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Geohot defends PlayStation 3 Jailbreak

"This is about a lot more than me."

Wesley Yin-Poole avatar
News by Wesley Yin-Poole Former Editor-in-Chief
Updated on
46 comments

George Hotz, aka, Geohot, the man who hacked the PlayStation 3, has defended his actions, describing Sony's high profile lawsuit against him as "about a lot more than what I did and me".

This week Sony sued Hotz and the Fail0verflow hacker group, asking a Californian court to block him from publishing his Jailbreak code on his website.

The Jailbreak code, Sony alleges, infringes areas of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and accuses Hotz of being directly responsible for enabling piracy on the PS3.

In an interview on G4TV, Hotz insisted his actions were legal because of a precedent set by his victory in a previous iPhone hacking case.

"Right now, still legally, you can go to my website, Geohot.com, and download my Jailbreak for your PS3," he said. "It lets you install homebrew applications, which have been developed by anyone. You can develop your own application or go download some and put them on your Jailbroken PS3."

Hotz denied his Jailbreak enables piracy on the PS3. "The way piracy was previously done doesn't work in my Jailbreak. I made a specific effort while I was working on this to try to enable homebrew without enabling things I do not support, like piracy."

So why is he being sued? "Making Sony mad."

Despite lawyers yesterday telling Eurogamer Sony is likely to succeed in its case – at least temporarily – Hotz is confident he will eventually emerge victorious in this David versus Goliath legal battle.

"Currently the difference is the DMCA says specifically mobile phones, but the same precedent should apply. If they decide a phone is a closed system, where the manufacturer controls all the software that runs on it, if you can Jailbreak one closed system, why can't you Jailbreak another?

"This case is about a lot more than what I did and me. It's about whether you really own that device that you purchased."

Assuming Hotz wins, what's next for perhaps the world's most famous hacker?

"When does the PSP2 come out? No, I'm kidding."

The case continues.

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