Official Statement Regarding PS3 Circumvention Devices and Pirated Software

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Today, Sony Computer Entertainment released the following statement:

Notice: Unauthorized circumvention devices for the PlayStation 3 system have been recently released by hackers. These devices permit the use of unauthorized or pirated software. Use of such devices or software violates the terms of the “System Software License Agreement for the PlayStation 3 System” and the “Terms of Services and User Agreement” for the PlayStation Network/Qriocity and its Community Code of Conduct provisions. Violation of the System Software Licence Agreement for the PlayStation 3 System invalidates the consumer guarantee for that system. In addition, copying or playing pirated software is a violation of International Copyright Laws. Consumers using circumvention devices or running unauthorized or pirated software will have access to the PlayStation Network and access to Qriocity services through PlayStation 3 system terminated permanently.

To avoid this, consumers must immediately cease use and remove all circumvention devices and delete all unauthorized or pirated software from their PlayStation 3 systems.

What this means to you

Circumvention devices and game piracy damage our industry and can potentially injure the online experience for you, our loyal PlayStation customers, via hacks and cheats.

Many PlayStation.Blog readers have asked how we intend to deal with these incidents that they have been reading about in the gaming press, and this is our initial response.

By identifying PlayStation 3 systems that breach our guidelines and terminating their ability to connect to PlayStation Network, we are protecting our business and preserving the honest gameplay experiences that you expect and deserve.

Rest assured, this message does not apply to the overwhelming majority of our users who enjoy the world of entertainment PlayStation 3 has to offer without breaching the guidelines detailed above, and we urge you to continue doing so without fear.

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737 Comments

  • Thank you Sony!

  • Will this end the craziness on Modern Warfare 2 online? wtf is going on there. Scary

  • congrats to playstation to fix this finally and now it is safe for the rest of us to play online.
    Thank you.

  • not sure if this was posted but here it is again

    http:// www . youtube . com/watch?v=JnNu56jPZnA&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL no spaces though but yea hope this helps down the list of haxers

  • As an honest customer that would never attempt to circumvent any software protection and as an individual who does not condone piracy or participate in it, good for you. I understand the need to protect your intellectual property. Its good for your company and any 3rd party creating games on your system.

    On the other hand, I had a hard drive data corruption issues immediately after upgrading to 3.56. I formatted my hard drive in an attempt to restore, and lo and behold: I can no longer install the existing firmware on my hard drive. And as such, and rendered with a paper weight unless I’m willing to pay a $100 + fee for a problem I could resolve myself in the past. I sincerely hope you’ll release an update to your firmware that will work for individuals without the original hard drive. It seems to me that the change you made with your latest updates removed the ability to upgrade to a new hard drive. Your customer – disappointed.

  • thats right sony should ban all those who use piracy. 1st ‘cos the single cost is simply not fair i paid $70 while another person pais only $7 whit a pirated game. second ‘cos whith paracy comes cheats and hacks and thata sucks! i saw 1 hack that gives u all the trophies ¬¬ wtf! i spend 1 week in order to achive a platinum and they only take 1 minute ¬¬. and in online gaming soon enough it will be headshot cheat, wall cheat, money cheat, exp. cheat and all those things! sony pls shut them out! ban the entire console to never play a single game and really understand that is a total lost to support piracy.

    Atte.

    Luis Guillermo Teran Velazco

  • Go get them, Sony !

    You have my full support as your loyal customer

  • yey!

  • Will this affect my console if I have themes from ps3-theme.com?

  • Destroy them Sony. Take a harder stance! Go after their parents and pets. Bring them to their knees!! I’ll support you and the many developers that bring me so much entertainment and goodness. Behind you 200%.

  • Sony, I used to play Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 before the community was hacked to pieces. Joining a game in progress one day corrupted my save file allowing all the unlocks, weapons, perks, etc to be accessible without me putting forth the effort much to my disdain. Would that be in line with the ToS circumvention? I’m cleaning up space right now on my HDD and I’m still upset that I can’t finish my Platinum progress with my save file if it means I’m a target for you guys as a “hacker” when my save was hacked during a normal online game from the host.

  • Good luck with this. Sincerely.

  • Bring your worst.

  • @Ckrovax

    I appreciate your point of view. Now please take your DRM propaganda somewhere else because it doesn’t apply here. If you believe that software has rights then you haven’t followed the Millennium Act very closely. You supposedly purchase the rights to everything from music to movies to games. Yet the companies are able to repackage these same pieces of programming code you have already paid for the rights to previously (Super Mario All-Stars on Wii for a recent example) and charge you again for the “software rights”. Well it seems I already paid for them when the code came out the first time on a big grey cartridge so what makes it right to charge full for the same code slipped on a CD.

