Sony and George “Geohotz” Hotz have issued a joint statement, announcing that they have settled their legal dispute out of court. The court documents associated with this settlement are included after the jump. The parties have been engaged in a legal struggle for several months, after Hotz published the rootkey of the Playstation 3. An agreement in principle was reached on March 31st.
The settlement between Sony and Hotz stipulates that Hotz shall refrain from engaging in any unauthorized access to Sony products, or aid others in acquiring such access. For any violation of this agreement, he will be charged with a fine of $10,000, up to a maximum of $250,000.
Responding to the settlement, Hotz expressed his satisfaction that the legal battle was now behind him, and added that “it was never [his] intention to cause any users trouble or to make piracy easier.” Hotz originally published the Playstation 3 rootkey to allow users to install alternative operating systems on the Playstation 3, a feature that Sony was originally available on the console, but was later discontinued by Sony.
Though Hotz was not allowed to make comments regarding the lawsuit or the settlement, when speaking on his private blog he did announce he will be joining a boycott of Sony products:
As of 4/11/11, I am joining the SONY boycott. I will never purchase another SONY product.
I encourage you to do the same. And if you bought something SONY recently, return it.
Why would you not boycott a company who feels this way about you?
There is much more to come on this blog.
Hacker-group Anonymous launched a campaign against Sony earlier this month, stating it was abusing the judicial system to censor information and violating the privacy of thousands of consumers. This campaign brought the Playstation Network servers down last Monday.
While I respect his boycott, he still seems like a child that is mad that his toy got taken away. I’m glad they settled in a fair way.