Sony Demands Over $20K From Person Selling Pirated PS4 Games and Jailbroken Consoles

Last October, Eric David Scales was accused of selling jailbroken PS4 systems and pirated PS4 games on eBay. Sony then filed a suit against him, requesting $16,800 in damages, as well as $3,500 in judicial costs. When the defendant failed to appear in court to state his case, Sony filed for a default judgment against Scales.

The accusation is as follows:

Defendant Eric David Scales advertises and sells jailbroken PlayStation 4 video game consoles on eBay. These “jailbroken” PS4 consoles are loaded with unauthorized copies of PS4 video games. According to the Defendant, people that own his PS4 consoles can stop buying games.

Sony is being “reasonable” with its demands, only taking into consideration the pirated and jailbroken products on Scale’s website. The amount Sony is requesting breaks down to a per-console and per-game basis, charging him $200 per pirated game and $800 per console. Sclaes had 76 games and two consoles available for sale, which amount to $16,800, plus the judicial cost of $3,500, which add up to the total of $20,300.

Sony had this to say about the defendant:

This amount is warranted in light of Defendant’s willful infringement and violations of the DMCA, his refusal to appear in this action, and his acknowledged understanding and intent that his products be used to deprive [Sony] of the opportunity to sell genuine PS4 video games.

Seeing as how the defendant did not make his initial court appearance and the fact that the evidence against him seems quite clear, it’s not likely that the court will decline the default judgement against Scales. Pirated games used to be super common when the PS1 and PS2 were around, but Sony has cracked down, making it more difficult to do in recent years. Still, people always seem to find a way to hack, jailbreak, or otherwise misuse products, creating a constant game of leapfrog with hackers and hardware manufacturers.

What do make of all this? Do you think Sony is asking too much? Let us know!

[Source: Technadu]