PS3 Hackers being Banned, but where is the line of "Ownership" ?

Grow up.

If banning actually prohibited them from using their hardware, that would be one thing.  But in this case, it is only cutting them off from services Sony provides.  If you don't plan on obeying their license agreement, you should be prepared to work without their help.

If Sony went around snatching PS3s from people who voided their warranty, that I would have a problem with.  

Ownership of a PS3 among others comes with terms, read the terms when you buy it and abide by them, if you don't ... you suffer the consequences.

lol, wow, man...seriously? Great reply...

I do Not condone piracy if that's what you were thinking. I don't even own a PS3 nor do I care to. What I'm concerned with here is what kind of message it's sending to the manufacturers and makers of other types of devices and what types of "laws" for the consumer it could lead to in the future.

I can agree with that. As far as I can tell the "Banning" just prevents the PS3 hackers from connecting to the play-station network. I'm not sure if that bans them from all online play all together or not. I also agree that if someone did "jailbreak" their system they probably didn't have a lot of use for most multi-player games anyway since last I knew most pirated games didn't work for that type of thing.

Very true, LightStar. Well said.

Like I said the main thing here that bothers me about this is that it could lead to types of things like this happening to computers and other devices I do care about. I think it could seriously damage the consumers rights to do what they please with things they paid for.

Here's an Example I think everyone can relate to:

Think about buying a car. Now what if you decide you want a better, faster, engine for that car. Now imagine that when you go and buy a new engine for that car that the car's manufacturer comes to you and says it's now illegal for you to drive that car because you put your own engine in it.

THAT example is the kind of thing I can see happening down the road and that I think would be a Clear rights violation.

I think this has come about because PS3 is now hacked wide open and suing the hackers is going to achieve nothing. And in some countries they don't have a legal leg to stand on trying to stop the user to use the hardware anyway they want to.

But they can stop user accessing the PS3 network which is something that they can do right NOW. It's going to be hard for the user to do anything about it.

A good post Raven...

People should start making their own consoles and then STFU.

Don't like what they're offering? Don't buy it. You don't have any right to ignore an agreement you enter into. And that's that.

This "issue" is just an offspring of the whole piracy movement, where you feel entitled to something you aren't entitled to. You think there's an option because you imagine there is an option, but there is no option besides breaking the rules set out for you to use the product.

Don't know if it's applicable to PS3, but 'jailbroken' equipment is far more vulnerable to malware/viral infection (like iPhones, etc.). If that's so, the ban might be to protect others playing...

Don't know for certain. Lightstar's point is valid and true.

Here's another way of looking at your analogy...by replacing the engine you have changed the emissions output of the vehicle, which is in violation of federal law. Your car is no longer street legal.

I think cars dont make a good example, but his analogy still works.  Let's say instead of a car, someone buys a home appliance.  He or she could modify it to work in a different way that it was designed to do.  Like when people overclock their computers.  They void the warranty, and risk destroying their expensive equipment, but it's legal for them.  As long as their modifications don't become vehicles or air traffic control jamming devices it's good.

Grow up,and make an actual response.

As of PS3, you guys dont own it. As long as you can't open or do whatever you like with it, you don't own it.

The issue is not just Sony protecting it's own rights.

Sony is also trying to protect the gamer from other gamers... example...

In the ever popular and most recent of the "Call of Duty" franchise... BLACK OPS, you can get on your PC, go to just about any torrent download site and download hacks for the game that allows you to CHEAT and totally dominate in a very unfair way.

That in turn, would take away almost all the FUN from everyone else playing the game.

And isn't that what games are for??? Having fun?  If Sony doesn't protect the fun, then no one would SPEND THEIR MONEY on their products.

I don't know why you guys are making analogies when they are clearly flawed. There's no need to reason your way around something when the real case is perfectly easy to understand. It is sold under terms of agreement. You can either agree and follow the terms, or you can not use it. There's no in-between.

To be fair I don't think anyone was presented with a contract prior to purchasing the PS3. However what they are banning is the online services.. which is totally separate from the product itself, and far easier to apply a EULA/subscriber agreement to. They aren't breaking the PS3s simply blocking them from using their online services. I do see a reason for concern for the future of these types of practices but this particular instance is acceptable imho. Now if playing your purchased games required you to be able to access the online services a la steam then were getting into the wtf area.

Wow GregII, did you stay up all night thinking about this well educated and informed response?. You may need to take your own advice and stop acting like a child. Raven you make some good points and i am sure this issue will have many more directions to go in the future.

... That's it

Sony owns the network and they offer you a service, you have to agree to their EULA to have access to that service. Once you have broken the agreement they can take that service away.

Some have already pointed it out, and I concur:  they don't have to let hacked boxes on their network.  If you choose to hack, you choose to void your warranty and you choose to play offline.

They are never going to take you to court for hacking your own box - selling services to hacked boxes or distributing material on how to hack a box is a completely different subject, of which you may get pinged for ala Geohot.

I just wish Sony, MS, and Nintendo would stop forcing each and every user to do bogus updates in hopes of cutting out the hackers.  Once you're hacked, you've lost the game.  I hate trying to fire up Netflix on my PS3 to be reminded I need to apply an update that adds nothing for the end user.  Or pop in a game on my Wii and told the system needs an update to play the game and the system update does....... nothing.  It drives me bonkers.

