BREAKING NEWS: Sony’s War on Hackers, Tinkerers and Innovators “Settlement in George Hotz Case”

BREAKING NEWS: Sony’s War on Hackers, Tinkerers and Innovators “Settlement in George Hotz Case”

BREAKING NEWS: Sony’s War on Hackers, Tinkerers and Innovators “Settlement in George Hotz Case”

Sony Computer Entertainment America (“SCEA”) and George Hotz (“Hotz”) today announced the settlement of the lawsuit filed by SCEA against Hotz in federal court in San Francisco, California. The parties reached an agreement in principle on March 31, 2011. As part of the settlement, Hotz consented to a permanent injunction.

Both parties expressed satisfaction that litigation had been quickly resolved. “Sony is glad to put this litigation behind us,” said Riley Russell, General Counsel for SCEA. “Our motivation for bringing this litigation was to protect our intellectual property and our consumers. We believe this settlement and the permanent injunction achieve this goal.”

“It was never my intention to cause any users trouble or to make piracy easier,” said Hotz, “I’m happy to have the litigation behind me.” Hotz was not involved in the recent attacks on Sony’s internet services and websites.

In the action, SCEA accused Hotz of violating federal law by posting online information about the security system in the PlayStation 3 videogame console and software that SCEA claimed could be used to circumvent the security system in the console and allow the playing of pirated videogames. Hotz denies any wrongdoing on his part. Hotz’s motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction was still pending before the federal court in San Francisco but a preliminary injunction was issued requiring Hotz to take down the postings challenged by SCEA.

“We want our consumers to be able to enjoy our devices and products in a safe and fun environment and we want to protect the hard work of the talented engineers, artists, musicians and game designers who make PlayStation games and support the PlayStation Network,” added Russell. “We appreciate Mr. Hotz’s willingness to address the legal issues involved in this case and work with us to quickly bring this matter to an early resolution.”

I’m glad to see this come to an end. I think Sony knew they would 1) lose if they continued on their reckless path and 2) Sony would continue to ruin their chances of inspiring innovators to work with their products, forever.

Is this an ideal end-result? No, of course not. George cannot hack or mod or even talk about the SONY settlement. But he’s out of court, not in jail, not owing millions, admitted no-wrongdoing and he’s free to work on anything that’s not SONY.

When you win against creepy large companies like SONY, this is what it looks like – it’s gross and unsatisfying, but it is winning.

So what’s next?

Sony, will you and George do a talk at Maker Faire talking about the ways you *do* want people to use your SDKs and create amazing experiences (like the Kinect world currently enjoys?). Drop us a line – here’s your chance to completely turn it all around. We’ll root for you.

See our previous article – “Sony’s War on Makers, Hackers, and Innovators” where we suggested that we collectively encourage Sony to drop this suit.

Imagine going back in time and convincing Sony to work with, not against, their users. Where would they be now? Sony had decades of innovation and created an industry. What happens next is up to Sony but it’s also up to us. The Aibo community was able to get Sony to reconsider their actions, perhaps the maker world can as well. Here is the press contact page for all of Sony. Please consider sending a polite email asking them to drop the lawsuit against GeoHot and the community of makers, hackers, and innovators. I’ll also be sending a physical copy of this article to the CEO of Sony.

Did all your emails, tweets and efforts help drop the case against a maker? I think so.

66 thoughts on “BREAKING NEWS: Sony’s War on Hackers, Tinkerers and Innovators “Settlement in George Hotz Case”

  1. Justin Metz says:

    soo… what does this mean?

    1. Anonymous says:

      it means SONY is not longer suing george.

  2. D.S. says:

    You have completely misinterpreted this. This is a LOSS for the maker community, and a huge amount of wimping out on GeoHot’s part given the financial, and other, backing he had lined up. We have all been set back a tremendous amount by his accepting a permanent injunction. Wake up!

    1. Jimmy Greene says:

      I gotta disagree. I’ve been through a legal battle and they are tough. When you have a family and your home and livelihood (and freedom) are at stake, NOT LOSING is winning. A few months with a battle like this over your head is a LOT of stress. Hotz didn’t do anything morally wrong, but the legal system has nothing to do with morality. From personal experience, the legal system ONLY cares about what’s legal, not what’s right.

      If you were in the Hotz seat (like that?) you would have “wimped” out just as fast.

