''SCEA v. Hotz'' was a lawsuit in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...

by Sony Computer Entertainment of America against

George Hotz George Francis Hotz (born October 2, 1989), alias geohot, is an American security hacker, entrepreneur, and software engineer. He is known for developing iOS jailbreaks, reverse engineering the PlayStation 3, and for the subsequent lawsuit brou ...

and associates of the group fail0verflow. It was in regards to jailbreaking and

reverse engineering Reverse engineering (also known as backwards engineering or back engineering) is a process or method through which one attempts to understand through deductive reasoning how a previously made device, process, system, or piece of software accompli ...

the

PlayStation 3 The PlayStation 3 (PS3) is a home video game console developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment, Sony Computer Entertainment. The successor to the PlayStation 2, it is part of the PlayStation brand of consoles. It was first released on Novemb ...

Timeline

On January 11, 2011, Sony sued George Hotz and fail0verflow members

Hector Martin Hector Martin (26 December 1898–9 August 1972) was a Belgian road racing cyclist, professional from 1925 to 1935. In 1924 he won the "Tour of Flanders for Independents" and the Belgian championship cycling for independents . From 1925 to ...

and Sven Peter on 8 claims, including violation of the

Digital Millennium Copyright Act The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is a 1998 United States copyright law that implements two 1996 treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). It criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or ...

, computer fraud, and copyright infringement.Sony follows up, officially sues Geohot and fail0verflow over PS3 jailbreak
Nilay Patel, Engadget (2011-01-12). Retrieved on 2011-02-16. The law firm used by Sony was

Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton is an international law firm headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. The firm has nineteen offices, including U.S. offices in California, Colorado, North Carolina, New York, Texas, Washington State, and the District of ...

LLP.Lawyers
CahnGillilandSmithGaudreau
an
Bricker
/ref> In response to the suit,

Carnegie Mellon University Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. One of its predecessors was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools; it became the Carnegie Institute of Technology ...

professor

David S. Touretzky David S. Touretzky is a research professor in the Computer Science Department and the Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition at Carnegie Mellon University. He received a BA in Computer Science at Rutgers University in 1978, and earned a master's ...

mirrored Hotz's writings and issued a statement supporting that Hotz's publication is within his right to free speech. On January 27, 2011, Sony's request for a temporary restraining order (TRO) was granted by the US District Court for the Northern District of California. This forbade him from distributing the jailbreak, helping or encouraging others to jailbreak, and distributing information they've learned during the creation of the jailbreak. It also ordered him to turn over computers and storage media used in the creation of the jailbreak to Sony's lawyers. Professor Touretzky's mirror was voluntarily censored following issue of the TRO, but Hotz's writings and software have been mirrored elsewhere. On February 12, 2011, Hotz posted a one-minute

diss track A diss track, diss record or diss song (diss – abbr. from ''disrespect'') is a song whose primary purpose is to verbally attack someone else, usually another artist. Diss tracks are often the result of an existing, escalating feud between the t ...

against Sony on his official

YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second most ...

channel in relation to the lawsuit. On February 19, 2011, Hotz started a blog about the

Sony , commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...

lawsuit. On March 6, 2011, the court issued an approval that Sony's lawyers were allowed access to all the IP addresses of all the people who visited geohot's blog for the purposes of establishing jurisdiction. Sony said the server logs would demonstrate that many of those who downloaded Hotz's hack reside in Northern California — thus making San Francisco a proper venue for the case. On April 11, 2011, it was revealed that Hotz and Sony had reached a settlement out of court. This included a permanent injunction against Hotz doing any more hacking work on any Sony products to prevent any future firmware release from being decrypted. The claims (filed in

United States district court The United States district courts are the trial courts of the U.S. federal judiciary. There is one district court for each federal judicial district, which each cover one U.S. state or, in some cases, a portion of a state. Each district c ...

for Northern California, San Francisco) were: *Violating the

() *Violating the

Computer Fraud and Abuse Act The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986 (CFAA) is a United States cybersecurity bill that was enacted in 1986 as an amendment to existing computer fraud law (), which had been included in the Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984. The law p ...

