PlayStation 3 Modder Short on Funds, Expects Jail Sentence
PlayStation 3 Modder Short on Funds, Expects Jail Sentence
Posted 06/22/2011 at 8:33am
| by Paul Lilly
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George "Geohot" Hotz received a mountain of criticism for backing down on his scuffle with Sony and settling out of court, in part because so many donated money to his legal battle. Hotz has since made amends by donating leftover legal defense money to the EFF, but many are still furious he didn't fight this thing to the end. Given what might go down with another PS3 modder -- Alexander "graf_chokolo" Egorenkov -- Hotz might have made the right move after all.
Authorities raided Egorenkov's home in February after being sued by Sony for hacking the PS3 trying to restore OtherOS (Linux) to the system. According to Kotaku, Sony at last check was seeking €1,000,000 (about $1.44 million), and while Egorenkov tried to fight the good fight with donations, the well is apparently drying up and he's now fearing the worst.
"Hi guys, no money left anymore. Going to jail soon probably because I cannot pay court costs," Egorenkov said on his website. "But I'm ready to stand up for everything I said and go to jail for that too. It's not important to win, more important is to show them that we are ready to fight, that they cannot scare me off easily. Yeah, I'm ready to go to jail for my beliefs and my principles."
Egorenkov hasn't actually been sentenced yet, but if he does end up going to prison, it might be Sony that ultimately can't afford the outcome, in terms of yet another PR hit.
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Kabi
June 25, 2011 at 10:50am
The weaker companies are the ones who are desparate enough to sue broke college students. It's sad.
f104chrome
June 23, 2011 at 9:03pm
If you buy something you should be able to hack/enhance it anyway you want including software as long as it does not infringe on the manufacture in the way the product makes them money or that you make a profit from showing other ppl how to do so.
Morpheus22
June 23, 2011 at 11:24pm
I agree. If Sony wouldn't have removed the option to install Linux, maybe they'd still be a player that had some respect left. As it stands now, they'll probably go bankrupt, get absorbed by IBM, or get pwned again and again.
(Lol)
Morpheus22
June 22, 2011 at 10:58pm
Sony's gonna burn away. Glad I never got a PS3.
Sony's PS3 Rep is ruined in more ways than 1. They are burning.
Drop the damn charges against GeoHot, Sony!!!!
applejack
June 22, 2011 at 4:53pm
I don't get what's so hard to understand about EULAs. Go read it. In fact, here: http://www.scei.co.jp/ps3-eula/ps3_eula_en.html
Read the second paragraph, and Sections 2, 7, and 8. You'll find all your answers there. There are no "rights" to hacking/modifying your PS3, and I'm sure the same goes for many other electronics and software.
I'm not against modifying/hacking, but if you're going to do something violating an agreement, I would hope that you would be ready to face the consequences.
Morpheus22
June 22, 2011 at 11:04pm
You must be a Mac user.
And anyone who's never supported Linux always has a heart attack over EULAs.
Computers are made for hacking the OS. Computer: Do whatever I Command, I paid for it!
applejack
June 23, 2011 at 6:58am
If you had read the link I provided, you would know that you aren't granted any licenses or "rights" for the software of the PS3. Congratulations.
Computers are different. You have to look into the terms of the company that sells you the hardware or software in your computer.
You must be new to this.
Morpheus22
June 23, 2011 at 11:19pm
I did read part of it. It sucks, and that's why I put my wallet were my mouth is. I don't own any Sony electronics or Blu-ray. I choose to boycott them forever too. I know the PS3 IS a computer and if I ever might buy a PS3 I would totally disagree with the EULA and return it promptly for a refund.
It doesn't really matter to me much anyway. Besides, PCs are better.
GeoHot is modern Legend and Sony is a crooked company that deserves all the blows they get and then some! Period.
Their subscribers should bail out on them too.
CrashTECH
June 22, 2011 at 8:48pm
The EULA is NOT a legally binding contract. Breaking the EULA is not breaking the law. I would bet you money each and every one here has broken an EULA without even knowing it (mostly because they did not read it!).
