Sony Interactive Entertainment is currently suing an allerged hacker in California. The company accuses this individual of trading jailbroken PS4s, which are full of pirated games.
On October 5, Sony filed a complaint in the U.S. Central District Court of California against a person named Eric David Scales. Scales has allergedly commited actions in violation of copyright and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Sony demands that he ceases jailbreaking and selling PS4s at once, as well as pay a compensation, though there is not yet any information about the specific amount . Furthermore, he is to give back any cracked PS4s still in his possession, so that Sony can destroy them.
The PS4 has been out since 2013, but not until this year were hackers able to jailbreak the console and run their own programs, including pirated games, on it. Even after they did, cracked PS4s have been quite rare. Still, there are sites that offer PS4 jailbreak services. Once in a while a couple of those cracked PS4s would turn up on online shopping websites such as eBay.
Such is the case that Sony is pointing at in its lawsuit. According to this suit, in April 2018 an eBay user with the nickname Blackcloak13 offered a PS4 for sale. This persom claimed that the device had been cracked and had 63 pirated games installed. These include games such as God of War, Everybody’s Golf, Helldivers… Sony bought this PS4, and subsequently another one, through a middle person for inspection, and the return address shows that of Eric David Scales, hence the lawsuit. The offer on eBay also included a link to a website that offers PS4 jailbreaking services. This website advertises that their service allows customers to copy and play any game without having to pay for them.
Eric David Scales, who has not been confirmed to be Blackcloak13, has not provided any information to the court. In the meantime, there are still many cracked PS4 available for purchase on eBay. This is a warning from Sony to those eBay sellers against selling cracked version of their products.