George Hotz, bittet um Spenden für den ihm bevorstehenden Prozess gegen Sony. Hotz, der auch in der iPhone-Jailbreak-Szene eine wichtige Rolle spielt, hatte eine Anleitung veröffentlicht, wie man Herr seiner PS3 wird, woraufhin Sonys Anwälte vor Gericht seine Festplatten erklagt haben.
Sony sued the wrong guy
I am an advocate against mass piracy, do not distribute anyone’s copyrighted work but my own, do not take crap lying down, and am even pro DRM in a sense. For example, I believe Apple has every right to lock down their iPhone in the factory as much as they want, but once it’s paid for and mine, I have the right to unlock it, smash it, jailbreak it, look at it, and hack on it.
Fortunately, the courts agree with me on this point.
My PS3 goal has been to provide users a legitimate path to homebrew, which by the standards of all previous cases (or, in reverse), is 100% legal. Sony does not even try to allege piracy or copyright infringement in this case, they allege I did things like play „super mario world, an unauthorized game“ on MY PS3. And access MY PS3 in an unauthorized way. Who are they to authorize what I do with my taxed and paid for property?
fail0verflow’s goal was even nobler than mine. They wanted to give you back a feature Sony illegally stole, Linux on your PS3. It’s shameful on Sony’s part that they are being sued at all. If you have a problem with pirates, sue them, don’t sue people who point out your shortcomings.Why should I care about your personal legal troubles?
You shouldn’t. For example, if I was taken to court for sex crimes in Sweden, I would never ask for donations. But this case isn’t about me. Clearly I am not being sued because of something I have that Sony wants, I am being sued in order to send a message that Sony is not to be messed with. But if I(and all codefendants likewise) actually win this, we have the power to send a much stronger message back. That consumers have rights, and we aren’t afraid to stand up for them.
Ich würde gerne spenden, bin aber zu spät dran: Die erste Spendenrunde ist geschlossen, die Kosten sind gedeckt und Hotz will sich nicht persönlich bereichern.
Unter einem neuen Blog berichtet GeoHot er über den Fall. Dort wird er auch eine nächste Spendenrunde bekanntgeben, wenn sie notwendig wird.
Auch die Internet-Bürgerwehr ist auf den Fall aufmerksam geworden und ruft zum Boykott auf. Dem schließe ich mich allein schon deshalb an, weil ich nie zum Kauf von Hardware raten würde, die einem dann nicht gehört.