Bottom line, it is a simple principle. I have purchased a piece of hardware. I own the hardware. I can do what I want with it. I can hit it with a hammer if I want. This is no different than buying a car, adding/changing parts, and tuning the engine's computer to achieve the performance you want. Not. One. Bit. Different.
applejack
June 23, 2011 at 7:30am
Breaking the EULA is not breaking the law, that I'll agree with.
I only have this to point out:
"SCE and its licensors reserve the right to bring legal action in the event of a violation of this Agreement. SCE reserves the right to participate in any government or private legal action or investigation relating to your conduct." (Section 6 of the System Software License Agreement for the PS3)
You give them the right to bring LEGAL ACTION by agreeing to the License Agreement. You can do whatever you want to your PS3, but should you find yourself violating one of their terms, you better be ready to face whatever they plan on bringing.
It's not a simple principle. You purchased the hardware and the software that came with it.
"You may not (i) use any unauthorized, illegal, counterfeit, or modified hardware or software in connection with the System Software, including use of such tool to bypass, disable, or circumvent any encryption, security, or authentication mechanism for the PS3™ system; ...
(iii) use any hardware or software to cause the System Software to accept or use unauthorized, illegal, or pirated software or hardware" (Section 2 of the System Software License Agreement for the PS3)
As for the software:
"You may not lease, rent, sublicense, publish, modify, adapt, or translate any portion of the System Software. To the fullest extent permitted by law, you may not reverse engineer, decompile, or disassemble any portion of the System Software, or create any derivative works, or otherwise attempt to create System Software source code from its object code." (Section 2 of the System Software License Agreement again.)
By all means, hammer your PS3, throw it out your window, toss it in your pool, but once you do something to violate one of these agreements, you allow Sony to follow up with whatever they're allowed to (which you can see if you scroll up and read the exerpt of Section 6 I posted.)
And yes, purchasing a vehicle and modifying it is much much different. You can gain property rights to a vehicle.
It's all about the software and hardware that affects the software.
Happy
June 22, 2011 at 4:32pm
LulzSec, if you wanted a good target, here it is, right in front of you, served up on a golden platter. Sony's unethical behavior continues and so should their punishment. All you people who know how to hack and get away with it, I hope you bring down Sony once again.
j814wong
June 22, 2011 at 6:09pm
You want LullzSec to target a company who is merely suing someone who does not respect their rights and property and rules they set for their own stuff? Sony owns the PS3 system and rights to it. They can choose to do what they want and their EULA said it was against rules to mod. Sony has every right to set rules and limitations for stuff their own and have rights to. If someone is being unethical it is Geohotz who fails to respect these rules fairly set by a company who owns the system and rights and other stuff about it. You can't blame Sony for suing the person who helped pirates pirate games on the PS3.
Piracy undermines work ethic. People get the stuff they want online if possible for free instead of working for it fairly. Anyway, arguments for piracy are very weak in my opinion.
If Geohotz had any respect and ethics, he would understand that since Sony owns patents , rights, and other stuff about teh PS3, they can set rules they want. Anyway, no one is stopping him from going to another system if he isn't content with teh rules set by Sony. If you don't like Sony not letting you do what you want with your system, move to another system or even to PCs. PCs are full of hackers who cna get away with hacking. YTou may like gaming on PCs better if you like hacker freedom so much.
CrashTECH
June 22, 2011 at 8:51pm
You purchased the PS3, it is yours to do what you want with it. Sony has no rights to the hardware anymore.
Piracy? How is modifying the PS3 an act of piracy? (Hint, it isn't). You have to buy the PS3 in the first place. Hard to pirate something when you paid for it.
Patents are only there so that some other company could not make a PS3. It doesn't give the patent holder cart blanche over the physical goods.
raven199009
June 22, 2011 at 8:41pm
since you bought the ps3 do you not have the right to do with it what you want? if you paid sony the money in order to own that device, then its yours. as far as i am concerned if you wanted to throw it in the trash and burn it you could, or if you wanted to improve on sony's funtinality then you should be able to do that. once you buy something its your poperty, not whoever sold it to you. if i sold you a car and you wanted to put a new engine in it and i told you no thats against the rules....what would you say about that?
