I am going to go contrarian here because defending Geohotz is too easy. Using symbolism, which most college age, foam at the mouth progressives mistake for reality is too simple. In this case, Geohotz = poor, innocent individual and Sony = Big, greedy, bad multinational corporation.
Having paid due respect to symbolism and it's almost idiotic simplicity, let me tear a new one into Geohotz and all his sheep...excuse me, supporters.
Everything Sony creates is it's intellectual property. This is equivalent to you owning a house and going through all the necessary hoops to do whatever and build whatever you want on your own private property. Geohotz and his ilk are outsiders.
One night you go to sleep and wake up in the morning. You look out your sliding glass door and see 2 tents pitched in the middle of your backyard. Some trustafarian looking punk comes walking up to you as you step outside thinking what the eff? He says he goes by the name of Geohotz, explains he found a hole in your fence, called a good friend, both climbed through, and are now residing on your property.
You give them the usual reply. Well, I hold the deed to this land, I pay the taxes on this land, etc. Please remove yourself from my premises.
Geohotz replies with a flat out no.
What do you do? Call the police to remove the squatters and fix the hole in your fence? Call the police to remove the squatters, fix the hole in your fence, and file a lawsuit against Geohotz and his friends to prevent them from doing it again?
Sony is attempting to do the latter. Their property is their domain where they are absolute king and emperor. In their mind if you participate on PSN, the PS3 you paid over $300 for is now under their domain so long as it connects to PSN, and they can release whatever firmware they want to change the internals of your PS3.
Folks like Geohotz have no respect for a concept called private property or intellectual property. They do because they can. The strong beat the weak. The only rule is to not be a sucker.
Now whose moral paradigm would you like to live under? Sony's where there are clear rules that are written out? Geohotz's and hackers where the strongest (smartest) do what they want, when they want, and to hell with the consequences?
