Settlement in George Hotz Case

http://blog.us.playstation.com/2011/04/11/settlement-in-george-hotz-case/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=george_hotz_041111

by remi • 15 years ago

106 105 15 years ago

blog.us.playstation.com

forwardslash• 15 years ago

Any details on the settlement?

lloeki• 15 years ago

Most probably the settlement includes a clause not to talk about the settlement. Also, the second clause of the club^Wsettlement is... well you get the point.

johng• 15 years ago

I wonder how much the anonymous pressure weighed on their decision for a quick settlement?

roel_v2• 15 years ago

Given the terms, probably 0.

andrewcooke• 15 years ago

what are the terms? (you talk as if you know them; i can't find any info anywhere)

sycren2• 15 years ago

Prob nil as the settlement was decided at the end of march

steipete• 15 years ago

Sucks. He should have gone down the road, fighting for his rights to legally hack the PS3.

nkassis• 15 years ago

Yeah but at the same time it's not just him that should have to deal with all the trouble that fighting would have caused him. Sometimes you have to pick your fights.

extension• 15 years ago

Too bad, because he seemed to be winning and he had enough public support to take the fight as far as he wanted. He could have made an example of Sony. They will likely choose someone more vulnerable for their next victim.

tezmc• 15 years ago

That's easy to say when you're not the one being sued by a company with very deep pockets.

catshirt• 15 years ago

"Sony is glad to put this litigation behind us,” said Riley Russell, General Counsel for SCEA."

likely because they realized they were being dipshits half way through. glad this case is over and i can't believe it wasted so much time. my respect and empathy goes to hotz; i'm sure his past few months were miserable.

jonursenbach• 15 years ago

I wonder if the recent Anonymous attacks, specifically on Howard Stringer's family, had anything to do with this.

jarin2• 15 years ago

The comments on that post seem awfully one-sided.

nzmsv2• 15 years ago

What can't believe are the comments on that page. Are people really that eager to praise their "overlords" in the name of "better gaming"? But can there really be that many trolls?

The scary part is that these are most likely real people, who like their control and surveillance just fine, and are the majority. Which means we will probably see a completely locked down internet sooner or later.

JonnieCache6• 15 years ago

They are 14 year old playstation fanboys, who have a religious devotion to their console brand of choice. This stems from the teenage search for identity. Having made violently strong cases for their favoured console in arguments with their friends at school, they are now ideologically wedded to this position and unable to deviate from it one iota for fear of the inconsistency being seen as weakness, and more importantly, of it undermining their own fragile sense of who they are: a Playstation Fan.

It's basically a microcosm of partisan politics. Don't worry too much about it.

EDIT: Alternatively they could be very lazy astroturfers.

EDIT2: The comparison of console wars to partisan politics has raised another question that I've never considered before: what will happen in a few decades time when the children of people who have themselves been gaming since childhood reach their teen years? Will we see similar patterns to politics, where children tend to inherit their views from their parents without question? Will parents war with their children over their opposing views on gaming?

"This family has played nintendo for four generations! I'll be damned if any son of mine is going to play an xbox 1080 under my roof!"

nzmsv2• 15 years ago

Those were my initial thoughts as well, but my next thought was that it could very well be that the general public simply does not care about issues like open information. They are happy as long as they get their games or Facebook access, and when faced with a question about such a matter they will believe the authority on the subject. And reading HN provides false hope.

mquander• 15 years ago

Regarding your second edit, it's not as if brand loyalty is some amazing emergent phenomenon in the 14-year-old-game-console-consumer-ecosystem. People are just as loyal to brands of operating systems, cars, banks, food, pants, cigarettes, useful pocket tools, kitchenware, and high-efficiency toilets, and they've been so forever.

simias2• 15 years ago

The comments on this blog entry scare me. Fanboyism and groupthink pushed to the limit.

EDIT: ah well, I see that this opinion is shared. It kind of cheers me up. Kind of.

tuhin• 15 years ago

Awesome Sony. Hope you gave it to him good.

Is this for real?

The moment I read the comments I was like, "this is so different from the view people have on HN". Also I am sure these are kids who just swear by their consoles. Sadly they are Sony's biggest chunk of consumers.

kenkam• 15 years ago

At first I was taken back by the comments but then I realised that they are the opposing camp. HN readers support Geohot while Playstation.com readers support... Sony. Just 2 sides of the story.

henrikschroder• 15 years ago

There's a belief among some gamers that the cracking of a console somehow, magically, enables people to cheat in online games. And driven by that belief and a hate for cheaters, they go after the wrong target.

Macuyiko• 15 years ago

The belief is mostly correct however, although it is true that the targets are indeed wrong. People doing the initial grunt work of cracking a console are not the same people as the ones developing cheats.

jcarreiro• 15 years ago

Many of the commenters at Ars Technica (which has been following this story closely) have similar opinions of Sony and of Mr. Hotz.