() *

Contributory copyright infringement Contributory copyright infringement is a way of imposing secondary liability for infringement of a copyright. It is a means by which a person may be held liable for copyright infringement even though he or she did not directly engage in the infringi ...

() *Violating

California Comprehensive Computer Data Access and Fraud Act The California Comprehensive Computer Data Access and Fraud Act is in §502 of the California Penal Code. According to the State Administrative Manual of California, the purposes is as follows: The Comprehensive Computer Data Access and Fraud Act ...

(§ 502) *

Breach of Contract Breach of contract is a legal cause of action and a type of civil wrong, in which a binding agreement or bargained-for exchange is not honored by one or more of the parties to the contract by non-performance or interference with the other par ...

(related to the

PlayStation Network PlayStation Network (PSN) is a digital media entertainment service provided by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Launched in November 2006, PSN was originally conceived for the PlayStation video game consoles, but soon extended to encompass smar ...

User Agreement) *

Tortious interference Tortious interference, also known as intentional interference with contractual relations, in the common law of torts, occurs when one person intentionally damages someone else's contractual or business relationships with a third party, causing e ...

Misappropriation In law, misappropriation is the unauthorized use of another's name, likeness, identity, property, discoveries, inventions, etc without that person's permission, resulting in harm to that person. Another use of the word refers to intentional ...

Trespass Trespass is an area of tort law broadly divided into three groups: trespass to the person, trespass to chattels Trespass to chattels is a tort whereby the infringing party has intentionally (or, in Australia, negligently) interfered with ...

Alleged Anonymous attacks in response to lawsuit

In an act of

hacktivism In Internet activism, hacktivism, or hactivism (a portmanteau of '' hack'' and '' activism''), is the use of computer-based techniques such as hacking as a form of civil disobedience to promote a political agenda or social change. With roots in ...

Anonymous Anonymous may refer to: * Anonymity, the state of an individual's identity, or personally identifiable information, being publicly unknown ** Anonymous work, a work of art or literature that has an unnamed or unknown creator or author * Anonym ...

announced their intent to attack Sony websites in response to Sony's lawsuit and, specifically due to Sony's gaining access to the IP addresses of all the people who visited geohot's blog, terming it an 'offense against free speech and internet freedom'. Although Anonymous admitted responsibility to subsequent attacks on the Sony websites, much speculation has arisen concerning a sustained collapse of the PlayStation Network in April 2011. Anonymous has denied any involvement in the

PlayStation Network outage The 2011 PlayStation Network outage (sometimes referred to as the PSN Hack) was the result of an " external intrusion" on Sony's PlayStation Network and Qriocity services, in which personal details from approximately 77 million accounts were comp ...

. However, Sony announced on May 4, 2011, "We discovered that the intruders had planted a file on one of our Sony Online Entertainment servers named "Anonymous" with the words "We are Legion."

References

External links

*{{Cite Pacer Docket , plaintiff = SCEA , defendant = Hotz , date = Jan 11, 2011 , case-division = 3 , case-year = 2011 , case-type = cv , case-sequence = 00167 , case-state = ca , case-district = nd , pacer-number = 235965 , access-date = Jul 23, 2017 , use-pacer = no , use-recap = yes , case-title = Sony Computer Entertainment America LLC v. Hotz et. al. *http://www.groklaw.net/staticpages/index.php?page=SonyHotz *http://community.us.playstation.com/t5/PlayStation-Network-Support/Questions-About-End-User-Safety-Concerning-New-Exploit/m-p/38690337 *https://blog.playstation.com/2011/04/11/settlement-in-george-hotz-case/ American bloggers Sony litigation Digital Millennium Copyright Act case law 2011 in United States case law Video game controversies United States District Court for the Northern District of California cases

Timeline

Alleged Anonymous attacks in response to lawsuit

See also

References

External links