Sony America Files Lawsuit Against US PS JailBreak ReSeller

[Chris9092]

I don't know about everyone else but this just seems like Sony is preventing other people from making a ridiculous amount of money from this. As previously stated they haven't released a firmware to block this, but they are trying to block companies from selling it.

They seem more set on stopping companies from exploiting users (making them pay $200 for something thats pretty much free now) then stopping the jailbreak as a whole, which isn't really a bad thing.

[Transient]

How can they try to prove someone's intent in court?? These are supposed to be for backing games you own up. They cannot say that people will or will not steal things with them. This is complete trash.

If there was no way to pirate games whatsoever and you could only install and play your own games from the hard drive, I'd still be really interested in this device. I have a ton of games, and I hate having to get off my butt and swap discs for no good reason. That's one of the few bonuses of digital downloads IMO, so being able to extend that to physical media is a huge plus.

It would be the ultimate irony if this could somehow be litigated in court, under the precedence that the jigs Sony use at their repair centers would, under this clause, be considered "dongles". If Sony should ever replace their existing jigs (which I image they will after this is all said and done), then the old jigs may fall under this clause, as they would no longer be manufactured, nor made readily available,replaceable nor repairable by Sony. Not sure if this is the case, but it's an interesting concept.

The intent of that law is for software like 3D Studio that requires (or used to anyway) a hardware device to be connected in order for the software to run. When the software is discontinued and the dongle is no longer for sale, it would be unreasonable to expect someone to stop using their software simply because the dongle stopped working.

While it would be pretty interesting to see a court ruling on the Sony jig, I think it'd be a stretch to say it applies to the PS3. Not to say it couldn't happen, but pretty unlikely IMO. I think a ruling that the jailbreak is legal is much more likely, especially since Sony closed the door to PS3 homebrew development via Other OS. I'd love to see that come back and bite them in the rear.

[tripellex]

The intent of that law is for software like 3D Studio that requires (or used to anyway) a hardware device to be connected in order for the software to run. When the software is discontinued and the dongle is no longer for sale, it would be unreasonable to expect someone to stop using their software simply because the dongle stopped working.

I agree, that is the intent of the revised clause. But, the way it's worded, legally there may be some "wiggle room" for alternative situations, as they are somewhat vague on the statute. That's what's cool about the law (I'll be starting pre-law next Spring at the ripe old age of 32), is that unless you're VERY specific, there's enough leeway legally to be argued in court. I'm not saying the jigs or Jailbreaks fall under this clause, I'm just saying its an interesting idea if someone were to stretch the boundaries of the scope of the clause, and create a case from it.

[Bishoff]

Sony was indeed releasing a firmware update that was supposed to be released at the end of August, but they pulled it claiming they hadn't finished the blu ray 3D playback part yet. I call BS as it was pulled when the Jailbreak was announced and proven to work. They are working as we speak on the next firmware update to try and close up this exploit rest assured. They say it should come out next month now so we can still get online and test backups for now.

[tripellex]

Sony was indeed releasing a firmware update that was supposed to be released at the end of August, but they pulled it claiming they hadn't finished the blu ray 3D playback part yet. I call BS as it was pulled when the Jailbreak was announced and proven to work. They are working as we speak on the next firmware update to try and close up this exploit rest assured. They say it should come out next month now so we can still get online and test backups for now.

If you notice, anytime Sony releases a firmware that patches/removes something potentially exploitative, they do it under the guise of "adding new features", such as the 3D gaming, etc. So they're trying to entice us with a trade-off. "We'll take away your OtherOS, but we'll give you 3D Gaming as a consolation prize". They won't just come out and release a JB fix. Oh no. They'll try the ol' bait-n-switch and offer us some crap they were going to add to the system at some point anyways.

[girlsname]

Like I do every morning now, I checked over at ModChipCentral to see what the latest news on PSJB coming in was. The front page is missing the normal advert about it and its not in the PS3->ModChips area either. I shot off an email to them asking what was up. Just wondering if someone else knew anything about this.

[tripellex]

+Rep for the head's up, girlsname!

More than likely they took them down either in anticipation of, or receipt of a cease-and-desist from the court, similar to what happened to OzMod and Quantranics.

[doorman]

See, this is the part of it that's interesting to me.

Many of the devs have already said that it is possible for Sony to block/detect this via a frimware update. Yet, there's been no mention of one from Sony. Granted there probably will be one coming, but there's usually talk of one before it hits the streets.

It's odd to me that Sony is putting so much time/money into lawsuits over something that is already in the wild. Maybe they are just going for damage control, but it's inevitably out there now and can't be feasably stopped. Sony can't control/sue the entire world. Many countries laws would rule against them. Maybe they are just hitting the major countries to try and set a precedent.

However, we've already seen how crazy Sony goes over the mere mention of a possible hack (r.i.p. OtherOS). So I guess it's not agains't Sony's nature to go overboard on something like this. I would think that a company that big would have enough sense to know when you've been defeated on something.

Because legally they are required to defend their copyright or their trademark (can't remember which) or else they can lose it.

[PSPSwampy]

I love the way the site's come alive again - just like the good old PSP days!

The way I look at it is - Sony shouldn't have removed OtherOS - I'm sure there are a number of devs who decided to commit much more time hacking the console since sony removed it.

I think jailbreak/psgroove will (eventually) allow us to get back the feature that we paid for (OtherOS) - so I say Screw you sony.

I really DO hope this all bites sony in the ass - they've been screwing us for years, time to return the favour!

PSPSwampy.

[nimportequoi]

If there is a patch for this security hole it shouldn't take long, either boot instructions are part of the firmware (bios) or not, either they rewrite the usb handshake or sue companies selling jailbreaks, so far it seems the later.

I unfortunatly doubt it cannot be patched, the exploit was Sony's way to run diagnostic tools internally at servicing, they knew it had the potential of being stolen or leaked, they probably are going into damage control, because even with a patch you have 5 years of compatible PS3 games, sure games don't run like retails right now, but it's a matter of time before someone write a proper PS3-like game launcher with updates, online and dlc working rather than this beta backup manager.