Sony, Hotz Settle Lawsuit
Linked by Thom Holwerda on Mon 11th Apr 2011 22:17 UTC
Legal Well, it seems like Sony vs. George Hotz has ended pretty much without a bang. Sony announced on its Playstation blog that the two parties have settled the case. Under the settlement, Hotz agrees to a permanent injunction fo his jailbreaking hack, but admits to no wrong-doing. A wise and, dare I say it, mature end to the lawsuit.
E-mail Print r 3   · Read More · 39 Comment(s) http://osne.ws/j00
Thread beginning with comment 469865
To view parent comment, click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
RE[2]: My take
by WereCatf on Tue 12th Apr 2011 06:51 UTC in reply to "RE: My take"
WereCatf
Member since:
2006-02-15

If you're talking about the US, I don't think there's any question on where consumers stand legally. If you jailbreak something that's not a phone or an ereader, you take it up the ass.


It is in fact a grey area now that the DMCA exception for mobile phones was made. The question remains: would such an exception also be made for consoles, and what types of consoles? Especially with the case of the more powerful ones that are indeed capable of being used as a general-purpose computer too. And yet in addition Sony itself was telling both publicly and in legal documents that PS3 is a computer, and in other cases that it isn't, and if it is indeed deemed a computer one could for example try and use interoperability laws as a lever for more rights to it.

You see, there's lots of stuff that is now in the grey and a precedent in either direction would have cleared the matters.

Reply Parent Score: 2

RE[3]: My take
by rhavyn on Tue 12th Apr 2011 15:32 in reply to "RE[2]: My take"
rhavyn Member since:
2005-07-06

It is in fact a grey area now that the DMCA exception for mobile phones was made.


That isn't how the DMCA exception mechanism works. The Librarian of Congress issues a list of exceptions. That is *the* list. If it's not explicitly on the list then it is not covered by an exception. If the Librarian of Congress wanted more than just cell phones on the list, they would be on the list. There is no grey area there unless there is a question as to whether or not the device is a phone. I don't think that question exists for game consoles however.

Reply Parent Score: 2

RE[4]: My take
by boldingd on Tue 12th Apr 2011 17:13 in reply to "RE[3]: My take"
boldingd Member since:
2009-02-19

The DMCA would mainly cover Sony's operating system. IANAL, but you can still do whatever you want with your own hardware. If you found some way to completely remove Sony's original software and replace it wholesale with your own, that would be perfectly legal, as far as I know.

Reply Parent Score: 2

Read more of this thread... >