Sony is suing an eBay user who was selling modded a.k.a “Jailbroken” PS4s and pirated games.
Sony Interactive Entertainment is suing the California relative after they found his identity through some interesting snooping around.
Torrenfreak reports the company filed a case last week against Eric David Scales in the U.S. Central District Court of California. Scales apparently goes by the eBay user ID Blackcloak13 and has been selling these Jailbroken PS4s for a while. Sony’s lawyers accuse Scales of copyright infringement and violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s (DMCA) “trafficking” provisions.
The aforementioned provisions are to stop users from selling and distributing tools and technology that enable “piracy”.
Sony is asking Scales to pay damages of a yet unforeseen amount, hand over any left over Jailbroken PS4s consoles in his possession and to stop modding their consoles in the future.
Now for some history on what led to the case. Sony referred to an eBay listing (pictured above) by a user named Blackcloak13, which claimed to be for a Jailbroken PS4 console with 63 Games. The games included first-party titles like the Sony published God of War as well as third-party titles like Call of Duty: WWII and Need for Speed: Payback. Sony the proceeded to order two consoles from subsequent listings, both of which proved to be just as stated. The second PS4 arrived with the return address of one Eric David Scales, who is expected to be Blackcloak13.
Sony specifically mentioned that the consoles were running an unnamed exploit that allowed them to run “unauthorized” versions of the games:
The exploit enables the PS4 console sold by Defendant to play the 60+ unauthorized copies of video games that are contained on its hard drive,
PS4 modding started earlier this year in February when hackers discovered an exploit in the console’s firmware leading up to Firmware Version 4.55. That exploit has now let to several more, with a new one for Firmware Version 5.05 released recently. Still modding consoles and playing pirated content on the Sony console is relatively rare as compared to the days of the PSP and PS3.
If getting caught red-handed wasn’t enough, the defendant advertised his services on a now taken down website, claiming that he’s been offering Jailbreak and Modding services since 2006. The website with the main page having an image of Skulls and Crossbones a.k.a the traditional “pirate” symbol, encouraged piracy telling visitors to “stop buying games.”
If you’re interested in more information about the case, read the case details below:
