The free market works such that after a product is sold, the seller has no rights it any more. They cannot remotely disable features after the sale. I agree 10

The free market works such that after a product is sold, the seller has no rights it any more. They cannot remotely disable features after the sale. I agree 100% (unless such special use terms were part of the sale upfront, see pay tv channels). They cannot dictate what you can and can't do with it. Not for personal use, no, and I should insist not. However, if I sell you a book I wrote, while you're quite free to read or burn your copy of it, I don't want you to scan copies and widely distribute it. The PS3 hackers didn't "open source" any of Sony's code, that's ridiculous. Their goal is to bypass it and load their own. They reverse engineered it for the purpose of enabling compatibility with other stuff and extending. This has a long tradition in the US. If they only took actions for their own personal use I have absolutely no objection. Quite the contrary, I'd encourage it. I can't say I remember the telephone incident, but I agree with your sentiments on that entirely.