Those praising the actions of Sony don't seem to understand any of the larger issues here. It doesn't matter to them that free inquiry is being destroyed in order to shield the embarrassing secrets of a huge corporation from public view, as long as they can boot up their game console and play their shiny new video game without any inconvenience.

citricsquid2• 15 years ago

can we blame them?

ascendant3• 15 years ago

I could hardly hear my own thoughts over the bleating of all those sheep.

JonnieCache6• 15 years ago

>sheep

Someone who trots out such hackneyed clichés should be careful criticising others for following the crowd.

adestefan• 15 years ago

Much like the comments that I see on HN, ArsTechnica, reddit, ...

ascendant3• 15 years ago

To a degree, yes. Fanboy-ism creeps up on the best of us. I'd like to think that at least in some places (like HN), the commentators are more educated on the topics they're discussing.

marshray• 15 years ago

Apparently the great majority of visitors to Sony's PlayStation blog haven't experienced the joy of developing their own firmware and operating system for their home supercomputer appliance.

Poor souls. I always knew video games would destroy the mind and the ability to appreciate the finer things in life.

maximilianburke• 15 years ago

From geohot's website:

> What if SCEA tries to settle?

> Lets just say, I want the settlement terms to include OtherOS on all PS3s and an apology on the PlayStation blog for ever removing it. It'd be good PR for Sony too, lord knows they could use it. I'm also willing to accept a trade, a legit path to homebrew for knowledge of how to stop new firmwares from being decrypted.

I wonder if any of those terms were met?

mrcharles• 15 years ago

Not a chance. Most likely Hotz realized what he was in for if he stuck it out long haul and decided it was worth having a life and a job instead.

It's really unfortunate for everyone that it ended this way.

geoffw8• 15 years ago

Yeah I don't blame the guy. Personally, I think I might have gone to south America!

eof• 15 years ago

This still looks like a win for geohot though. Unless there is something missing from the agreement, a 'permanent injuction' on one person hosting information that has already spread virally is basically worthless to sony.

I'm sure his idealism faded sitting on the wrong side of a table of lawyers, though.

bena3• 15 years ago

Unlikely.

They probably showed Hotz just how much he was about to get reamed and he folded. Not commenting on the legality or rightness of either side, just the fact that Sony probably has a lot more money and lot more lawyers dedicated to stuff like this.

wtallis4• 15 years ago

If that were the case, why would Sony be willing to drop it? It's not like the case was ever about just Hotz, because Sony knew from the start they would never get any significant damages out of him. It was about publicity and precedent.

In trying to establish personal jurisdiction, Sony got to dig up basically all the dirt on Hotz. Even though they claimed several times to have found a "smoking gun", they never did, and they could tell that they weren't going to in the full discovery process.

Neither side could risk a trial, because it would have been solely about nuanced interpretations of laws that weren't written with modern technology in mind. The outcome of a bench or jury trial would have been essentially random, and a long appeals process would have been necessary to truly settle things.

Osiris• 15 years ago

Considering that the blog post made no mention whatsoever of OtherOS, I would suspect not.

My guess is that the settlement agreement is basically exactly what they said, that he'll stop distributing the code or any future modifications of that code. I'm sure Hotz lawyer came to realize that a protracted battle, even if he would win, would cost far more than Hotz would be able to pay.

bitwize• 15 years ago

Hotz knew he would lose. The law is clear and he broke it. He settled to avoid a protracted legal battle, at the end of which awaited jail time.

greyfade2• 15 years ago

The law is not clear. Not on this matter, anyway. There's a lot of legal precedent in favor of Hotz, but not enough to conclusively say that what he did is, strictly speaking, legal or illegal.

The fact of the matter is that because they settled, that question will not be answered. It won't be, until someone stands their ground and forces the issue all the way to the Supreme Court.

drstrangevibes2• 15 years ago

ka...wha?! I want my money back! I didnt support him so he can settle?!

dailyrorschach• 15 years ago

But you donated to a legal defense fund. You may have hoped for a different outcome, but the fund was for the defense of the individual, and in this case settlement was likely the best defense.

But maybe he promised not to settle in soliciting donations, all I see is a blog post saying here is a legal defense fund. And even if he said he would demand certain things, the fact remains that he was defending himself and has to make the right call.

drstrangevibes2• 15 years ago

No the fund was not for the defence of an individual. You assume that the defence was for an individual and not a community. (from geohot.com) "Together, we can help fix the system". Hardly sounds self serving does it? The community rallied because it was largely felt that an attack on GH was an attack on all of us. I may have reconsidered my donation if GH had said "Together we can help save my ass"

citricsquid2• 15 years ago

once again the naivety of the general "smart" populous is proven.

(not intended to insult or anything, I'm part of the naive populous, but this seems to happen constantly)

afterburner2• 15 years ago

From his blog, he replies in the comments: "I will address the donations in a forthcoming post, and I think people will be happy."

fleitz3• 15 years ago

I donated because I've been in those shoes. I donated so he wouldn't get a million dollar settlement. Trust me, when you're in the position settling for something that doesn't involve millions of dollars that you don't have sounds like a good idea. As they say on Wall St. Stay alive to trade another day.

wmf• 15 years ago

Did you donate enough for him to win?

yardie• 15 years ago

Meh, PS3 is the last console I'll ever buy. I guess for Sony this is a Pyrrhic victory. What they have done is gone out of their way to prove that no, you don't own that box. You bought a box and we can change the contents.

dhechols• 15 years ago

sigh "Hey George. We're your new corporate overlords, telling you to keep quiet about PS3_CONSTANT_ENCRYPTION_KEY." "Ok, can we talk?"