Dartht33bagger
June 22, 2011 at 11:36pm
"if i sold you a car and you wanted to put a new engine in it and i told you no thats against the rules....what would you say about that?"
If you have emissions checks in your state the state can tell you that you can't. In Oregon if your car does not have one of the original motors that could have been optioned on the car or an exhaust setup that matches the original setup, you can have your car crushed.
jonelsorel
June 22, 2011 at 1:21pm
It's interesting how Sony cares more about punishing a kid that looked to use their product for a wider range of stuff instead of securing their networks and millions of people's ID's, addresses and CC numbers in the process.
Way to go, chief!
hk1777
June 22, 2011 at 1:05pm
Almost makes me not want to buy a Ps Vita when it comes out....
Funny how Sony couldnt care less about people hacking the PSP But when someone trys to bring back the Other OS Feature that was once ADVERTISED by sony as one of the thing it had over the 360 they flip out and sue them for over a million dollars... Just show the Ef'ed up law system we have.
kixofmyg0t
June 22, 2011 at 3:21pm
As a PSP hacker myself I can tell you Sony DOES care about the PSP hacking scene. They've made it quite a pain in the ass to hack PSP's, cuz you know the NUMBER ONE thing people do once they have a hacked PSP? Can you guess? Pirate games. Why buy a game when you can just dl it for free.
So can you guess why Sony didn't want people doing the same thing to their "baby"? More people have PS3's than PSP's, and only a fraction of people who own a PSP even know about hacking and custom firmware. Now imagine IF a custom firmware emerged for the PS3 with a ISO loader....that crap would spread faster than Rebecca Black's "Friday". Seriously would you pay for a game if all you had to do was install a update first and then you could dl them for free?
Exactly.
Not only that but the sheer amount of people that would eff up their PS3 attempting the hack. Their small brains would say "eff this i'mma gonna go get a xbox so i can play halo".
Ghok
June 22, 2011 at 4:14pm
I'm starting to think you don't actually believe any of the things you post. Some of your statements are flat out innaccurate (I don't think I'm mistaken in saying Sony has sold more PSPs than PS3s by a fairly large amount) and some are just moronic and could only possibly serve as flame bait (like saying no one would buy games if they could download them, on a site full of PC gamers who look down pretty harshly on piracy).
TheQ
June 22, 2011 at 11:52am
Sony deserves everything it gets. $hit like this happens, next you will be getting put in jail for using a fish fork for your mac and cheese. violates the ToS and all that. not its intended purpose. how many programs can you run on linux, but not on a plain ps3? more than a couple. sony is dying, and they are just trying to make it harder for everybody before they go down.
hansolo4949
June 22, 2011 at 11:54am
Perhaps I am missing something, but how is it illegal that he wants to hack his own device? He may violate his warranty (gasp) but other than that I see no other issues in this. The guy wants to install Linux in his ps3. Great, maxpc even MADE an article on that a few years ago. now, if he was trying to crack Sony games, or trying to find a hack to get them for "free" from the Sony store, thus would be another issue. But even then, the intent was there, but unless he had downloaded the game, he has not done anything illegal that I know of. Perhaps I am barking up the wrong tree, and if I am, please correct me.
if this is true, then why am I not arrested for installing Linux in my machine and getting rid of windows? I payed fir the machine, I payed fir windows, and Linux is pretty much legal to use any way you want.
Or what about, say, if I want to jailbreak my Idevice? Is it now illegal for me to want to install jailbreak apps on it? (not cracked apps, mind you).
c'mon Sony, you know better than this.
This is the kind of thing I bet the hacker grouped hacked Sony for, and I support them.
Neufeldt2002
June 22, 2011 at 12:09pm
The reason Sony is going after this person is because he was telling people how to mod their systems and sharing the codes and software used to bring back Other OS. Which is in Sony's mind against the TOS and illegal. Whether it is or not in an actual court of law, I have no idea. Also, most software companies say it is illegal to modify or "mod" software except for some of the game makers.
