Sony and Geohot Settle Out of Court. Sell-Out!

Listen man! When you’re riding high, you’re willing to run the fucking gaunlet! Geohot stunted back when he first released the PS3 rootkey and Sony was pissed off. He wasn’t going to accept anything aside from some apology from Sony. However, Sony has subsequently released the robo-ninjas, Geohot fled to South America, and now he’s singing a different tune.

Joystiq:

After a short but rather storied history, infamous PlayStation 3 jailbreaker George “GeoHot” Hotz and Sony Computer Entertainment of America have settled their legal dispute, with a statement on the PlayStation Blog stating the two parties “reached an agreement in principle” around 10 days ago. According to said agreement, Hotz has “consented to a permanent injunction,” meaning he super swears he won’t do it again (legally speaking, of course), though no other terms are given. We were told by an SCEA rep that the terms of the settlement (beyond what was disclosed) are confidential.

Unsurprisingly, both Hotz’ legal team and Sony’s were excited to resolve the legal dispute so quickly. “It was never my intention to cause any users trouble or to make piracy easier. I’m happy to have the litigation behind me,” Hotz said in the announcement.

Previously, Hotz had strict terms for a potential settlement. “Let’s just say, I want the settlement terms to include OtherOS on all PS3s and an apology on the PlayStation blog for ever removing it,” Hotz wrote on his website during the trial. “It’d be good PR for Sony too, lord knows they could use it,” he continued. “I’m also willing to accept a trade, a legit path to homebrew for knowledge of how to stop new firmwares from being decrypted.” Apparently the case spooked Hotz enough to reconsider.

Dude pussed out and settled out of court. Yeah, I said it. Dude totally stood for something up until he got really worried and then he all of a sudden was amenable.