Geohot Asks Fans for Donations to Help Fight Sony in Court

George Hotz, known as “geohot,” is a legend when it comes to hacking. His most popular tools released include purplera1n, blackra1n, and limera1n. He was the first to unlock the original iPhone. He is seen as an “iPhone god” by many around the world.

But this time around he’s in some major legal trouble with Sony over his hacking of the PS3. We first shed light on this with his rap response to Sony, which now has over 1 million views on YouTube.

George started a new blog, geohot.com to ask for support and donations. Here are a few excerpts from his page:

Media, I need your help. This is the first time I have ever asked. Please, if you support this cause, help me out and spread the word.
I want, by the time this goes to trial, to have Sony facing some of the hardest hitting lawyers in the business.
Together, we can help fix the system

Sony sued the wrong guy
I am an advocate against mass piracy, do not distribute anyone’s copyrighted work but my own, do not take crap lying down, and am even pro DRM in a sense. For example, I believe Apple has every right to lock down their iPhone in the factory as much as they want, but once it’s paid for and mine, I have the right to unlock it, smash it, jailbreak it, look at it, and hack on it. Fortunately, the courts agree with me on this point.
My PS3 goal has been to provide users a legitimate path to homebrew, which by the standards of all previous cases (or, in reverse) is 100% legal. Sony does not even try to allege piracy or copyright infringement in this case, they allege I did things like play “super mario world, an unauthorized game” on MY PS3. And access MY PS3 in an unauthorized way. Who are they to authorize what I do with my taxed and paid for property?
fail0verflow’s goal was even nobler than mine. They wanted to give you back a feature Sony illegally stole, Linux on your PS3. It’s shameful on Sony’s part that they are being sued at all. If you have a problem with pirates, sue them, don’t sue people who point out your shortcomings.

Sony are bullies
Sony doesn’t care if what you did was legal, if they don’t like it, they sue. Sony tried to sue a guy for getting his AIBO to do non Sony approved tricks, making it apparent that they don’t really care about piracy, they care about control. In (Sony v Bleem), Bleem was the winner on all counts, but the high cost of a legal defense shut them down. Fortunately, that suit helped set precedent on the legality of emulators. I would hate to lose this case due to resource starvation, and with the support of the masses, I won’t. Lets turn the bully back on itself. This case has the ability to set a huge precedent for consoles and all closed systems to come. The other two should be begging Sony to back off.

Check out George’s interview with G4TV:

Seems like George is in for one long legal fight. If ‘geohot’ has helped you before in the past, maybe this is the time to step in and help him out too. You can check out his blog here.

[geohot.com via @senators24]

P.S. - Like our news? Support the site with a coffee/beer. Or shop with our Amazon link. We use affiliate links when possible--thank you for supporting independent media.