Sony to ban Playstation 3 jailbreakers: Hotz modder sued

It was big news recently when the Playstation 3 was jailbroken. Sony never released a public statement about the new hacks, but they have now, saying that anyone caught installing third party software will get immediately banned.

George Hotz, an enterprising modder has released a custom firmware for the console, but he is now being sued by Sony for his work. Hotz has said that he sees no problem with running third party software on a console he owns.

So far Sony lawsuits against those who talk about the cracked private key that allows third party software to be signed, hasn't been very successful. Sony however now have a solution, they are going to try and remove core functionality from consoles that have third party code installed.

Sony have issued the following statement:

Unauthorized circumvention devices for the PlayStation 3 system have been recently released by hackers. These devices permit the use of unauthorized or pirated software. Use of such devices or software violates the terms of the “System Software License Agreement for the PlayStation 3 System” and the “Terms of Services and User Agreement” for the PlayStation Network/Qriocity and its Community Code of Conduct provisions. Violation of the System Software Licence Agreement for the PlayStation 3 System invalidates the consumer guarantee for that system. In addition, copying or playing pirated software is a violation of International Copyright Laws. Consumers using circumvention devices or running unauthorized or pirated software will have access to the PlayStation Network and access to Qriocity services through PlayStation 3 system terminated permanently.
To avoid this, consumers must immediately cease use and remove all circumvention devices and delete all unauthorized or pirated software from their PlayStation 3 systems.

This move is sure to be unpopular with the modding community who love to pimp out and personalise their hardware. We can understand Sony wanting to stop piracy, but is killing functionality going to solve their problem?

KitGuru says: What do you think? Are Sony within their rights to do this or do you feel that after you buy the hardware, it is yours to do with as you wish?

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