More Jurisdiction Questions Raised In Hotz PS3 Jailbreaking Suit

PlayStation 3 "jailbreaker" George "Geohot" Hotz and his attorney revisted the question of whether or not a U.S. District Court in California has jurisdiction over a PlayStation 3 hardware hacking lawsuit. In a Wednesday court filing [PDF via Groklaw], Hotz' counsel said plaintiff SCEA "made material misrepresentations to the court" about the origins of the PS3 SDK that SCEA believes is on impounded hard drives from Hotz. According to Hotz' counsel, SCEA told the court that the PS3 SDK on his hard drive will show that the tools came from California-based SCEA, putting the case in the jurisdiction of the current court. But Hotz' attorney argues the SDK is actually "owned by Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. ('Sony Japan') and the SDK installation procedures reference Sony Japan," facts which would place the case outside of the California court's jurisdiction. "A cursory internet search yielded screen shots of the SDK's installation procedures, and indicates that the SDK is the property of Sony Japan and no reference is made to SCEA," the filing added. Hotz' counsel also claimed that SCEA is refusing to provide the defendant with a copy of the SDK that the company intends to search for on Hotz' hard drives. Earlier this year, a federal judge presiding over the case questioned the court's jurisdiction over the matter, wondering why the case isn't being tried in Hotz' home state of New Jersey. Proceedings can stall and become more complicated for Sony if a change in jurisdiction is required. In January, Sony alleged that Fail0verflow, a "hacking group," laid the groundwork for Hotz to "unlawfully ... [gain] access to a critical level of the PS3 System" protection measures in December. The complaint alleges that Hotz distributed circumvention devices through the internet that were needed to access that critical level of PS3 security, and that he released software code used to run pirated software on the console in January. Hotz has denied the hack is meant to facilitate piracy. Court documents from Tuesday this week showed that the court authorized a proposal from SCEA to serve a subpoena to online payment firm PayPal in order to collect records from Hotz' personal account for the period of January 1, 2009 through February 1, 2011. SCEA is adding the PayPal order to another group of subpoenas that seek to collect information from Hotz' web provider Bluehost, as well as records from YouTube, Google and Twitter. The court recently ordered Hotz to come to California to be deposed specifically in regards to the question of jurisdiction -- a question which the judge previously said "worried" her.