Sony warns PS3 hack users will be banned from PSN
Those that exploit security jailbreak will be "terminated permanently" from online services
Sony has addressed the growing piracy threat on the PlayStation 3, warning that any users exploiting unauthorised or pirated software will be banned from the PlayStation Network and other services.
The company is taking legal action against George Hotz and a number of other individuals and hacking groups for releasing a jailbreak allowing users to circumnavigate PlayStation 3 security.
"Unauthorised circumvention devices for the PlayStation 3 system have been recently released by hackers," acknowledged Sony today in a statement. "These devices permit the use of unauthorised or pirated software.
"Use of such devices or software violates the terms of the 'System Software License Agreement for the PlayStation 3 System' and the 'Terms of Services and User Agreement' for the PlayStation Network/Qriocity and its Community Code of Conduct provisions.
"Violation of the System Software Licence Agreement for the PlayStation 3 System invalidates the consumer guarantee for that system. In addition, copying or playing pirated software is a violation of International Copyright Laws," it warned.
"Consumers using circumvention devices or running unauthorised or pirated software will have access to the PlayStation Network and access to Qriocity services through PlayStation 3 System terminated permanently.
"To avoid this, consumers must immediately cease use and remove all circumvention devices and delete all unauthorised or pirated software from their PlayStation 3 systems."
While Sony is taking legal action against individuals, others, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation has accused the corporation of abusing the Computer Fraud act.
While the legal debate is sure to rumble on, many consider that the PlayStation 3 system has now been broken open for good, with some security experts suggesting piracy on the hardware could be worse than it is on the PlayStation Portable.
Sony is actively working on destroying their own platform and their relationship with the customers, instead of creating an alliance with their 3rd parties to make a legal PS3 that much more attractive than a hacked one.
Take this press release, all it does is make people reflect on the value proposition of PSN and Qriocity, as opposed to copying each game for single player purposes. All you need to do is to glance quickly at the number of PS3 games you own and their overwhelmingly single player nature, add up what you paid for them and compare that to the bunch of nickel and dime stuff you bought off PSN. What Sony needs to do is to compete, not whine and behave like an Austrian execution squad (i.e. a squad shooting itself).
Guess that Austrian execution squad must be one of those less mainstream unfunny German terms because I never heard of that one.
That it will come this was already clear once it was hacked and the custom firmware was released and thats one of the reasons why I never installed it even if when I wanted to check out some of the legal homebrew stuff out of curiosity and I support this actions from Sony. Sure they could have done better on allowing homebrew, still the console would have been hacked 360 has free XNA and that did not stop people from hacking it. Because thats what those people do, they don`t think about what`s going to happen they just want to get recognized by someone and an ego boost instead of using those skills for something productive.
Over here in Asia the PS3 has not been as popular as the 360 because of it being so secure.
360 games have been widely available for a few $$s for years.
Since the various hacks have taken off the PS3 population is growing, and all the same market stalls selling 360 games now also sell PS3 ones, dongles and HD bumper packs.
I am sure hard core pirates will also want to play online. At the price of original games, verses the price of consoles I can see a lot of people doing the same as 360 pirates do. One for offline. One for online.
Edited 2 times. Last edit by Stephen Northcott on 17th February 2011 5:00am