If you ran a small service website and some person randomly sued you, it would be enough of a hassle and expense to respond to that through the legal system, as it is. Doing so as an individual with the full force and might of one of the largest multinational corporations on the planet which itself has the support (against intellectual property concerns, etc) of the entire government, including the president and vice president who have made ignorant and vigorous statements against what they perceive you to be doing is an entirely different situation. It is a situation that you almost surely can't win and can't afford to fight and most certainly can't afford to lose.

The problem here is that you also shouldn't go around making rap videos of yourself talking about how you're going to completely fuck Sony up and challenging them to "bring it on" while collecting contributions to your legal defense fund, when you know full well that you're going to roll over when the time comes, because you simply have no rational choice.

In no way should he blamed for refusing to sacrifice himself. If the PS3 hacker community can't live without Hotz, the war is already lost.

But Hotz is one head of the Hydra, as Sony will find out soon enough. Besides, it's a bad idea to have a movement depend on just one man (see Wikileaks for comparison).