Yes Sony can always subpoena the personal information related to the IP address but what makes you think the judge would agree? Beside, they would also need more then that to get a search warrant for your house and/or PS3.

For Geohot, he openly declared making and distributing it. Considering this, was there something else beside the IP log to prove the act of distribution and the prejudice caused? If he distributed to 1000 persons the prejudice caused by Geohot is different then if he did to 100 000. Future will tell us but be sure that if they try anything against the IP users I will be the first to shout "bad practice".

Edit: deleted the previous quotes

Why wouldn't they agree?  The Youtube supona that was granted basically gives that away.

As for distribution... that's not even what sony claimed they wanted it for.  They wanted it for jurisdiction reasons.

No, the first reason is to prove the ditribution:

"One is to prove the “defendant’s distribution” of the hack. The other involves a jurisdictional argument over whether Sony must sue Hotz in his home state of New Jersey rather than in San Francisco, which Sony would prefer."

About subpoena of the IP owner, I really dont think theres enough evidence of illegal act against them for a judge to agree. Its not easy to get a search warrant or subpoena, you need solid evidence agaisnt someone.

Sony told Spero, a San Francisco magistrate, that it needed the information for at least two reasons.

One is to prove the “defendant’s distribution” of the hack. The other involves a jurisdictional argument over whether Sony must sue Hotz in his home state of New Jersey rather than in San Francisco, which Sony would prefer. 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.

Wow Kasz216 you still on this thread?? I have to give you credit brother.  Keep up the good fighting!! /Salute

Misread that, thought it was defenadts distribution based on where it was distibuted.

Partly because that's a completely stupid arguement.  Sony doesn't need that information to prove that.  Sony knows exactly how many consoles have been cracked then have been hooked up to the interent, and if just downloading the crack wouldn't be enough to get a supeona, it certaintly wouldn't be enough to prove a hack was used.

If the judge knew anything about PS3, they'd know that reason holds no merit.

Even if you forget that the majority of modified console arent ban, you still cannot use this information against Geohot. It doesnt prove they used the Geohot hack neither if they downloaded it from him. While your right on the account that downloading an hack is not enough to charge someone of piracy (I said it myself in an earlier post) its enough to prove the scale of the distribution made by Geohot.

Except, it isn't.  People may have downloaded it, but you can't actually prove they did anything with it.  It would actually be fairly easy to argue "prove that they used it."

That's exactly the point. All Sony are doing is proving that Geohot distributed it, while at the same time making the case that it should be held in California based on twitter contacts, etc etc in California, which also isn't that much of a stretch. CA is Sony HQ in USA, and it is very much a tech/pop-tech state.

Distribution has nothing to do with use. A drug dealer who sold drugs to a cop gets arrested because he distributed it. The cop doesn't have to use the drugs in order to prosecute.

This is also the reason why we are telling you that they cannot go after people that downloaded hacks. They would have to get search warrants on every single person, and then prove beyond a doubt, that they themselves downloaded and installed the crack. And even then, what can they do? Cracking the hardware is not against the DMCA. Distributing the crack IS.

Please re-read my post, especially whats underline. Prof00 last post sums it up pretty well too.