Happy
June 22, 2011 at 4:37pm
Just because they say you're not allowed to do it doesn't mean it's actually against the law. Once you buy a Playstation 3 or an XBox you own that hardware. It's yours. And when something is yours you can do whatever you want with it as long as that action doesn't violate the law somehow. X-Box kicks people out so they can't play online games if they have hacked their X-Box. Sony should do the same thing. It's Sony's choice to let a person onto their online network or not. But it's our choice whether to mess with our hardware or not. Sony has no right to sue people like George Hotz.
Neufeldt2002
June 22, 2011 at 5:01pm
I agree with you completely, but unfortunately, Sony has every right to sue whoever they want. Whether they succeed or not depends on the court and what they are suing for. We may not like it, but it is their right.
joel1981ia
June 22, 2011 at 10:57am
Blast Sony (BS - an acronym which is equally applicable in this case)! They are making tons of money off people who are buying these devices!
Wait, did I say buying? Of course I did, but what I really meant was getting ripped off. Shelling out the amount of money that a PS3 (or PS2, or most any console these days for that matter) gives you the right to do anything you want to it (as long as nobody else is getting harmed in the process). If you want to run over it with a car, use it as target practice or batting practice, is Sony going to sue you?
When a company sets a price on a product to sell to someone they should automatically expect someone is going to want to modify it. Look at cars, there have been custom hot rods for years, and I don't see Ford or Chevy getting p'd off!
So he wants Linux on his device, didn't know that was a crime, Linux isn't complaining, so no offense on that side of the fence. Is he really hurting Sony? really? Come on, if you have sold the machine then that is the maximum guaranteed profit you're going to get off of it, so Sony needs to shut its pie-hole.
I felt a little sorry for Sony the first time they got hacked, but now I wish the hacker group (whoever it is, Lulsec, Anon, whoever) should go ahead and take them down permanently. After what's already been exposed about their knowledge of network security you'll never see me connect to their network again, since they continued to have data exposed as soon as they were back online (repeatedly)!
Also there is no laws against having or distributing knowledge to others. It's called teaching...and if I write software that I am charging money for, and someone pirates it, then OK...when you create something you're NEVER guaranteed to sell a single item, thus you're not losing anything when it is pirated. Losing is being unsuccessful in retaining possession of, or to suffer loss. Claiming that it is 'costing money' or that the company is 'losing' money on the pirated software, is completely bogus. I'm not saying people should pirate software, not saying they shouldn't pay for it, but I am only saying that in order to lose money, it must have been in the posession of the entity claiming loss at some point, which is not the case.
Tyger
June 22, 2011 at 9:48am
There are two things that bother me about the whole, "fair use" vs. "TOS" argumemt. Sony wants to say you can't mod a piece of equipment that they sold you. Which is, btw, the only industry that feels this way. When you buy a car, Ford doesn't come up to you and say "Hey you can't put a lift kit on that vehicle, it violates the TOS." But on the other hand, they also want to be able to say when it breaks that it's your system and they aren't responsible for repairing it without further cost to you. I haven't bought a PS3, and with all the other issues they've had, I won't be buying one, further, I won't be buying anymore Sony products at all, and I'll be replacing those that I have. I commend his fight, vain as it may be, but someone with deep pockets needs to fight this fight before the corporations can say, yes you buy our products, you may only use them in the manner we describe, and if there are any problems with the product you have to pay us, and only us, to repair it, or buy a new one.
don2041
June 22, 2011 at 9:02am
I can,t afford to help anyone with money but I can refuse to ever buy another Sony product. Fuck you Sony
don2041
June 22, 2011 at 1:59pm
If I buy a ford and put chevy engine in it and then tell my freinds how to do it .does that make me a criminal NOT
KenLV
June 22, 2011 at 10:39pm
Seriously? You think that that is a realistic analogy? That’s not even apples to oranges.
