Was is sarcastic?  If it were so right for those to donate to "the cause," then do it again.  It's still a legit question.

so, why should they have a reason to spend even more money if they get what they wanted here and now?

i am sure they never expected to get money from him.

Civil court is all about being sued for money.

Its not that simple. Its fairly obvious that given how vocal Hotz and those in his corner have been, i mean the kid made a rap video and posted it on the internet, blogged about it had Anonymous making attmpts to hack and destroy all things Sony, that the "hacker community" was outraged, ready to fight, this was a violation of rights etc. on and on.....yet when push came to shove, when little George was facing the music he caved. End of story.

Youre talking about a huge multinational corperation that set out to show this hacking will not go unnoticed, they didnt set out to ruin this kids life or destroy him like you are leading on.

It seems  alot of people here get lost in the epeen pissing match of all or none from these forums. Like MUGEN ( I think) said they never intended to bury this kid, settling out of court is a "win" for Sony because it shows how quickly the vocal hacking community will crumble when push comes to shove, when they cant hide behind their forums and youtube videos, when they have to face grown ups in court, the legal system and be held accountable for their actions.

Its a "win" for Sony because now we have public record of a hacker who "did no wrong" in a lot of peoples eyes settling out of court because he knows damn well he did wrong, Sony wins because the point was made regardless of litigation precedent, now they dont come off as a huge corperation ruining a kids life over a matter which could be portrayed as "the man" hustling a kid. They got what they wanted, sans bad publicity, Hotz settling is admitted guilt in the court of public opinion......

Just like those aqful lawsuits of record companies sueing people who illegally download music for obscene amounts of money to "make a point" like you want....its not smart, it rubs people the wrong way and Sony gt what they wanted, they wanted him to back off, send a message they are paying attention and they were very succesful without looking like a trolling huge corperation coming down on some punk.

Its fairly obvious why this is a one sided settlement actually the more i type about it, some people just will not admit it because of the parties involved though, sadly.

To me it sounds like the only winners here are the lawyers raking in all those legal fees.

But that shouldn't surprise anybody. Such is the world...

Just like I said earlier, Sony showed mercy that served both Sony and Geohot.

They didnt show mercy, it was smart business sense. Pros are they make it public they are watching this, they get Hotz to back off and they dont get the backlash of a publicly drawn out david vs goliath court case.

Its not mercy, its smart business sense. People like Kowenicki are acting like Sony is some punk in a bar who needs to beat the piss out of some guy (Hotz) for hitting on his girl, when in the end grabbing her (PS3) giving her a kiss in front of him makes the guy (Sony) look much better.

Acting like sony is merciful do gooders here is just as silly as people acting like this isnt a victory for Sony.

Just as a clarification, I do not believe Sony was not doing this from the "goodness of their heart."  Their intentions were first and foremost self-serving.  But it could have ended a lot worse for Geohot.  I'm not going to take either side and claim that one won such a huge victory.  But I think my original response to this thread shows my stance that neither party got "raked over the coals" which is good.

I love how pro court case fans were calling for jailtime(which obviously wasnt possible in a civil case), bringing a kid into bankruptcy, death are calling this a win for corporate rights. All he has now is he cannot openly use Sony products. He can still hack whatever he wants(he is pretty bright on the computer side of things), just release his hacks anonymously. He can still own Sony products as long as he doesnt take pictures of them and send a bunch of proof to Sony he is fine.

More than likely someone in Sony got ear of what was happening here and realised that the only way they would win this rediculous case is to throw away more money and outspend hotz, just to get nothing in return(I cant imagine he has that much money).Hotz gets a slap on the wrist and loses the right to openly own Sony products. The real losers in the case are Sony and the people who donated to Hotz. The winners were lawyers.

I know if I were Hotz and still didnt want to take one of the obscenely lucrative computer security jobs being offered to me, I would hack the shit out of NGP

Isn't this a win for other PS3 hackers? Geohot may not be allowed to continue his work but this settlement won't affect any others, which it would had Sony won.

When the next guy steps up and releases some PS3 hacking tools and Sony sues him/her they will have to start from scratch again...

Unless Sony felt they were going to lose the case, reaching a settlement doesn't make any sense. They could have gained some serious ground in the PS3 hacking war had they won the case. The hacking of PS3's would probably been made illegal and the whole PS3 hacking scene would had taken a serious hit. Now none of that happened.