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Update: a few points of clarification: this article, as most articles on my blog, is a personal opinion. I am not a journalist, and this is not a news website. I am disappointed as a (long time) customer by Sony’s attitude (not only in this lawsuit, but in general), so I decided to raise my voice, as a customer and a developer. I decided to stop buying Sony’s products, but I am not calling for a boycott of any kind. I just wanted to show that not everybody agrees with what Sony is currently doing, and I expect some of the readers of this article to disagree with me, this is how we can get interesting discussions on the subject. The more people talk about it, the best. The worst would be for this lawsuit to go under the radar.
Sony America is suing Geohot for the whole PS3 jailbreak thing. Hopefully my opinion on the subject is clear: I believe Sony deserve to lose this lawsuit.
I’ll try to give details below, by discussing a few arguments I’ve seen on the internet.
Sony have no choice but to lock their system if they want to protect their business

The goal of most hackers around the world is to give freedom to hardware/software owners. The goal of hardware/software companies, like all companies, is to make money. These two goals are not incompatible. Some software and hardware companies manage to make lots of profits without locking their system. Like it or not, Windows is a good example of such a system. Last time I checked, you are still allowed to run Openoffice on windows. You are still allowed to run Skype. You are still allowed to run Firefox. Actually, the last time Microsoft even tried to make their own product more “visible” on their own platform, it backfired.
I’m shocked that companies such as Sony or Apple haven’t been sued by the European Commision yet, given how devices such as the iPhone or the PS3 revolve around a huge customer locking system (locking the user in a hardware/software/distribution system vicious circle).
Sony have no choice but to lock their system in order to protect game developers and the future of video gaming

Ask that to real game developers, not to Sony. One of the major reasons for Sony to lock their gaming system is to have control on both the customers and the game developers. By adding a DRM system to their console, they guarantee that game developers cannot sell a game for the PS3 without Sony getting a good share of the money. They are also using their huge power on the video game market to ensure that they get exclusive content (at least for a given period of time, such as Final Fantasy 13), preventing the devs from making money on other platforms. They are not trying to protect video games, but their business.
Systems such as Android, Windows, or Linux, prove that you can have a system with lots of applications and games, without locking the hardware in a single distribution system.
Hackers do this for piracy, and cheating in games

In their lawsuit against Geohot, Sony are using clever marketing techniques to make Geohot look like the bad guy. One of the most obvious ones is the major confusion (blindfully transmitted by so-called “technological websites”) that they intentionally create between hackers, cheaters, and pirates.
Hackers are people who like to understand how their hardware works. If the PS3 was a car, being a hacker would be equivalent to opening your trunk and see how the engine works, or tweak the engine in order for it to work with solar energy rather than gasoline.
(Online) cheaters are the guys who headshot you in Modern Warfare. Let me make one thing clear: Hackers and Cheaters are NEVER the same guys, because hackers rarely spend their time playing, and when they do, they are ethical about it. If the PS3 were a car, cheaters would be the people taking a parking spot for the handicapped, or not stopping at the red light, just because they think it’s fun.
Pirates are the people who play illegal copies of games. If the PS3 were a car, pirates would be the people using the highway for free. They don’t contribute to the cost of the highway, making it more expensive for the other users. Again, I tend to believe that hackers are not pirates, because they have other fish to fry.
My point here, beside the crappy car metaphor, is that Sony is trying to have “normal” customers believe that hackers are the same thing as pirates and cheaters, which is not the case. They are suing the wrong guy.
The PS3 hack by Geohot and fail0verflow made the PS3 gaming experience less enjoyable because of online cheaters

Hackers did not put the bad programming in the PS3 security system, it was here in the first place, and they just found it. The same goes for game cheats such as Modern Warfare issues online. It’s not hackers’ fault if this game had a badly programmed security scheme. Additionally, hackers such as Geohot or fail0verfl0w did not program these cheating tools.
It’s a well known fact in all IT companies that security in online systems should be handled on the server side. Would you trust a bank