

[Tyche]

The risk of losing for sony is much much worse than the rewards if they win. If they lose, they open the door to an entire community doing whatever they want with court precedence set. If they win...they get? It was a win for Sony, they've managed to scare others into thinking twice about releasing tools and they don't take a risk of losing and opening the door to allow it.

Edit: Beaten by Aurik.

[Ksandra]

I would say it's a win for both. Hotz didn't have to deal with long drawn out trials, Sony set a precedent that might scare away future hackers for future systems (too late for ps3 info is already out there).

Also, he probably had to pay money and considering he's not some big business man, that's a def hit to him.