Given the price of games, it’s not surprising the in the early days of consoles like the original PlayStation and the PS2, piracy was extremely rampant as it was such an easy process to replicate the CDs/DVDs that games came on. However in recent times, it seems to have become less of a problem, although there are still instances of it happening.However Sony appears to be eager to try and stamp these practices out as quickly as they can, as according to a report from TorrentFreak, the company has recently sued a third-party seller by the name of Eric Scales for selling jailbroken PS4 consoles on eBay that contained pirated games. Sony bought two such units to test if they were really as advertised, and found it to be true.
According to Sony’s complaint, “Defendant is an individual who has marketed, sold, and distributed ‘jailbroken’ PS4 consoles that: (a) contain ‘pirated’ (unauthorized) copies of PS4-compatible video games, and (b) were produced and designed for purposes of, and/or were marketed by Defendant for use in, circumventing technological protection measures.”
The lawsuit also accuses Scales of running a website (which has since been taken offline) where he advertises his services (presumably in jailbreaking consoles) and products, and where he discourages gamers to “stop buying games”. It is unclear as to how much Sony is seeking in terms of damages, but assuming Sony wins, this lawsuit should help to discourage current/future modders from hawking their products and services.
Filed in . Read more about Hack, Legal, Piracy, PS4 and Sony.