Category: open source

Groklaw – Hotz Ably Fights for His Motion to Dismiss – Tells Court SCEA’s Case Doesn’t Belong in CA.

I am starting to follow this case.  very dramatic; a bit more interesting than Cariou vs. Prince.

Hotz’s Reply to a SCEA motion

The message that Sony Computer Entertainment America (“SCEA”) is conveying to George Hotz (“Mr. Hotz”) and the public is of great consequence. SCEA advocates and encourages the Court to accept that simply by connecting to the Internet, you are consenting to jurisdiction anywhere in the world. SCEA has taken advantage of these unfamiliar concepts in order to present the Court with misleading sets of facts and affidavits.

Mr. Hotz is a 21-year-old individual who resides in New Jersey. He is not a multinational company, or even a company at all–he is just one person. He did not profit from his actions in question and he did not sell any circumvention devices. He is however, known for being a prodigy in the computer programming field. Mr. Hotz’s actions which gave rise to the controversy are simple: (1) Mr. Hotz published code he independent created (“Code”)(2) Mr. Hotz used the Code on his Playstation Computer, and (3) Mr. Hotz posted his findings on his personal blog.

SCEA filed this action, claiming jurisdiction over Mr. Hotz is proper in California. SCEA then flooded the docket with affidavits from its lawyers and employees, offering ambiguous and misleading information. SCEA then indicated that it would undoubtedly confirm that jurisdiction in California is proper for Mr. Hotz through jurisdictional discovery. Now, after Mr. Hotz’s computer hard drives, and a graphing calculator have been impounded, and Mr. Hotz’ discovery responses have been timely submitted, SCEA still is unable to present evidence to refute the jurisdictional challenges asserted by Mr. Hotz. Instead, SCEA has only continued to flood the docket with dubious information, such as irrelevant hearsay blog postings filed under seal, and misleading affidavits from enigmatic employees with no explanations of the source of their personal knowledge.