Dear SCEA,
Common sense tells us that when I purchase a product that advertises a feature, then I should be able to use that product with that feature. If I buy a deck of pinochle cards, I should obviously be able to play pinochle with those cards. If the manufacturer later decides that it only wants its customers to play three-handed pinochle, and they tried to take the issue to court, they would be laughed out of the courtroom, even if their package included an EULA saying they can do so.
I bought a Playstation 3, which advertised the ability to run Linux as one of its features. It also advertised the ability to play Blu-ray video discs as another feature. Common sense tells us that both of those features should continue to function for the lifetime of the product. Unfortunately, SCEA, you have decided that you are special, and that common sense does not apply to you. You have decided that you can arbitrarily force customers to impair or disable one of those advertised features.
You recently filed a motion for a temporary restraining order against a few hackers who decided that when they bought a “Playstation 3 computer entertainment system” which advertised the ability to run Linux, they should be able to use it for that purpose.
You are filing charges against people for deciding that they should get what they paid for. You should be laughed out of the courtroom.
With the exception of a difficult and essentially worthless hack by GeoHot, these hackers were content to leave your technological measures alone, uncircumvented. It was not until SCEA removed existing functionality from already-purchased Playstation 3s that fail0verflow became interested in circumventing the restrictions built in to the Playstation 3. Were they interested in piracy, there is no reason they would not have made these efforts years ago.
I’ll repeat that so it’s clear: nobody cared about hacking the PS3 until you, Sony, deliberately removed functionality that your customers had already paid for.
Smartphones can be legally jailbroken, despite the fact that jailbreaking requires circumvention of technological measures, and despite the fact that jailbreaking enables piracy. Why are you pretending the Playstation 3 is different?
My Dell laptop is a computer, and I am legally allowed to run whatever software on it that I wish. My iPhone is a computer, albeit a small one, and I am legally allowed to run whatever software on it that I wish, despite the fact that such use requires circumvention.
My Playstation 3 is a computer — you yourselves make that clear in your motion against geohot and fail0verflow — and I should be legally allowed to run whatever software on my Playstation 3 that I wish, whether or not such use requires circumvention.
But your real problem is that your motion pretends that 1201 (f) does not exist. Indeed, fail0verflow’s express purpose from the beginning has been to achieve interoperability (which they have made abundantly clear at all times), and their activities to recover the signing keys were specifically necessary to do so.
In other words, SCEA, circumvention required for interoperability is not subject to the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA.
Sony, no lawsuit you bring now will have any effect on how much piracy occurs. You cannot blame the results of your own actions on fail0verflow or geohot. If you remove advertised features from a device, then enterprising users will figure out how to get those features back.
Your antics are both absurd and amusing, and if the court does not decide against you, then others will take up the cause again and again until we can change the court’s mind.
I will end with a word of advice: the solution to your problems is to restore OtherOS. Hackers would again lose interest in hacking the Playstation 3, and you would regain an item for your feature list.
You obviously do not value the goodwill of your customers. Until you have demonstrated that you have reversed that position, I will not be buying any of Sony’s products.
Sorry to respond to an old post, but I just found this website and this post was still on the front page.
Another thing SCEA should realize: You don’t mess with the kinds of people who INSTALL LINUX ON A PS3. It doesn’t matter what you do, these people will figure out what they need to do to get what they want technologically. They bought your wonderful technology FOR THE TECHNOLOGY.
You should be proud that people think so highly of your machine. I do understand that Sony has been loosing money on these machines and that they are counting on game and blu ray sales to make up the difference. You don’t get that money by attacking a (very small) group of people who decided not to follow your business plan. Especially when more than 90% of the people who bought the machine are doing exactly what you thought they would.
Quite true; unfortunately, a significant number of people who still want OtherOS are solving the problem in the worst way possible: they are buying a second PS3. This only encourages Sony to keep doing what they’re doing.