Sony Sues Californian Seller Over Jailbroken PS4 Consoles

Sony does not mess around when it comes to their intellectual property and one California reseller is learning that lesson the hard way now that he is being sued for selling jailbroken PlayStation 4 systems.

When someone jailbreaks a console, they are breaking the official hardware to allow for more customization, bootlegged games, and more. California’s own Eric Scales has been found to be selling these modified systems both on his personal website and his eBay account. In doing so, he violated Sony‘s copyright while also poached on Digital Millennium’s Copyright Act with the availability of bootleg copies of AA titles – even the most recently released God of War.

So how did Sony find definite proof? The company went undercover and bought several of these changed consoles themselves. It was during this that they realised that the seller not only intentionally sold stolen games, but was quite proud of the fact.

It’s reported that when Sony purchased the two consoles from Scales that he kept reiterating that they could “enjoy” all of these games for free and repeatedly encouraged them to “stop buying games.” This hurts Scales when the motion goes to court because he will not be available to claim ignorance regarding his actions.

We don’t know what exactly Sony is suing him for. A cease and desist – obviously – but it’s also possible they are going to be demanding a lot of money. This is the first notable lawsuit regarding a jailbroken PlayStation 4, it would make sense that Sony would want to make an example out of it.

What do you think about the Sony vs Scales case? Jailbreaking consoles is nothing new and neither is piracy but on a grand scale like this with the intent to harm future sales of both hardware and software, do you think Sony is going too far or not far enough? Sound off with your take on the California lawsuit in the comment section below and tell us your thoughts on what Sony should do next.

Source: TorrentFreak, via Kotaku