Dropped by George “GeoHot” Hotz’s website in the last, oh, 26 months or so? Sony’s making a list, and you’re on it.
A federal judge has granted Sony a subpoena to request the IP addresses of visitors to the PS3 hacker’s site – as well as information regarding a number of related accounts on Google, Twitter, YouTube, and other sites – as part of the company’s ongoing litigation against Hotz. The hacker stands accused of breaching the (somewhat controversial) Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which prohibits the distribution of copy-protection circumvention devices.
According to Sony, this information is needed to “identity of those who have downloaded the circumvention devices from Mr. Hotz’s website” and to assess “how rampant the access to and use of these circumvention devices has been in California in order to rebut Mr. Hotz’s suggestion that his illicit conduct was not aimed at the forum state.”
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has criticised the subpoena application for being “overly broad”, and a violation of Hotz’s free speech.
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