Catiline is busy and lacks time to read things or be an informed citizen. Nonetheless, the case of George Hotz has drifted to his attention: in summary, it seems that Hotz hacked Sony’s PS3 console. Sony, as most other corporations have in similar situations, had its feelings hurt that someone did not want to use its software with its hardware, and now they are trying to ruin Hotz’s life.
I don’t know the details, and I don’t know if what Hotz did was technically illegal or not. What I do know is that I don’t have much sympathy for companies who rely on legal chicanery for profits. My sole hope is that this note will redirect interested but ignorant souls to more information on this latest corporate villain. Go click away.
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This seems to me to be a rather artificial controversy. First, why bother doing this, except for gaining notoriety? Who benefits from this dubious accomplishment? Who even cares, except for a few others of his ilk?
Then there is the issue of the bad corporation. I guess here Sony is bad because a) they are a corporation, b) they have an end user license agreement, c) they choose to enforce that agreement. Sony is not holding a gun to anyone’s head and forcing them to buy a PS3. The spent a LOT of money to develop their product and wish that it retain value by not being sold with bad software causing consumers to complain because the bad software won’t run. Much like Apple, another target of Hotz. Personally I think the nation of Apple users are on a par with the Hitler Youth but as long as I don’t have to talk to them they can worship whatever gods they please. And by and large they seem to like the Apple product without it being hacked open to run some other software.
In the end this fad of breaking open encrypted and locked products seems to be a lot like BASE jumping. It’s done because it can be done, and the prohibitions make the accomplishment that much sweeter. Usually the only people likely to get hurt are the jumper and a few curious bystanders. Most of us will be walking a few blocks away and will neither know nor care what happened.
I think there are a couple of points that I have failed to make clear here. But in order not to seem contrarian or hasty in judgment, let me address the points you have made that I agree with:
*Hotz probably did do his hacking for notoriety. He probably did not take a principled stand that someone had to hack the PS3 for the good of society, and he was in the right place at the right time.
*Sony isn’t “bad”. This is true in the sense that you mean it. Sony hasn’t done anything ILLEGAL. Sony hasn’t ACTIVELY harmed anyone (yet).
I would contend, however, that Sony is bad, very bad. Yes, in the first place, they are bad because they are a corporation, and I think corporations are fundamentally bad for a number of reasons I shall not elaborate here.
Yes, in the second place, they are bad because they have an end user license agreement. As you point out, this is LEGAL. That does not make it RIGHT. The continuing quest of companies like Sony and Apple to control what happens to their hardware after it leaves the warehouse is pernicious. The notion that a company, merely by virtue of having made something, should control its destiny after giving up ownership of it is problematic. What is even more problematic is Sony’s attempt to suppress information. Information wants to be free. The hack was invented, and that’s that. Even the legal system has recognized that Hotz is not responsible for the already millions of extant copies of his data.
Third, Sony is not seeking to impart individual justice here; probably few people at Sony or anywhere believe that Hotz deserves to have his life ruined. Instead, they are seeking, like the recording industry before them, to “make an example”. Let us hope that Sony meets the same fate as the recording industry, i.e. a gradual descent to oblivion.
These dinosaurs seek to be information middlemen. But information, unlike goods, requires no middleman that does not also add value.
[...] the evil company that persecutes people who seek to do what they wish with the hardware they legally own*, has gotten what it [...]