Thread: PR v.75 PATCH AVAILABLE

I hate all Sony products made after 2005.

I still fail to see how Sony end up as the bad guy in this for legitimately protecting their own interests. Basically, Geohot was doing something with their console that Sony felt was going to harm their business interests, and they asked him to stop. He didn't, so they took legal action to make him stop.
Hell, it looks like they've even come to an agreement with Geohot that on the face of things looks like it says to Geohot "we'll drop this whole thing if you just stop posting the stuff publicly" - effectively allowing him to get away scot free from a case that was certainly starting to stack up against him if reports were to be believed.

Yes, they probably could have dealt with certain parts of it a little (or a lot) better, but I still believe Sony have the same right to take something to a court of law if they feel they're being wronged as you do or I do, and criticizing them for exercising that right is ridiculous. You might not agree with their stance on jailbreaking or their approach with enforcing it, but when it was clear Geohot wasn't going to stop short of an injunction (which appears to now be the case), what other option did they have?

As far as I recall, there have been no prosecutions or any other kind of action taken as a result of those details being retrieved. I'm fairly sure they must have had a valid reason for requesting those details, otherwise the injunction to grant Sony access to those IPs wouldn't have been granted by the judge in charge. Let's not lose sight of the fact that everything Sony did in that case was deemed legal and necessary by a court of law.

As for the actual gathering of IPs, from where I was sitting it all looked like hysteria stirred up by the vocal few. There was NEVER any indication that Sony were going to prosecute anyone for simply visiting those sites or viewing those videos other than a few ill-informed but very opinionated columnists screaming "OMG PRIVACY IS RUINED FOR EVAR!!!".

As for the Other OS feature, the official reasoning behind the removal of it is that people were using a certain version of Linux installed via Other OS to play copied/pirated games, so Sony decided to remove it to protect their business. I wouldn't say that's unreasonable on their part. Let's not forget that anyone who accepted the update that clearly stated the 'Other OS' function was being removed did so of their own free will - the update process has to be initiated by the user.

I'm not trying to defend Sony to the hilt here - I agree that there have been certain aspects of this whole saga that leave me a little uncomfortable as to where the consumer stands in the grand scheme of things, not to mention the way Sony sees and is prepared to treat their customers, but it's been a source of great annoyance to me to see people painting Sony as the big bad in all of this when all they did was enforce their legal right to stop someone distributing information that could harm their business.

Yeah, you need to have the most recent system update to use the PSN. However, if using the 'Other OS' function is so hugely important to you that you'd be willing to risk getting sued by a multinational corporation, then the Playstation Network probably won't be too much of a sacrifice to make.
Also, it is explicitly mentioned in the terms of use for the PSN that having the latest firmware is mandatory, just the same as on the Xbox (as you pointed out). However, the fact is, people had a choice - they could choose not to install that update if the use of the Other OS function was so important to them.

First off, I honestly don't care if it was legal. America has been ruined, but that's a different rant. Back on point, just because the Patriot act makes it legal to wiretap me doesn't mean that I agree with or like my privacy invaded.

The unfortunate fact is, whether you like/agree with it or not, that still doesn't change the law. A judge deemed that the gathering of those IP addresses was necessary in order for Sony to present their case effectively, and that's the way it is. I don't know if I agree with it personally, but neither you or I are in possession of all the facts, so in the absence of that information we have to assume that the judge had something to go on to suggest that this was a necessary course of action to take - I severely doubt they'd have given it the go-ahead just for shits and giggles.