      1. D.S. says:

        No offense, but with whatever court action you faced, did you have international recognition? Did you have people lining up to fund your defense? Did you have well-known and respected civil liberties organizations championing your fight? I don’t know the answer to those questions, but I’m going to go out on a limb and guess the answer is “no”. If I were an individual looking at facing the court system alone and getting chewed up by it, yeah, I’d probably back down too. That’s not at all the case with Hotz. I get the whole walking a mile in another’s shoes bit, but this is not a run-of-the-mill case here, and Hotz was not facing anything alone and he wasn’t going to be going out of pocket for the defense. Regardless of what you think about his decision, this is still a loss for anyone who believes they own a device they’ve purchased.

    2. Rei Kagetsuki says:

      I actually just realized a lot of people donated money for his court fees… I wonder how much of that he walked away with?

      I also think in the end he realized he didn’t have legal legs to stand on – he may have been justified in his viewpoints and from the viewpoint of a hacker/maker (I’d love to be able to freely hack on the PS3 and I have no intention of pirating games), in the end Sony has a right to protect their systems and in turn the people that develop on their systems. There is a reason for content protection systems and the it’s law in countries like the US and Japan – where virtual assets can be valued like physical assets – that protect those systems.

      The real question is “would Sony have let GeoHotz slide if his hack had not allowed for protected content to be stolen?”, and the answer would probably be yes seeing as to how they had allowed Linux to be run untill someone hacked the loader to play copied games.This is a loss for the maker community in more ways than many realize – it has no doubt completely discouraged Sony from again allowing us to hack on their hardware and will only bring about more complex and harder to crack protection systems which will further restrict future hardware. GeoHotz has probably ruined any chance of Linux returning to the PS3 and on top of that he gets off with no penalty and a wad of cash AND he still makes posts on his blog about how Sony sucks and everyone should boycott them… seriously? And people still treat him like some sort of hacking hero/martyr?

  3. Anonymous says:

    Yeah, a little spare on the details of the “permanent injunction” which sounds a lot like surrendering rights due to pressure from a large corporation. Better than an ongoing lawsuit for George, I guess.

    Ahh, maybe I’m just grumpy from going off coffee again, but I still see no inherent change in Sony’s culture, just a slightly more competent assessment of cost/benefit than usual.

    We should be proud of ourselves if we did indeed make them see that light, but I don’t think they’re in any hurry to see *the* light, if you take my meaning. I’m in the market for two large LCD/LED backlight television/monitors. Guess which brand I’m still not considering?

    1. Anonymous says:

      he can’t post a code the world already has, look folks when you “win” against creeps like SONY this is what it sounds like.

      1. A Burns says:

        $10,000 per violation?

        Microsoft should be screaming down the phone to their finance department to get the checkbook out. I bet they spend more than $10,000 per month on annoying stickers you can never peel off entirely.

  4. Bryan says:

    “As part of the settlement, Hotz consented to a permanent injunction.” What is he being permanently prevented from doing? It sounds to me as though Sony came out the winner because they got what they wanted, that being for Hotz to stop. How is that a victory for makers?

  5. Jose Berengueres says:

    What does “permanent injunction” mean?

  6. Björn Jahn says:

    Is it just me or does the wording “We want our consumers to be able to enjoy our devices” seem a bit like “no mater if you buy it, it is still our devices”?

    1. Gregg says:

      It is not. It is indeed to all of us.

  7. Christian Restifo says:

    In regards to the permanent injunction, he’s probably prohibited from discussing the stuff that got him in trouble with Sony *and* anything related to Sony’s current or future products. I’m sure Sony didn’t hire dumb lawyers, so he’s probably severely restricted in what he can say for the rest of his life.

    I’d hardly call this a victory.

    1. Anonymous says:

      his a huge victory for hotz and makers.

      their demands were: his hard drives, IP addresses of anyone who visited his site, millions of dollars, a case in CA and the list goes on and on.

      george made a rap video cursing at sony and has never admitted to any wrong doing, that’s really the end of the story. he can’t share a code that’s already out there.

      he completely stuck to his guns and “won”.

      the problems is, when you win against lawyers and SONY it’s gross and they’ll always twist it to sound like they actually won in some way.

      that’s how PR people work at these large companies, they need to make it sound good to the CEO and investors to save face at they say.

      george will be releasing more cool hacks and projects in a matter of days.

      he’s not going away, neither are we — but SONY’s fate isn’t so clear – they’re desperate to “attract hackers” – like “we” did with the kinect.

      george isn’t in jail, he doesn’t have to pay SONY millions of dollars, he’s not in court, he’s off hacking something else already.

      these are great times, “we’re winning”.

      maybe this will be my next column.

