After a court order was issued preventing rapper-turned-hacker George Hotz from ever hacking Sony products again, Hotz has begun a boycott on the electronics giant’s wares.
As previously posted, Hotz agreed to, basically, never mess around with another Sony product ever again. He’s barred from “unauthorised access to any Sony product under the law”, and will be in deep trouble if he violates a Sony product’s terms of service, “whether or not Hotz has accepted such agreement or terms of use”.
If he’s found to have breached those stipulations, he’s liable to face a $US10,000 fine per violation, up to a maximum “cap” of $US250,000.
In the wake of this, Hotz is taking part in a Sony boycott. “I am joining the SONY boycott,” Hotz blogged earlier this week. “I will never purchase another SONY product.”
“I encourage you to do the same,” he added. “And if you bought something SONY recently, return it.”
If Hotz was buying Sony products to hack and tinker with, it doesn’t make much sense for him to purchase them. But it’s like he’s rolling over, taking his toys and going home. Not everyone likes what Sony did to Hotz, sure, but then again, not everyone tries to hack Sony products. Some people like to play video games on them.
Even with the order issue settled, Hotz doesn’t seem like he’s ready to let it go. In one of his most recent posts, titled “A New Topic”, Hotz continues to rail on Sony. He now says the focus of the blog will be the Other OS lawsuit. His next post details his appearance in the mainstream media. Go figure.
But why should anyone care what Hotz thinks about this Other OS case? He caved, gave in, agreed he wouldn’t hack Sony products again. Sure, he didn’t get sued for a gajillion dollars, but Sony “won”. Hotz did not.
Writes Hotz, “Basically if Sony does bad things, you better not call them out, or they’ll attempt to make your life hell.”
geohot got sued [Official Site][Pic]
Republished from Kotaku
bob
Thursday, April 14, 2011 at 6:55 AMThis is stupid. He hacked into the PS3 and otherOS and gets sued. He cant buy anymore Sony products and now he wants people to not buy Sony products because he ruined the fun for everyone. You gotta be stupid to follow this guy because he ruined everything for everyone.
Peter Simpson
Thursday, April 14, 2011 at 9:59 AMI think you’ll find Sony ruined the fun for everyone. Dodgy drm, abusing otheros to get tax breaks, then removing the feature because hackers use Linux (funnily enough!) and now treating their own customers as criminals. I boycotted Sony at the start of this mess and let them know about it too.
Devz
Thursday, April 14, 2011 at 8:19 PM+1 Peter. Perfect, summarized post.
But the article itself.. was a bit of an abortion. Wouldn’t have been the first one i’d copy Gizmodo.
Nathan Young
Thursday, April 14, 2011 at 11:46 AMPeter is right.
Geo OWNED his PS3. Why shouldn’t he be able to do what he likes with it? How would you like to buy a car and then be told you can’t put a turbo in it, or put your own radio unit in?
I’m actually surprised that Sony won so easily, given the success in US Courts regarding the jailbreaking of iPhones. The Court said jailbreaking was fine, did they not? So why should a PS3 be any different?
eye
Thursday, April 14, 2011 at 6:56 AMI think that your take on this is astonishing. He “caved” you say? .. well I can tell you for sure I’d too “cave” if faced with Sony’s legal-team strength and a legal system catering to the big boys notwithstanding the logic of it.
What he didn’t “cave” about was making his voice heard on the subject. Which, hopefully, will cause people to think a little bit about what their rights are in terms of the products they purchase.
In my mind if I want to hack something I’ve purchased, that’s my right. If we were to follow this folderol to the logical conclusion Ford could set up a “user agreement” on every one of its cars that specified that if we may never use a set of tires not specified by Ford.
How would you feel about having to buy your tires exclusively from ford for the rest of the life of the car… EXACTLY THE SAME THING AS HACKING SOMETHING SONY…
Frostwa
Thursday, April 14, 2011 at 9:07 AM+1
Sony f**ked everyone over with the dual boot removal, what’s the difference here Sony between what you did and what Geohotz did?
wokwon
Thursday, April 14, 2011 at 9:37 AMI stopped buying Sony products when their CDs came with bonus rootkits, and haven’t bought anything from them since.
Devz
Thursday, April 14, 2011 at 8:20 PMLOL. Same.
Owen
Thursday, April 14, 2011 at 9:49 AMIf Sony released an XBMC-like system for the PS3 that was downloadable from their store for $30-$40, I wouldn’t see any need to hack it at all (apart from the Other OS feature; thought that was quite nifty, didn’t the US Navy buy like 1400 PS3′s for a cluster?).
Still. XMBC on the PS3 come onnnnnn
Ed powers
Thursday, April 14, 2011 at 10:02 AMFAIL Sony. Massive bad press.
FAIL HOTZ. Undermining and copping out on the community.
Jon
Thursday, April 14, 2011 at 11:43 AM……so Geohotz, what’s you xbox LIVE gamertag? lol