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Comment by AdmiralAsshat | Hacker News Reader

So how long until Sony lawyers get the Github repo shut down?

On what grounds exactly? Sony can't forbid anyone installing other OSes on their hardware.

I don't know the boot process on a PS4, but if loading Linux requires you to modify or bypass any access controls, then it may be a circumvention violation of the DMCA.

If loading an alternate OS is a EULA violation, they might brick users machines or at least stop them from using Sony services.

But that's something the user is doing. This repo has the Linux distro, which is by itself neither a circumvention, gives instructions to circumvent, or performs a circumvention of the DRM to run, thereby passing DMCA muster.

It's somewhat similar to the situation XBMC was in back when the X still stood for Xbox -- the code itself is OK by the DMCA, but compiling it required use of unauthorized dev tools (if the user didn't have a license from MS, which they likely did not), distributing the binaries was a violation of the DMCA (due to statically linked, non-free MS libraries), and installation of said binaries was also a DMCA violation (as it required the user to circumvent the DRM on the console).

One github repo mentioned in the article is the exploit, and a basic functional webpage to "do stuff" with it.

See, https://github.com/kR105/PS4-playground/blob/gh-pages/js/exp... for example.

It is also illegal under the DMCA to traffic in circumvention technologies; ergo GitHub, by continuing to host this material, is breaking the law.

F* the DMCA! That's not my stupid law!

Signed - not a US citizen!

I wish more US citizens would demand the same: http://www.fixthedmca.org

That said, similar garbage laws exist in many countries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-circumvention

It might be, or it might be not. DMCA is a major mess and is itself quite unconstitutional to begin with.

Isn't that what they sued George Hotz (aka GeoHot) for, and won an injunction preventing him from touching Sony hardware ever again?

They didn't win. They settled out of court. It can mean that Sony were afraid to lose (in court).

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Computer_Entertainment_Am...

Anyway, it's easy for such monster to intimidate an individual with little resources for legal battles. It doesn't mean that what they (Sony) do themselves is legal in any way.

Cloned and ready to rock.

Remember 09 F9?

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