Sony has been granted permission by a federal judge to subpoena PayPal records of George Hotz, the hacker behind jailbreaking the company’s PlayStation 3 game console.

US Magistrate Judge Joseph C. Spero ruled this week that the information subject to Sony's subpoena “shall be provided on an Attorneys' Eyes Only basis” and is limited to information relating to whether Hotz has enough ties to Northern California to be sued in federal court in that district. Hotz, who goes by the hacking moniker GeoHot, is a resident of New Jersey, and has argued that the court lacks the authority to try him.

Sony brought a copyright case against Hotz and 100 other hackers believed to have also devised a way to run unauthorized games and apps on the PS3. Earlier this month, Sony got approval for a subpoena allowing it to obtain the IP addresses of everyone who visited Hotz's personal website for the past 26 months.

In its lawsuit Sony sues Hotz for violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act by posting videos and blog posts showing how to bypass technical measures Sony put into the PS3 so it would run only games and apps permitted by the console maker.

The PayPal subpoena covers “documents sufficient to identify the source of funds in California that went into any PayPal account associated with for the period of January 1, 2009 to February 1, 2011.”

Sony has argued that such information will prove that he has ties to Northern California and therefore can be sued in San Francisco, which is about a half-hour's drive from headquarters for Sony Computer Entertainment America, the division that's suing the hacker.