So much for the part of the settlement deal between Sony and hacker George Hotz where it was agreed not to reveal the settlement details.
Gamespot has apparently received a copy of the settlement, and posted every detail of it online. For such a huge, powerful company like Sony, it looks like it really backed down. The deal pretty much just tells Hotz not to break the law.
According to the settlement, Hotz is “permanently enjoined and restrained from… engaging in any unauthorised access to any Sony product under the law … whether or not Hotz has accepted such agreement or terms of use.”
He also is barred from “reverse engineering, decompiling, or disassembling any portion of a Sony product” or “using any tools to bypass, disable, or circumvent any encryption, security, or authentication mechanism.”
If Hotz fails to follow these terms, he will have to pay $10,000 per violation, though the most he can rack up in violations is $250,000.
That’s pretty much it. It looks like Hotz doesn’t have to pay any money right now, and there is no real penalty at all. It’s basically a slap on the wrist with a “don’t do it again” message. In other words, it looks like if you had to pick a winner here, it was Hotz.
