I read them and like this entire conversation it's all open to interpretation. "Sony's ownership of the PS3". First, it's an abbreviated version that I've seen. I've not seen the full legal documents. What does 'the PS3' mean? Because as far as I was aware I own 'a PS3' not 'the PS3'.

The PS3 is owned by Sony, it's their product to create, distribute, advertise, sell and support. The PS3 has certain garrentee's, warrenties and terms and conditions that go with it like any product to determine if Sony will support it after it's purchase. I doubt Sony cares what Mr Hacker does with his PS3, sitting in his room that isn't connected to the internet and has CFW on it. What he's done is distribute information he has no right to distribute causing issues for THE PS3 overall, something he has no ownership of.

The information that you specify is not liable for copyright. I'm honestly sick of repeating it over and over again, so backtrack the thread and find the reasons I specified several times earlier.

If you type "Geohot PS3 Custom Firmware" into google the first link that comes up has a link that goes straight to it (or where it was), it shows video's of how to do it as well,. Did he create this CFW from scratch? All of his own work? Every line of code? Even the security code is a line of code contained in a copywrited piece of software, right?

Then you are more then likely going to repeat it again and again. This is not an arguement where you will not change people's mind. I backtracked because you quoted me, I answered that quote with my interpretation of the term 'THE PS3'.

*sigh*

The security code cannot be copyrighted. It is raw binary data. an integer if you will. People cannot copyright integers.

However, you do bring up a good point about the creation. If he created the CFW himself, then Sony doesn't have a leg to stand on (yes, even if it was encrypted with the key. The key is never *in* the package. It mathematically rearranges the data to a non-readable form to anything but the PS3.)

If it's a copy of Sony's OtherOS that they removed, well....that's a tough one. Since Sony was offering it for free, but then took it away, the courts could see that as merely replacing the service. However I'm not 100% on this part so I can't give anything definite.

You are right, it is just a code, a number string which cannot be copywrited, a smaller part of a whole, this being the firmware. His CFW he can surely be done for. And no offence to him, but he doesn't look like the type of guy that could write a entire operating system for the PS3 from scratch on his own. All Sony needed to do is get a copy of his CFW and look at the code contained within. If I were one of the Sony programmer's, I'd be annoyed this guy is taking my work and giving it out.

The OtherOS service was like an extra to people to use that allowed you to do more with your console, it allowed you to run other programs and such alike that the PS3 didn't have. It wasn't until Geohot started tampering with it to break the security on the console that Sony decided to remove it.

It's like my example I gave somewhere else about a kid with a football. Give a local kid a football so him and his mates can play on a local field, if he starts using that football to break into the local players hut on the field, I'm going to take away that football. Because of that him, his friends can no longer play, weird analogy but the gist is there. I think.

If someone puts up a Mod for a videogame... would you say he put up "Copyrighted Matieral."

No, he put up code that overrites the previous code.

The "Custom Firmware" he put up was all his own original code that overrites some of Sony's code.  It isn't the ENTIRE thing.  I mean, use computer logic here... because the PS3 is a computer.

The "copyright issue" that Sony has is that his Custom Firmware circumvents Sony's Access control.  Which Sony alleges is illegal for ANYONE to do, even to their own console... and is espiecally illegal to TELL people how to do.

So, you can post "How to build a Nuclear bomb"  online... but not  "How to disable copyright protection" even if you use the vaguest of terms with zero mention of code.

If you want to look at the legal documents by the way....

http://www.groklaw.net/staticpages/index.php?page=SonyHotz

Another PS3 hacker raided by Sony & Police, but he managed to releases all his stuff on PS3 hacking & security. http://ps3crunch.com/hv-bible-released-grafchokolo-sony-raids-house.html

Keep in mind that CFW is interpreted by Sony's updater, which is the one that does the modifying of the OS, not Geohot himself.

Also, it doesn't take much to create a virtual session that merely accepts PowrPC instruction code. That's all that's needed to run a PowerPC version of Linux. Drivers are also neeed to run the finer parts of the hardware, but I think he has enough experience with the hypervisor drivers, which is what he started on. Mot likely he programed them himself, considering he hated the Sony ones because of how much restruction they had on the SPUs (that was the original idea to begin with).

That is a correct analogy, and it's easy to see why customers are annoyed at this. That kind of "ruined it for everyone" excuse might work on kids, but we're not kids.

It should be noted too that loading cfw on a PSP isn't illegal, and I'd assume it works the same way for the PS3. All it really does is break DRM, which has been brought to court and ruled perfectly legal

And the wheel of time continues to grind for Sony...the bands on the dark lord's prison must be broken to be properly resealed.