  8. Ed Marshall says:

    psx-scene.com has the text of the final judgement:

    http://psx-scene.com/forums/f6/settlement-george-hotz-case-84881/

    Note that this doesn’t include the confidential Memorandum of Understanding, so we don’t actually know what was agreed to by either party.

    Also, George posted on his blog about it:

    http://geohotgotsued.blogspot.com/2011/04/joining-sony-boycott.html

  9. Cube says:

    sosony go to geohot with an offer to settle before it’s even gone to trial and they’re still sorting out where this trial is going to actually happen because sony know they haven’t got a leg to stand on, and geohot folds like a cheap suit and leaves us stuck with an even more draconian EULA for the playstation 3 that he was *directly responsible for*. thanks a bunch george!

    1. Anonymous says:

      cube, that’s not correct – this is what it looks like when companies like SONY lose and they know it… it’s gross and unsatisfying, i know.

      1. D.S. says:

        You need to stop with this whole “this is what it looks like when Sony loses” nonsense. Sony did not lose. Sony got exactly what they wanted. Hotz folded. Sony won. We lose. What exactly is it that you don’t get? Sony could not and would not have won this case in court, so how exactly is this a “win” in any reasonable sense of the word? Seriously? I know you put your foot in your mouth with your original piece saying we won, but you’re wrong, and you repeating your nonsensical mantra about “this is what a win looks like” without backing that up in any way makes you sound ridiculous. How is this a win when we have gained nothing but an implicit reenforcement/legitimization of Sony’s unenforceable EULA? Please answer these questions without saying “this is what a win looks like”. Start backing up your arguments.

  10. johngineer says:

    I’m really glad that this ended without Hotz having to pay some enormous penalty, but I am curious about the other people involved.

    A number of folks from the fail0verflow group, including Hector (the fellow who hacked the Kinect), were also named in the suit, though because most of them reside outside the US the point was moot. However, it would still mean that if they ever visited the US, and Sony tracked them down, they could be served with papers. It would be nice if Sony offered them identical terms, so they wouldn’t have this hanging over their heads.

    My point is that even though the GeoHot situation has been resolved — and I am glad of it — there are other smart, generous, talented folks whose lives may still be affected by this ridiculous lawsuit. I just wanted to bring that to everyone’s attention.

  11. Anonymous says:

    it’s “winning” for george, but it’s bitter-sweet as they say… from wired…
    http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/04/sony-settles-ps3-lawsuit/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wired%2Findex+%28Wired%3A+Index+3+%28Top+Stories+2%29%29

    According to terms of the San Francisco federal court settlement (.pdf), the 21-year-old hacker, who goes by the handle GeoHot, agreed not to perform “reverse engineering, decompiling, or disassembling any portion” of a Sony product. He also agreed not to “bypass, disable, or circumvent any encryption, security, or authentication mechanism.” Breaching terms of the settlement is a $10,000 fine per violation, according to court documents.

    but, that’s what it’s like when you “win” against sony, i’m sure george never wanted to hack on anything sony related, but it’s somewhat odd they for them to include this – likely a part of the negotiation.

    i’ll address this in the article later this month.

    wired has another good observation…

    The deal represents an end to Sony’s scorched-earth litigation tactics.
    The only benefit to Sony to pursue the case to trial would be to win unspecified monetary damages. However, Sony risked a lot more if it went to trial and lost.

    it’s gross, but george isn’t in jail, paying millions to sony and has a long career of hacks ahead of him, just not near anything sony – but really, it’s not like the talented folks are flocking to tinker with sony products right now any way.

    1. Rei Kagetsuki says:

      The fee for breaking an NDA is usually about $10,000 per infraction – in otherwords these are the same terms anybody working with a development license from Sony would go by. Not to mention reverse-engineering and finding security circumventions are things that would be forbidden when you become a licensed developer. In otherwords Sony forced him on to the same terms a licensed developer would go by.

      I understand your frustration and your desire to have everything be an open platform – but game piracy is an extremely serious issue and having some random hacker circumvent the system you put enormous ammounts of time and money into making is not something you want. Keep in mind that up until recently Sony allowed anyone and everyone to run Linux on the console so they could play around and do development – that would have continued had people not started to use the same systems that allowed Linux to be run to circumvent anti-piracy measures and run copied games. In otherwords a small group of hackers ruined a good thing when they did something they knew they shouldn’t be doing.