I remember when the DS Lite came out, and everyone - even me - rushed to buy one.  It was a far superior design to the original DS.  Then, Nintendo brought out the DSi.  This one has a camera in it, online store and memory cards to store everything, as well as a longer battery life.  The DSi, however, was also regionally restricted.  I didn't buy one.  If I'm remembering correctly, the DSi has the same, or greater, install base as the DS Lite.

After the DSi came out, the piracy on the Nintendo DS platform shot into the stratisphere.  People will claim it was the memory cards, which allowed for more easily created homebrew stuff.  Truth is, as a longtime DS owner, the platform has always had the same level homebrew stuff - the DSi simply made it easier.  After the DSi came out, however, titles were no longer easy to get.  Chrono Trigger, for example, received an extremely small release.  It was also regionally restricted, and thus there were entire countires of people who simply never got a chance to buy the game.  Chrono Trigger on the DS is one of the systems more pirated titles.  And it has nothing to do with "entitlement"; they wanted to pay money for a game that no one was willing to sell to them.

When hackers hack something, they do it because they can.  They're interested in these types of things, and their curiosity to see "if they can" drives them.  They also do it to add functionality that is missing and desired enough to warrant the effort to create it themselves.  Removing the Regional Restrictions on the DSi is an example of this.  Instead of coming down like fucking meteor on them, the best solution is to work with them, and use their opinions and expertise to develop solutions to the problems that the hackers solve for every-day users.

Strangely enough, Microsoft are leading the charge.  When Kinect was hacked, and enabled for PC use - and it wasn't difficult - Microsoft's EULA allows them the legal right to do what Sony is attempting to do; kill the hacks and everything and every one connected to them.  Microsoft, however, did the best thing possible: they invited the hackers to help them make Kinect more open, and they used alot of their information in the development of the offical Kinect PC SDK, which is releasing soon.
They realised that people want to mess around with their cool new technology, and instead of locking it down, they've opend it up significantly more than they're required to.  Microsoft also allow Indie Devs to develop for the Xbox with their XNA Development software; they encourage people to mess around with their product.  It's not as open as the PC Platform, but it's a step in the right direction.

Sony really need to ask themselves: what exactly are the hackers attmepting to do.  I can promise you the main reason the PS3 was cracked had nothing to do with piracy.  At all.  Sony need to work with the hackers, so meet them in the middleground, and say "Ok, we'll do this, so you guys can do that, and piracy is still locked down."
Of course, Sony also believed that the PS3 would sell a million consoles on launch day even if they had no games available to play.  They're so far behind the times that they simply don't understand how it can work.

Fine.  New TOS with your automobile:  You may only have it serviced at your dealer.  You may only use fuel sold by your dealer.  You may not modify it in any way, shape nor fashion and must go to your dealer if you want it fueled, washed, hang an air freshner or get a bumper sticker.

When all automobile manufacturers start doing this ... that's okay, right?  If you don't like what they're offering, don't buy it, eh?  You think there's an option because you forked over a large sum of your hard-earned money to buy something?  Tough, you don't actually own anything anymore regardless of how much you pay!

Except they just did take such people to court ... not for trying to play their modded PS3s on Sony's network, but simply for posting instructions for console owners to modify their own boxes.  The hacker's computers he legally owned were seized for this.  http://www.pcworld.com/article/220740/police_raid_ps3_hackers_home_hacker_retaliates_sony_sues.html

Nothing I have read indicates the hacker was attempting to sell or distribute in any way, shape or fashion any copyrighted material, only instructions he wrote for PS3 console owners to modify their consoles.

All i know is that I'm a loser in sony's battle against piracy.  I don't condone piracy in any way or hacking your ps3, etc.  My hard drive failed shortly after getting the 3.56v1 patch (you know, the patch I had to install to go online).  I get a new hard drive, try to upgrade it, and I get the data corrupted error.... and the only fix to this issue is to have the original working harddrive, upgrade to their WORKING firmware 3.56v2, and then you can install a new hard drive.  In short, I'm a bit screwed because Sony's QA was shite and they rushed out yet another security fix to try to shut down the "hackers."  My PS3 is still under warranty, so I can have it "fixed" (eg made to work like it still would if sony didn't release a half baked firmware update), but that will cost me $50.  And why will it cost me $50?  Hackers and Sony's POS QA. 

Anyway, some completely uninvolved folks do get screwed over in the process of safeguarding sony's system.  Not really fair, eh?  Is Sony saying anything about the folks that got screwed by their botched firmware?  No.  Are they doing anything to correct the issue they caused?  No. 

This sounds like something to call your State Attorney General's office with if you have written to their customer support people and received no or an inadequate answer. Other people must also be in your situation.

Well... I've called their CS and no one has been willing to wave the $50 fee as of yet.  The response is simply that I need to update to the v3.56v2 firmware and I'm all set (which is completely impossible as my original harddrive bricked on the v3.56v1 firmware).  I'm obviously annoyed that their crap QA allowed for a loop hole like this, but I'm outraged at having to pay $50 for something that a week earlier or a week later would have cost me nothing but my time.  I'm not aware of what the state attorney general in Ohio would do to help this situation.  At any rate, I'm going to try a couple more times with their CS people and see if I get someone that can organize thoughts logically and help out. 

Yes, now you understand perfectly. Except your analogy is flawed, otherwise you seem to grasp the concept. It is what it is, they produce the product and thus they get to decide who uses it and how it's sold. And that's all there is to it.

Meanwhile, I'm doing just fine with my PC, where the DRM (to me) seems so much less draconian.

Sony says , Shut up slave and go back to work. You signed away your rights when you were born!! Now give us back our 9.5 million. China wants the value attached to your birth certificate!!