PS3 hacker asks for donations, gets them

After releasing code that enabled PS3s to play pirated and homebrew content, hacker George "Geohot" Hotz hashired a legal defense team to keepSony's lawyersat bay. Sony obviously has more money to throw at this, but Hotz isn't giving up yet- he's asked for donations to keep the battle going, having already spent $10,000 in legal fees.

Hotz (who's also apparently abudding rapper) appealed to gamers over the weekend,asking for donationsto help pay for his legal costs. How much he received is unknown, but he did pull the donation link after saying he was successful in raising enough cash.

Inhis blog, Hotz writes, "Sony has5 lawyers, I have 2. I'd like to level the playing field and really get some hard hitters in there... I am not being sued because of something I have that Sony wants, I am being sued in order to send a message that Sony is not to be messed with."

Hotz has complied with earlier court orders to pull any information pertaining to the hack from his blog and YouTube accounts, and most recently was told to allow Sony to sift through his PS3 console to look for information "that relates to the hacking of the PlayStation."

Even as afairly famoushacker, Hotz contends he is "in full support of cheaters being permabanned from PSN," referring to people who've recently been tinkering with Modern Warfare 2's online multiplayer. He says his hacking instructions were only supposed to let people play legitimate backup copies of games they owned, and didn't intend for people to use it for illegalor piratingpurposes. Naturally Sony's lawyers called shenanigans up and down that defense.

If Hotz is found guilty, he'll be ordered to pay monetary damages Sony is allegedly sustaining due to piracy and hacking brought on byHotz's actions.

[Source:Gamespy]

Feb 22, 2011

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