      It was mentioned somewhere above that this would hurt Sony’s representation with developers: that is absolutely not true – it’s the opposite. If I spend a lot of time and money making a game and I put it out for sale there’s nothing I want more than to have that game protected from piracy. That’s precisely the reason so many game developers use Steam – it has fantastic and yet unobtrusive protection.

      Sony filed the case because they wanted to protect the people who develop on their platform and in turn protect their platform. Try looking at it form Sony’s perspective and from the perspective of a developer deploying their products on the PS3 and you’ll see why they had no choice but to litigate. Then think about how easily they let GeoHotz off without giving him any real or immediate penalty. They could have crushed him/ruined his life but they didn’t – if anything he’s acquired fame at no real penalty and that could very well benefit him in the future.

      *Some people don’t realize this but Sony offers a special license and firmware to scientific and industrial insitutions to run Linux on the PS3.

  12. Ninety Nein says:

    Rei, you obviously have some sort of love for Sony. You say that you’d love to hack on a PS3? How do you think that’s going to happen when you have to break the EULA just to even take a peek? Are you waiting for Sony to help you out? It was not going to happen EVER. Thanks to George, maybe some day I can run some firmware on my PS3 that’s not total and utter garbage. And believe me, I will do it with a clear conscience. At what point does it become MY system? And yes, there are laws about content protection in a lot of countries. Just ask Apple – oh wait, they removed the DRM on their songs. Because they see the future. Hell, even Micro$oft backed down once they understood the power of the kinect hacking scene. Do you think those guys should go to jail?

    Do you really think that Sony was just biding it’s time until it could reinstall the Linux option? Yea right. Sony does suck. They make some spiffy hardware, but they cripple it with their overblown paranoia. This goes way beyond the PS3. Sony has a long history of pulling this crap on many devices (and I won’t even get into the MPAA with their ‘non-profit’ status).

    The reason they didn’t pursue this further is not out of the goodness of their evil little hearts. The Sony lawyers made a serious tactical error trying to sue George for breaking the EULA out of the US. He never accepted an American EULA. If they went after him for breaking the Japanese EULA, I’m sure things would have went differently.

    Not that it will make a difference, but from here on in I’ll only ever buy used games for my PS3. I don’t want one cent to go back to those clowns. And when this system dies, I’ll happily jump ship.

    1. Rei Kagetsuki says:

      Ninety Nine:
      First off I don’t own a PS3 or a PSP or really any Sony goods other than a very old PS2. I generally dislike Sony products – I prefer Sharp, Toshiba, or Panasonic depending on what I’m buying.

      Apple development is still locked up and they are easily greater control freaks than Sony.

      The fact is Sony took the Linux option away from normal users because the firmware that allowed Linux to be booted had been hacked to play copied games. Sure Linux on the PS3 was sandboxed but the thing is it had to be – why would Sony spend enormous ammounts of tme and money on anti-piracy schemes and then just give out a tool that circumvents that? Now to run Linux on it you need a special firmware, which you can get if you can certify you’ll be using the PS3 for a scientific or industrial use (the US military and an assortment of scientific institutions use PS3 clusters for calculation). Call it paranoya if you will, but that’s exactly the type of paranoia you’d want from your hardware vendor if you were putting out original content on their system. If Sony can guarantee no piracy on their consoles that is something very attractive to content developers and to the industry as a whole. On top of that their system doesn’t require a constant connection, doesn’t have serious effects on your data, and doesn’t cause the user any real inconvenience as long as said user is obtaining that content legally (purchasing it).

      The EULA he broke was attached to the hardwre he purchased – they didn’t just choose an EULA they wanted to apply to him.

      Again, heads up here but I don’t own a PS3 so you’ve already given them more patronage than I have. I don’t really have anything against Sony but there isn’t much about the company that I really like all that much either. One thing I did really respect was that they offered the Linux option for Cell (and GLES) development – that was awesome and it was unfortunate it was taken away, but I understand why it was and the fact they will allow it if you actually have a reason to be running Linux is “good enough”. That’s my standpoint and I don’t really think I’m particularly biased. Perhaps it is most unfortunate that Sony didn’t grab GeoHotz, make him sign an NDA and give him a dev kit and say “if you want Linux so much make it so people can’t crack the bootloader and play copied games”. Of course reading any of GeoHotz’s blog it’s easy to see he probably wouldn’t have played along nicely; litigation was the wiser and safer decision for Sony.