I Jedi
June 22, 2011 at 8:58am
I feel bad for this person about to go to jail; however, he has stated that if he is to go to jail, that he will go to jail as a matter of principal. He had a chance not to go to jail, if he had done what Sony told him to do, and cease releasing anymore copies of how to mod the PS3. As a matter of principal, though, he decided that it was better to stand up for what you believe in, rather than give into corporate pressure and greed. It is unfortunate because Sony, at one point, supported modding for the PS3 until just recently. I don't think I have his courage to not give into pressure, though. To have my life, friends, everything I know ripped from me for a couple of years over modding a piece of equipment, I just don't know if that is something I would see worth standing up for. In a sense, it is a matter of being able to express once's self, and I can see the justification for wanting to stand up for one's rights. At the same time, I'm sure Sony changed their terms of agreement of use of the PS3 to include no longer giving the right to moddify one's own PS3.
The question remains, though. If we buy a piece of hardware or software, are we not entitled to use that software and hardware in anyway we see fit to our own personal use? After all, you can rip and copy a DVD as many times as you want to, so long as you don't distribute any copies around to your friends or family.
blkpanthr
June 22, 2011 at 9:36am
+1 on the other replys to I Jedi.
I'd also like to point out that sony had asked him to stop distributing the hacks.
No one can stop you from hacking you own equipment in the comfort and privacy of your own home. Fair use or not. Provided of course, there is no theft of service involved. Hack away.
Its when you diseminate that information you run afoul of the law.
Happy
June 22, 2011 at 4:42pm
"Run afoul of the law"? He hadn't broken any laws. Just because Sony has the money to sue him and he doesn't have the money to defend himself and is forced to settle, doesn't mean he was guilty and they were right. It doesn't mean he broke any laws. It just means a rich and powerful company was able to use the legal system to bully a young guy into stopping an action that they didn't like but that was by no means proven to be illegal.
KenLV
June 22, 2011 at 9:10am
“The question remains, though. If we buy a piece of hardware or software, are we not entitled to use that software and hardware in ANYWAY WE SEE FIT to our own personal use?” [my emphasis]
The answer is now and always has been “No.” That is why they have a terms of service and other such agreements. You can use it anyway you see fit that doesn’t violate that TOS or the law. And yes, if they change the TOS and you have previously agreed that they can (and we all do) then yes, they can stop you from doing things you were once able to do.
Also, you speak of a person’s “RIGHT to moddify” [my emphasis], there is no such right. It’s not just you, I see it all the time where we’ve become so jaded that we believe that everything that can be done is a “right” born unto us simply for existing and can never be taken away.
TommM
June 22, 2011 at 9:23am
Well put, KenLV.
It's mind-boggling the sense of entitlement the current generation has. It's OK to pirate (using a litany of lame excuses like "I wasn't going to buy it anyway," or "the company makes plenty of money so they're not going to miss my theft"), etc. Now there's all this uproar over how dare they prosecute this poor, innocent man of breaking the TOS to hack a component - with the clear purpose of being able to use it to run pirated games. All the entitlement kiddies are up in huff now.
What's most hilarious, is if any of these people had something stolen from them, or had put out a product that someone modified to lessen the value of it, they would be screaming bloody murder at the top of their lungs about it.
To hell with this putz. He knew exactly what he was doing, was just out trying to make a name for himself in the hacker community. He gets everything he deserves.
And I'm not saying Sony is some corporate white knight. Far from it - they have plenty of dirty laundry in their basket. But this situation with the hacking of it's console is clear cut in regards to disregarding the copy protection and TOS.
Happy
June 22, 2011 at 4:44pm
TOS isn't law. They can stop giving you updates and bar you from their network but they can't put you in jail for modding your own equipment and software. (and yes, once you buy it it's yours, now and forever.)
KenLV
June 22, 2011 at 10:35pm
I realize it’s tiresome to actually read what someone wrote instead of what you want them to have said, but I specifically wrote “…or the law.” Because no, the one is civil and will not result in jail time (unless you then defy a judges orders in which case you bet your sweet ass you can be tossed in jail) and the other criminal which, despite your assertions otherwise can and WILL result in jail time. Sorry, but wishing it so doesn’t make it so.
Vegan
June 22, 2011 at 9:08am
"After all, you can rip and copy a DVD as many times as you want to"
Not according to the DMCA. Backing up isn't illegal, but circumventing the copy protection is. Sneaky.
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