  • Shouldn’t you be able to get the code on a disc for the cost of the disc with proof of the previously purchased rights? How about the fact that it says that you are legally entitled to make archival backups of your media in case of damage or failure. But it is illegal to do so because you have to circumvent the blocks set in place to keep you from doing just that. Take DVD movies and the lawsuit with 321 Studios and DVD X Copy. In this case they single-handedly stopped you from your legal right to make backup copies of your movies while contradicting the very law that they, the justice system, put in place to protect your investment. But you see, it isn’t about rights, has never been about rights, and never will be about rights. It is about two things. Maximizing profits and control of the consumer. If you would pull your head out of your lower rear orifice, you would see that. I agree to nothing more than to give my money for your magic electric box. Nothing more.

  • It’s about time Sony!

    Lay down that Ban Hammer on those pirates!!!

  • sony you are doing the right thing now.
    Ban all the darn hackers!
    They do not deserve the service from PSN.
    We, the legal customers deserve a nice and fair onling gaming environment as we have PAID for it!

    Looking forward to seeing the your next step SONY!!
    PLEASE work on this issue!!!

  • HAHAHAHAH!!!!

    I swear, most of you guys are idiots. You guys swear that every single person that mods their PS3’s will hack every single PSN game and ruin your experience. Lol, if you go onto some of those modding sites like psgroove.com, you’ll see that they boo the cheaters and constantly support modders.

    So, next time before you start talking crap on all the modders, do your research. 90% of the modders out there are not online gaming hackers or cheaters.

  • [DELETED] Sony. This article is a joke. I agree that people shouldn’t pirate video games but this was only written because of geohot and he does not support pirating either. He just want’s to be able to, and the consumer, to use there electronics for what they want to do. So [DELETED] sony. So get off your high horses.

  • The way I see it if you mod the system and not the games you play online then what’s the threat to the online community? How does it affect the online community if these mods are for the XMB and not your games?

  • thank you sony

  • i like how their putting all their time into looking for hackers instead of more important things like i dunno maybe improving THE PSN for example

  • @421
    Just curious what do you mean by that?

  • @Trueboricua

    This will not end the madness. The hacks on MW2 can even be used without a modded PS3.

  • I hope sony learns something from the community who are developing softwares for their ps3. They’ve been extremely aggressive on exploiting their console and been denying the consumers to be able to use their console’s maximum potential.

    It’s not really all about pirating a lot of apps are gonna be made and stuff the console can do like kinect for example if they’ll be more open.I’m sure everyone’s disappointed losing linux and ps2 support on ps3 which has been advertised heavily.

    I hate cheating online so im not against the idea of banning those. I’m just saying and i think they already knew the risk of using CFW.

  • @423
    Exactly. Not everyone who has a modded PS3 hacks their online game.

  • When I was playing MW2 a couple of weeks ago I was in a hacked match. Honestly I enjoyed it because it’s practically dead since Black Flops came out but you don’t have to hack MW2 yourself. The host left in one match and it picked me as host. I got all the hack abilities. Just shows that you don’t have to hack the game yourself. I don’t have a modded PS3 or games.

  • part 1
    You know sony it’s things like this that led to the hackers in the first place. When you removed OtherOS because you got scared that people could use the part of the full power of their console instead of the measly amount of the machine which they bought, you were asking for trouble, you weren’t acting in your users best interest you were acting in your own, when you didn’t listen to what the people said as it would possibly hurt your profit margins you were asking for this. I’ve got nothing against you bringing down the ban hammer on hackers who are ruining the online experience of people but I morally have a problem with you making the law for the lowest common denominator. you have the power to get rid of all the intelligent people behind this by giving back to use what we had in the first place, you can get rid of 99% of the people doing bad things by being more open, you can ban the [DELETED] out the 1% who still do what they want without regard for other people but instead Sony, you are taking the cowards way out and protecting your bottom line,

  • @Jaymz99

    I appreciate your view on digital/property rights but I will disagree with you on a few points. When you purchase “code” if you would like to call it that… (But we are really talking about an end-product aren’t we?) you are merely purchasing the right to exercise that media personally. In other words, you are purchasing the right to play/watch/listen to that information for your person. In addition, if you feel the need to repurchase a certain piece of software for a new system. That is your choice as a consumer. Just as it is your choice as a consumer to purchase any system in the first place. (Keep on playing your mario on your old system). It is short-sighted to not understand the manufacturing/development/porting/distribution costs related to taking an old piece of software and applying it to a new system OS.

    Now, what you are not entitled to is to redistribute that media in any form or fashion. Want to back it up in case of… CD/BRD failure… fine. Work that out for yourself. Personally, I haven’t ever had a piece of media fail on me that I haven’t been able to recover easily.

  • Lastly, if you are so angry about companies making “profits” and your paranoid illusions of “controlling the consumer”, go live in Wisconsin in the woods. No one forces you to engage in our society or purchase any goods you do not wish to. That’s how free market capitalism works.

  • So, When do we get OtherOS back, or the ability to HD-install our games?

  • @Jaymz99

    Got shafted by the character limit…so going to give you the short and dirty.