"We'll see you in court." "Shit."

Time passes...

"Hey Sony, here's a ton of money, leave me alone." "Ok."

I cannot express how disappointed I am in this result.

wtallis4• 15 years ago

There's no evidence that Hotz had to pay Sony anything as part of this settlement.

bep2• 15 years ago

George Hotz is not telling much either for the moment http://geohotgotsued.blogspot.com/2011/04/joining-sony-boyco...

xentronium• 15 years ago

Yeah, it's kind of depressing that he cannot even reveal the terms of their settlement agreement. How can this even be legal?

rudyfink• 15 years ago

Generally speaking, the law in the US affords one a broad ability to contract. That is to say A and B can make a deal and a court will hold them to it. This property of the law has obvious and immense value. The ability to contract is not absolute and is limited in some ways.

One of the ways that freedom to contract is limited is that contracts should not contravene public policy. In general, legal settlement, as opposed to going all the way through trial, is considered to be a good thing.

The parties reached an agreement they could accept with and the public did not have to use up scare resources of judicial time. Also, the public did not have to force an outcome on one of the parties.

logic2• 15 years ago

The final judgement has been posted at psx-scene.com:

http://psx-scene.com/forums/f6/settlement-george-hotz-case-8...

Note that this does not include the confidential memorandum of understanding (page 1, line 20), which would contain the meat of what was actually agreed to by both parties.

chopsueyar5• 15 years ago

Wikileaks, where are you?

Xuzz• 15 years ago

Is their case against fail0verflow, who found most of the vulnerabilities geohot actually used to jailbreak it (and re-ported Linux, for example), still on? There's not many details in this post or anywhere else online.

jevinskie• 15 years ago

Sony also dismissed the case against the rest of the defendants (f0f members included). It looked like Sony didn't bother to go after any defendant but geohot after they filed the case. However, SCEE is still suing Alexander Egorenkov (graf_chokolo) in Germany to the tune of 1,000,000 Euro.

emullet• 15 years ago

Does this mean my donation to his 'defense fund' was actually paid to Sony as part of the settlement?

Natsu• 15 years ago

That assumes he paid Sony something, which isn't necessarily true. Given the way things were going, I personally feel that the impetus to settle came from Sony's side, knowing they had a weak case.

It's too bad we don't know all the terms.

vitobcn• 15 years ago

It seems the settlement documents are available on psx-scene.com

dcarlson• 15 years ago

I skimmed it - It's boring. From my reading, George can't hack any more Sony products or talk about hacking Sony products, or direct anyone to talk about hacking Sony products. No money, No promises (though there is some talk about where they promise to sue each other if they do this again). That's it.

logic2• 15 years ago

This is the important part of what you've read:

    19 On March 31,2011, Hotz met with SCEA representatives and the Parties entered
    20 a confidential Memorandum of Understanding, agreeing to settle the dispute between
    21 them.

There's another document (that won't be revealed unless someone leaks it) that details what was actually agreed to.

NHQ• 15 years ago

GeoHot raised arms for a battle. George Hotz exited through the alley.

fleitz3• 15 years ago

I wonder what the 'permanent injunction' prevents him from doing?

Having been in similar situations in court facing virtually unlimited legal budgets and opposing counsel focused on PR victories I can understand why geohotz settled, however, the wording of the statement tells me that the permanent injunction agreed to actually doesn't prevent much otherwise it would be more heavily touted.

I have a feeling this statement "a preliminary injunction was issued requiring Hotz to take down the postings challenged by SCEA." reveals that the injunction was to permanently remove the postings. (eg. Hotz won!)

greyfade2• 15 years ago

It prevents him from doing whatever's in the injunction order.

... Which is under seal, and will only ever be seen by the parties in the case, the Court clerk, and the Judge.

lzy• 15 years ago

Final judgement with more details if anyone's interested, kinda disappointing actually.

http://goo.gl/NAvNl

bep2• 15 years ago

Looks like almost complete defeat to me

dchest2• 15 years ago

Normal link [PDF]: http://psx-scene.com/forums/attachments/f6/26802-settlement-...

JonnieCache6• 15 years ago

In future, please do not post shortlinks here.

praptak• 15 years ago

"Our motivation for bringing this litigation was to protect our intellectual property and our consumers."

Yeah, right. I just hope that any manufacturers of the stuff I own will refrain from "protecting" me in a similar way.

daimyoyo• 15 years ago

For me, the damage to Sony has already been done. I will never buy another Sony product as long as I live.

madmaze• 15 years ago

It almost seems like the the sony comments are filtered to only display pro sony comments. Its sad to see so many people cheer for sony.

chopsueyar5• 15 years ago

Where's the beef? There are no real details.

Settlement in George Hotz Case

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