Burger
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Engadget said:We knew Sony would be non-plussed about the PlayStation 3 jailbreak, and now we have a better idea as to the full extent of its anger. The company has filed suit against George "Geohot" Hotz, the "hacking group" fail0verflow (Hector Cantero, Sven Peter, "Bushing," and "Segher"), and numerous John / Jane Does over the exploit and its release. To be more specific, the company cites violations of Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, various copyright infringements, and other acts of binary malfeasance. A temporary restraining order has also been sought, asking that all "circumvention tools" be taken offline and his computers and related media (i.e. anything storing said tools) be impounded. It looks like Geohot's servers are being slammed at the moment, so we've gone ahead and hosted the relevant PDFs ourselves below. We're still sifting through ourselves and will let you know what we unearth.
http://podcasts.aolcdn.com/engadget/files/GeohotProposedOrder.pdf
http://podcasts.aolcdn.com/engadget/files/GeohotMotion.pdf
*bolded section to better illustrate multiple defendants.
[UPDATE Jan 11th]
Nilay here -- let's take a look at what's going on. This isn't a "lawsuit" in the traditional sense, since Sony hasn't filed a complaint for copyright infringement or whatever against Geohot and friends. Instead, the company appears to be trying to shove the genie back in the bottle and have the jailbreak and any information about the jailbreak removed from the web by filing a temporary restraining order. That might work in the short term -- Geohot's already pulled his pages down -- but history suggests that the forces of paperwork rarely triumph over the righteous anger of nerds, and that this code is out there for good. That said, we'll see what the court says tomorrow; although we very much doubt Sony's melodramatic proposed motion and order will be granted as written, we wouldn't be surprised if some sort of order is eventually granted -- and then from there a formal lawsuit is likely just a few days away.
[UPDATE 13th Jan]
Engadget said:We figured Sony would follow up last night's temporary restraining order against Geohot and fail0verflow for distribution of the PS3 jailbreak with a copyright infringement lawsuit, and well, here it is. It's actually pretty straightforward, as far as these things go -- Sony alleges that George Hotz, Hector Martin Cantero, Sven Peter, and the rest of fail0verflow are:
Violating §1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which forbids bypassing access control measures;
Violating the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which forbids accessing computers without authorization;
Guilty of contributory copyright infringement for encouraging and helping others to crack PS3s as well;
Violating the California Computer Crime Law, which is the state computer fraud act (think of this as a backup fraud claim);
Violating the PlayStation Network's Terms of Service (which feels meaningless, really);
Interfering with Sony's relationships with other PSN customers (also meaningless);
Trespassing on Sony's ownership right to the PS3 (this one feels weak) and;
Misappropriating Sony's intellectual property (another weak argument, but there in case the copyright argument fails).
Sony's asking the court to forbid Geohot and fail0verflow from distributing the jailbreak and turn over all computer hardware and software that contain the jailbreak code, as well as unspecified damages and attorneys' fees. Yep, these boys done got sued -- and we're sure there'll be some serious fireworks once they lawyer up and fight right back.
http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/12/sony-follows-up-officially-sues-geohot-and-fail0verflow-over-ps/
sangreal said:I downloaded from pacer all 156 pages of documents filed in this case so far for anyone interested: http://www.thesangreal.net/gaf/sony.zip
[UPDATE 14th Jan]
Courtesy of GAF member Sangreal:
sangreal said:Sony has filed a new motion to seal the rest of the confidential info they forgot to seal in Document 4
Geohot's lawyer has filed some screenshots of his own in response to Sony's claims. Mostly in regards to Sony removing OtherOS support.
I'm uploading them to RECAP here:http://ia700401.us.archive.org/35/i...d.235965/gov.uscourts.cand.235965.docket.html
psx-scene said:Thanks to our new PSX-SCENE member Sangreal who was kind enough to drop us all the latest court files.
The best reading is #04.pdf, which is 280+ pages of printouts from various forums, websites, etc.
And Sony has not been idle either. They filed new papers showing that forum users have been cloning and mirroring the various GIT's, also noting that at one point Mr. Hotz had removed the 'root key' from his website. It is clear that Sony has been keeping an Eagle Eye on all the sites practically minute by minute!
A strange tactic Sony is attempting to use against Mr. Hotz was to send him $1 via his paypal account, which was the same as his email address, to prove that he was taking donations, even though he never requested any donations at any time! -- Naughty SCEA!
But, not to worry, it seems Mr. Hotz has hired a very good lawyer and his defense filings are a testament to that. They make for good reading also.
[UPDATE Jan 14th]
SAN FRANCISCO A federal judge here on Friday put off deciding whether PlayStation 3 hacker George Hotz should surrender his computer gear as part of a lawsuit from console-maker Sony.
Sony sued Hotz on Tuesday, alleging Hotz posting of the code to crack the PlayStation 3 was a breach of the Digital Millennium Copyright Acts anti-circumvention provisions. Sony, which is also seeking unspecified monetary damages, also wanted Hotz to remove any code the New Jersey man had uploaded to the internet last week.
U.S. District Judge Susan Illston, without deciding any of the merits of Sonys DMCA claim and other allegations, said she was unsure whether the lawsuit should even be tried in her courtroom. She wondered aloud whether the case should be aired in the 21-year-olds home state of New Jersey, where the hacking took place.
Im really worried about the jurisdictional question, the judge said from the bench during a 20-minute hearing.
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/01/playstation-lawsuit-limbo/
[UPDATE Jan 27th]
Court grants Sony's temporary restraining order against Geohot, PS3 jailbreak still available everywhere
It looked for a moment like Geohot and fail0verflow might beat Sony's DMCA lawsuit over the PS3 jailbreak on a jurisdictional technicality, but things didn't go their way: the US District Court for the Northern District of California granted Sony's request for a temporary restraining order forbidding Mr. Hotz and his merry men from distributing or linking to the jailbreak, helping or encouraging others to jailbreak, hacking into the PS3 or PSN, or distributing any information they've found while hacking. What's more, they've been ordered to turn over any computers or storage media used to create the jailbreak to Sony's lawyers -- although we've got a feeling Geohot's attorneys will raise a bit of a fuss about that.
Of course, this doesn't mean that Sony's won anything substantive -- it's just proven to the court that the jailbreak will cause it ongoing harm while the case continues, and it still has to actually win its formal lawsuit to collect any damages or a permanent injunction. And let's not forget that forcing Geohot to stop distributing it won't stop anyone else -- in almost an exact mirror of the deCSS case, we're already seeing the jailbreak mirrored all over the internet. Way to learn from history, Sony.
http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/27/court-grants-sonys-temporary-restraining-order-against-geohot/