    When you purchase media, you are buying the right to play/watch/listen to that media personally. When you bought your mario cartridge, you were buying the right to play it on that system with that specific “code” etc. What you do not have or are purchasing the right to do is to copy and redistribute that property in any means. Case in point: see Googles recent problems with Oracle and why they will lose pertaining to code related to the android operating system…

    It is short sighted to believe it a costless effort to port games to a new OS. The software you purchased for a previous system may or may not be an exact replica. Either way, you have not purchased said “code” for use on a new system and have no rights until repurchasing to do so.

    In summary, you property rights is what it is about in the grand scheme. A controlled environment is what every tech company strives for because it is the only way to ensure quality/integrity. Rage all you want but your arguments are void of substance and fly in the face of free market capitalism.

  • @427

    Not everyone lives in america nor the entire world is the united states.

  • Finally Sony did it… Now bring us somethin new as a feature for PS3

  • @Jaymz99
    I think you need to go back and re-read the laws. It says you can make a backup copy, if you have the proper tools to do so. But the law doesnt say that companies can let you play those copies on the software that the company owns. And also in those same rules it points out that if your making a backup copy, it is for the device that copy is made for. So if its a game for an out of date gaming system, it means you only have a copy that should be for that system and no other system. But then again the game company will have it in the GAME LICENSE that you the customer can play the content as long as you follow the companies rules.

  • @Jaymz99

    Okay, I’ve attempted to post three times. I don’t see two of them and have lost the text twice, once due to over length and another for an unknown reason. If you are really excited about all this mess let me know and I’ll continue this conversation through other means but these forums blow tonight for some reason. :(

  • Ha, Don’t get me started on piracy and theft. You are the thieves, By removing OtherOS you punks stole from us, removing features that many of us bought the ps3 specifically for. It’s the linux devs That have cracked your crap coding and security and as far as I care, you are getting your just deserts.
    (As a side note I do not use the Custom firmware and do not condone piracy, I do however condone the production of homebrew applications.) Also, there are no hacks and cheats online on the ps3 using custom firmwares, hackers aren’t ruining the online experience at all (yet) and anyone that claims they are just suck ^^.

  • Glad your busy fighting kids in court, but how about you guys review the Mass Effect 2 Patch that is still waiting for approval. Bioware says that it has been submitted so what is taking so long SONY?

    This thread continues to grow everyday – http://social.bioware.com/forum/Mass-Effect/Mass-Effect-2-Playstation-3-Technical-Support/Mass-Effect-2-PS3-patch-notes-freezing-and-saved-game-issue-work-around-5845607-1.html

    Why don’t you give us paying/loyal customers some attention and stop giving these hackers fame.

  • I couldn’t say it better than Deathcow10 already did – YOU are the thieves here, SONY, not some Linux devs who only found a way through your system.

  • The point here is not “hacking” PSN but the users who use PSN while using backup games. Regardless of your OtherOS arguments it still does not justify pirating games.

    All Sony did was to release a great console with great games while employing thousands of people. Are they not supposed to protect their employees, studios and third party devs?

  • ironic … since it was because of hackers they took OS , don’t like it go to xbox , or PC …oops ..wait … those have hackers dont they??? grow up … geoshot took your otherOS rant at him .

  • it doesnt matter to them darkdodie after all they know everything it takes to secure a multi million dollar , multi million user network … trust them … their gamers . and if you think there are no cheat’s exploits in certain titles … you really don’t play often enough to get huffy about it .. reference teamfortress 2 , and you’ll see .

  • LOL @ all you Sony geeks.
    you haven’t got a clue have you .

  • Sony,

    I hope you realize that you really hurt your fan base by taking away Other OS. It is not going to just affect the PS3, but also every future gaming devices you come out with. I would have bought the NGP without even thinking about it. I have decided that the PS3 is the last system I will ever buy after realizing that any features that you talk about with the NGP may be temporary. I will never know if the 3G and all of that will really stay around or if you will take it away from everyone as soon as you find a person who uses it to hack into things. I would have understood if you took it away temporarily while you actively pursued a way to keep it and still keep people from hacking the system. I filed a complaint to the BBB and your response did not give me any hope at all that you ever tried or plan on trying to bring it back. I will never fall for your tricks again.

  • instead of banning their psn account, can u guys at sony just give their ps3 some kind of virus that will ylod their ps3 right away?

  • Yes, keep the crackers and hackers off of PSN for breaking the Terms of Service like what the folks do at Xbox LIVE. No new news there. That was a duh, Sony.

  • I support Sony.

  • Not everyone uses this to pirate and cheat in online games on my phat ps3 i use it to use pc mods on Oblivion and New Vegas is that hurting anyone no also cheating in Call of Duty games was happening b4 the ps3 was hacked so don’t blame all the cheating online to this incident plus the only PSN i use is for Netflix

  • Geohot and others are getting our rightful OtherOS Back. I paid for a ps3 not an xbox. So you can’t troll and tell us to go elsewhere, We will get what we paid for whether you like it or not. :)

  • i got the mail and i erased everything….i own 30 original games and i have 4 accounts whith 300 euros buyed things…so why ban me?

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