The geohot Vs Sony case has come an end…well as far as legally. Sony posted a statement on their blog and it goes something like this...
Sony Computer Entertainment America (“SCEA”) and George Hotz (“Hotz”) today announced the settlement of the lawsuit filed by SCEA against Hotz in federal court in San Francisco, California. The parties reached an agreement in principle on March 31, 2011. As part of the settlement, Hotz consented to a permanent injunction.
Both parties expressed satisfaction that litigation had been quickly resolved. “Sony is glad to put this litigation behind us,” said Riley Russell, General Counsel for SCEA. “Our motivation for bringing this litigation was to protect our intellectual property and our consumers. We believe this settlement and the permanent injunction achieve this goal.”
“It was never my intention to cause any users trouble or to make piracy easier,” said Hotz, I’m happy to have the litigation behind me.” Hotz was not involved in the recent attacks on Sony’s internet services and websites.
In the action, SCEA accused Hotz of violating federal law by posting online information about the security system in the PlayStation 3 videogame console and software that SCEA claimed could be used to circumvent the security system in the console and allow the playing of pirated videogames. Hotz denies any wrongdoing on his part. Hotz’s motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction was still pending before the federal court in San Francisco but a preliminary injunction was issued requiring Hotz to take down the postings challenged by SCEA.
“We want our consumers to be able to enjoy our devices and products in a safe and fun environment and we want to protect the hard work of the talented engineers, artists, musicians and game designers who make PlayStation games and support the PlayStation Network,” added Russell. “We appreciate Mr. Hotz’s willingness to address the legal issues involved in this case and work with us to quickly bring this matter to an early resolution.”
This battle, war or whatever you wanna call It is basically a cat and mouse game. Sony would push out a update, hackers would tease that it could be hacked, a custom firmware comes out and then the cycle continues on. Hotz is pretty much done, Sony has him on their bitch list and he pretty much has no powers in the hacking community at this point. I think its interesting how you can see Hotz as a enemy or a friend. Hes your enemy if you notice a lot of cheaters online but hes your friend if you play homebrew and backups on your PS3. Its hard for me to show that i’m on both sides even and not in favor of 1 of the other. YES my PS3 is running the official firmware but that does not mean i don’t admire the work of the homebrew we seen so far. The battle has been fun for the media but a nightmare for Sony. I can’t say what will happen next. Hackers are definitely thinking twice about what they post online. Only time will tell who takes the next shot.
