Cases like this don't come down to a simple interpretation of an existing law, often focusing more on the intent than the wording. Sony actually defended a similar case, Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc.,.
Uh, well there's a pretty huge difference between copyright cases in 1984 and copyright cases today: the DMCA. The DMCA is the law and (with few exceptions) it makes it criminal to circumvent DRM. Intent doesn't matter and whether or not you actually infringe copyright doesn't matter.
I think it's a bad law, but it is a law and geohot broke it. IANAL, but I would imagine the only defense would be to try to get the law itself overturned. I don't see how else he can get out from under it.
Rather than being hard coded in the law the Copyright Office can add or remove them, however, just because something is not explicitly permitted does not mean it's automatically illegal. The intent seems clear "No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title."
And the important bits:
(2) No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that —
(A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title;
(B) has only limited commercially significant purpose or use other than to circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title; or
(C) is marketed by that person or another acting in concert with that person with that person's knowledge for use in circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.
As long as his work is not directly setup so people can pirate content there seems to be little for Sony to base their case on.
As long as his work is not directly setup so people can pirate content
I really don't see how you could read the law you quoted and reach that conclusion.
If you post a tool that breaks DRM and you don't fit into one of the very narrow exemptions (and geohot doesn't), then you broke the law. It doesn't matter if you intended the tool for piracy or if it was "set up for piracy" or if anyone ever used the tool for piracy.
There is more than one interpretation of what does and doesn't violate the DMCA, and the 6th and Federal Circuits have taken one approach, which makes the DMCA less applicable to non-piracy activities, in Lexmark Int'l v. Static Control Components and Chamberlain vs Skylink, while the 9th circuit has taken an approach that makes a wider range of activities violate the DMCA in MDY Indus. LLC v. Blizzard Entm't, Inc.
This is probably a major reason why Sony is trying to sue geohot in California (under the 9th Circuit) despite the fact that the claim that California has personal jurisdiction over him in relation to his Playstation activities is extremely weak.
The plain text of the DMCA anti-circumvention clause is:
"No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title"
Interpreting this as congress intended is difficult, because often, systems which prevent their owner from doing one thing will also try to prevent their owner from doing other legal activities - for example, installing their own operating system, developing their own homebrew games using only their own copyrighted material, repurposing hardware for purposes that the manufacturer never intended, and building compatible add-on products or accessories that compete with the original vendors products.
I believe the intention of Congress was that circumventing the system only far enough to do one of the above, with the intention of doing one of the above, is not "circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected" - for that act to be complete, and the circumvention the act references to occur, the final step of accessing the copyrighted work needs to occur. The interpretation of the 9th circuit is, in my opinion, not what congress intended.
Sooner or later the Supreme Court will hear one of these cases, and hopefully will agree with the 6th and Federal Circuits that the interpretation I gave above is correct.
I am not a layer and judges can make arbritrary rueling that get overturned. But, with my fairly limited background I would like to suggest you think of the the law as a fuzzy logic problem not a Boolean one. If (A)(B)(C) are each 40-60% true a judge will often rule basted on the assumed intent of the law and without clear precedence the side with the better argument tends to win. So the question becomes in what ways do each side present the situation and attack each others arguments.
Inference: "Circumvent" means to bypass or disable so any method that disables protection must therefore also "Circumvent" it.
Rebuttal : If "circumvent" implied simply disable then you would not be able to turn a PS3 off or damage it. Melting down old PS3's and selling them for scrap and novelty bookshelves would destroy the DMCA protection, but the modified device is not going to break copyright law.
Counter Inference: That's an argument from absurdity we are not arguing about an inter object but a device capable of running copyrighted software illegally.
Counter Rebuttal: A 300$ general purpose computer may also run come copyrighted software illegally. However both the modified PS3 and the cheap computer run the same range of Sony's protected software without significant further modifications. We can even demonstrate that running PS1 games is simpler on the computer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Corp._of_America_v._Univer....
Edit: HN sees to dislike periods at the end of URL's: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Corp._of_America_v._Univer...