      1. Ninety Nein says:

        For a guy who dislikes Sony products, you sure show them a lot of love.

        Is Sony really that shortsighted that they had no idea what would happen if they included the option to install Linux? IT’S LINUX!!! What did they think would happen? And how nice that they’ve made it available to industries that tend to purchase hundreds of PS3’s. Of course, that doesn’t help me one bit, ut again, Sony doesn’t care about the end user.

        “If Sony can guarantee no piracy on their consoles that is something very attractive to content developers and to the industry as a whole.”
        Do you think that piracy has hurt 8 of the top 10 gaming systems of all time? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_game_consoles Do you think the game developers of those systems loose sleep? But I’m not here to argue piracy…

        “The EULA he broke was attached to the hardwre he purchased – they didn’t just choose an EULA they wanted to apply to him.”
        Actually, he didn’t break the EULA because he never agreed to it. That EULA was just a piece of paper they expected you to read. He presented the EULA in it’s sealed package, and the other consoles he purchased used. That’s the basis of why the lawsuit didn’t go anywhere. That’s also why all PS3 users have been forced to agree to a new EULA.

        I will crack my system as soon as I can. Because it’s MINE. And I can.

        1. Rei Kagetsuki says:

          I’ve worked at and with some mid-range and large game companies and currently I still do some game development so I can tell you first hand that piracy does hurt game companies and yes we do loose sleep over it. If a console offers good content protection that is seious incentive to develop on it – it means I don’t need to spend extra time trying to implement my own system and I know the game won’t just be stolen left and right so I have that extra money to spend on my family. I’m not rich, I work hard and long and though I love developing and making new things. I’ve also got kids and a family – if you steal a game I worked 2 years on then you’ve stolen money and time with my family from me and the people I work with. I am here to argue about pricay because that’s the only issue that matters to me and to Sony. If they could offer Linux without the threat of piracy they would – they made that clear in press-releases as to why they had to discontinue it.

          I’ve never worked with Sony stuff, I’ve worked at places where we had Sony dev boxes (PS2) but I’ve never even touched the machines and never signed a Sony NDA – I really know nothing but what I’ve heard and all I’ve heard is that the boxes are complex and difficult to develop for. But one thing to note is that first party software on Sony devices is rare. In otherwords that content protection scheme isn’t something Sony made for themselves, but rather something they made for game and content developers to let them know their content would be safe.

          Don’t be so naieve as to think piracy doesn’t hurt the game industry; look at the DS – majicon and copy cards started having a serious effect on game sales. What Nintendo did was genius as well – they stopped trying to fight hackers and instead made an undetectable switch which when triggered tells if the game has been copied and, if it has will effect the content of the game. Case in point: play a copied Love+ and the girl will progressively dislike you more and more – there’s even comments like “I don’t like thieves”. That’s genius, that’s entertaining, and that still lets us all run homebrew code wth no penalty whatsoever!

          If you want to crack your system and run homebrew code or Linux or something else, anything else that isn’t a cracked/copied game then you have my support 100% – I think that’s great and I wish everybody could. I wish console developers would just release their SDK’s. I think the day will come when they will have to in order to compete with smart-phones and other open SDK game-capable devices.

          Also the EULA comes with the system, he accepted it when he turned on the power. Maybe that doesn’t make sense but that’s just how it works according to the law.

  13. JasonPollock says:

    I don’t see how George not being able to touch a piece of Sony equipment for the rest of his life is a “good thing”, other than a “whew, it’s over” point of view. It’s not just at all.

    Personally, I’ll never buy Sony again. They’ve gone from being the only manufacturer I would buy to the only one I won’t buy.

