Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand here we go again.
Just more proof that the American legal system needs to be changed, and quickly. Not even the law itself, just the system that exists to enforce it.
That said, this is just a summary of Geohot's lawyer's brief. Hardly the most reliable or balanced source to take as gospel. However, if the allegations about Sony's misuse of court procedure is true (and bear in mind that they're still only arguing about jurisdiction, not the actual case itself), this could be a very nasty case indeed.
As for the whole "Geohot didn't know SCEA existed" thing, surely that's just pointing out that, since nothing about SCEA regarding the machine or its firmware can be found on the outside packaging of retail PS3s (and, indeed, since there is an agreement between SCEI and SCEA which denies SCEA's claim of ownership over PS3 firmwares):
Attached hereto as Exhibit F is a true and correct copy of a Business Agreement between Sony Japan ("SCEI") and SCEA. The document was produced by SCEA on February 24 at 8:12pm. The Agreement contains acknowledgments by SCEA that SCEI is the owner of all rights in the Playstation 3 system and related IP rights.
and since he did not read the instruction book that came with his PS3 (as proven by the bag it's in still being sealed), that there is a reasonable chance that he might not have seen any mention of SCEA when he first opened and set up his console. That doesn't mean that he didn't know about them beforehand, or didn't read some other instruction book, or whatever the anti-Geohot crowd might counter with, just that he didn't see any mention of SCEA on the PS3 packaging, and can therefore say that he'd never heard of SCEA
without anyone being able to prove otherwise. I think. Boy, that was long, and stupid, but that's how legal mumbo-jumbo works.
On the Hard Drive issue: SquatingYeti said it best.
SquatingYeti said:
What people still don't get is this is still about jurisdiction. Sony, as pointed out by Hotz's attorney, is attempting to use discovery to gather information that has nothing to do with jurisdiction. They will find NOTHING on the computers that would give California jurisdiction. Their original claim was the SDK could be on the computer which had info which would indicate something about SCEA. The reality was that the SDK does NOT contain such information.
So what does it matter if Geohot sent the third-party forensics lab incomplete hard drives (assuming he did, according to the original request) if the whole request was just a Sony misdirection tactic in the first place?
Proxy: You haven't seen all the fanthings spouting falsehoods and FUD about PS3 homebrew on this and other forums for the last few months? Really?
I guess that, in the end, though, UFRA is correct on this whole affair:
UFRA said:
I think the main point we can all take from this is that we should read it with a grain of salt, just like we'd do with Sony's comments.
Sony's objective is to make gehot look bad, and geohot's objective is to make Sony look bad.
I know it's shocking to hear that, but this is how legal battles work. I really don't care about reading stuff like this, I will only care when it's over and we know the results of the case.