  14. carrie says:

    ………….just pass,,,go ahead

  15. Rei Kagetsuki says:

    Let me try a simplified analogy of the situation:

    1. Sony gives everyone the option of using a screwdriver[a tool] (Linux)
    2. Some people use the screwdriver to break the lock on the toy chest (play copied/cracked games)
    3. Sony takes everybodys screwdriver away (new firmware locks out Linux and prevents copied games to be loaded)
    4. GeoHotz trys to make his own screwdriver, and uses his screwdriver prototypes to break the same lock that got everyones screwdrivers taken away in the first place
    5. Sony gets angry over this and tells GeoHotz they’re going to punish him
    6. People who wanted their screwdrivers back [be that for using it as a constructive tool or to again break the toy chest lock] rally around GeoHotz and give him support… including money
    7. In the end Sony takes GeoHotz aside and talks to him, tells him if he tries that again they’ll mess him up. In response GeoHotz realizes he’d rather not have Sony mess him up and promises Sony he won’t try to make any more tools which could be used to break into the toy chest
    8. As soon as he returns to his group, GeoHotz decides to continue badmouthing Sony

    This isn’t David and Goliath, it’s a spat between an adult with authority and a rebellious child. From the perspective of GeoHotz he’s a freedom fighter, from the perspective of Sony he’s a troublemaker lookign to break their things and steal their stuff. The most unfortunate part of the situation is that Sony doesn’t trust us children enough to let us have our tools back.

  16. Rahere says:

    As someone who goes so far back he’s got his name in most every software in use, there’s just one thing for sure – Sony just went down the Symbian track. You’ll never persuade developers to use your framework if you tie their souls to your company goals.

    1. Rei Kagetsuki says:

      Wait, seriously? I really don’t understand how everyone here is thinking.

      Sony did this to protect “their” developers, the people who make and sell content for their system. As a developer, putting a lot of time and money into something you want to sell, having a company protect your product from being stolen is a good thing.

      And Sony doesn’t need to persuade individual developers because the fact of the matter is individuals just don’t produce big games. Don’t even try to make an argument about “Indy” games because “Indy” game studios climb the same ladder every other game studio has before them. You start out small, release a few things, and when you’ve proven you are capable of putting out a good product you apply for a license with a console developer. Or, if you are a group that has already proven yourself you write a demo and you send it along with your credentials; Nintendo, Sony, even Valve/Steam follow this model – you need to prove yourself before you get the SDK. That’s how it works and if you’d ever gone through the process yourself you’d understand that.

      As for “tie their souls to your company goals” I’m not quite sure what you are talking about but I also don’t know about Symbian (they don’t exist in my country). But if you’ve ever been involved in the core of a company perhaps you would understand that you really only want to work with people who are mutual goals. Even employees – an employee who works just for money is the worst kind, an employee who shares the company goals and wants to do the job they are doing is a good employee. Same goes for partners and in many cases even customers. So if you don’t agree with Sony’s philosophy or don’t like their image then they probably don’t want you developing on their system anyway.

      Seriously, I think I’ve hit a cultural difference or something that I just can’t understand. Or perhaps it’s because I’ve been involved in the game industry and I understand how it works. I also understand wanting to hack on whatever hardware I see and many times I have circumvented protection measures on my own devices in order to unlock functionality or inject code. The difference here is if you have the ability to competently develop for the PS3 you can get a license*. Or if you have a valid reason to run Linux or something else, in other words having a reason to utilize the PS3 as an inexpensive Cell platform you can get permission and special firmware.

      *Making big games costs a lot of money – if you don’t have enough money for the SDK and your demo or beta doesn’t knock Sony’s socks off enough for them to just give you one for free you probably aren’t going to get the game finished anyway. Otherwise, develop the game small at first on a system easy to develop for (PC), apply to content distributors like Steam, and if your game is received well enough at market you’ll have enough money and a reputation to get a Sony SDK easily. For the Wii and DS there are basically “light” versions of the SDK you can get to make smaller games (Wii-ware and those DSi/3Ds apps) – these are perfect step-ups for indy studios. That’s just how the industry works, you don’t just all the sudden pick up a few random friends and make a massive game with a complex engine on an extremely complex platform. If you think you can do that you can probably also build a NASA grade rocket in your back yard or a nuclear reactor in your garage.

  17. Rei Kagetsuki says:

    Mr. Torrone, have you asked anyone at Sony about this issue? If you asked them for an interview it would prove you were trying to be fair about the issue and see both sides. If they refuse your interview perhaps it would prove them as unreasonable as you claim.

    There are engineers who love what they are doing at Sony as well; don’t disregard them. If you could get the opinions of the Sony engineers perhaps the whole issue could be seen in a different light. I would expect Sony corporate to present to you their idealized image of the situation, and Sony legal to just explain to you how they used the law to protect their assets. Without the opinions of the engineers on the issue how are we to really understand?

  18. Pakistani music says:

    I think more should be done from sony.

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