Aussie Gamer Loses PS3 Court Case Over 'Other OS'

dotarray writes "An Australian man who took Sony to court over the company's decision to remove Linux functionality from the PS3 console has now lost his claim, with the court clearing the manufacturer of any wrongdoing regarding the upgrade."

Comments

Is this any surprise?

[chaboud]

It's completely ridiculous, which shouldn't surprise anyone. We already know that going into court is a crapshoot, with somewhat random results, but the one thing that we can be certain of? Having money enough to have a team of attorneys permanently on staff (like Sony) is definitely going to help tug the randomness in your direction.

How could any court not view this as false advertising? My guess is that they have fresh Vaios and PS3s (i.e. hookers and blow) to spare.

Re:Is this any surprise?

[jimicus]

It's not quite as simple as that for a number of reasons:

1. A number of countries have a system for dealing with claims with a low monetary value (which this would almost certainly fall under) and generally speaking this system is set up to make it practical for you or I to sue a huge company by limiting the amount of costs (and, for that matter, messing around) either party can incur.

2. "How could any court not view this as false advertising?" : Good question. IANAL, but I can think of three things: I seriously doubt many people genuinely used their PS3 for Linux - and Sony could easily dig up numbers to support that, the fact that the feature was removed in the update was well known and in the release notes and the update may well have shipped with a "regardless of what this does to your console, you can't sue us" disclaimer.

I would add that IMV the only thing worse than Sony doing this is that I haven't yet heard of a single legal case where the judge(s) involved seem to be taking it particularly seriously. I really don't like the idea of living in a world where a manufacturer can release a product with features X, Y and Z only to remove Z - even from items already sold - at a later date. Could be particularly interesting here in the UK where no matter what the manufacturer does, it's the retailer who's on the legal hook if they sell you something which doesn't perform as advertised.

Re:Is this any surprise?

[nacturation]

It's completely ridiculous, which shouldn't surprise anyone.

The ridiculous and surprising part is his legal defense:

"He explains that he believed a warning about the update, downloaded on April 1st, was just an April Fool's joke."

If I were the judge, I would have adjourned the case until April 1st and then handed down the victory to Sony then.

Re:Is this any surprise?

[chaboud]

We have subscription accounting (Sarbanes-Oxley) for products for which the manufacturer is obligated to support the advertised feature-set and ongoing work.

It hardly seems like a stretch to hold manufacturers to their advertised add-ins (especially "free" ones that have their cost built into the cost of the device) for the reasonable life-time of the product.

Sony totally boned the PS3 lifetime, though. The degree of cluelessness with the little things and the amount of damage that they have done to such a technically impressive platform is just mind-boggling.

Re:Is this any surprise?

[Anonymous Coward]

For one thing, much of it was probably written long before user-updateable firmware became common, in which case the idea that it might even be physically possible to disable a feature post-release would be totally alien.

That is the problem. The law doesn't currently consider the idea of upgradeable firmware. That doesn't change the fact that disabling a feature post-release is a dirty business tactic. There were a lot of people who did use the PS3 for Linux and gaming. It is not possible to continue to use the Playstation Network if you don't continually install the firmware upgrades. While they're saying that nobody is forcing consumers to upgrade to firmwares that drop the other OS support they're essentially locking people out of the online section if they don't. It's dirty and it should be illegal.

All we have here is a bunch of tech companies (Sony, Apple, etc) who are treating the device like they own it. They are operating it like the user is leasing it from them, which is not true. They're really exploiting the fact that the law hasn't kept up with the technology to be able to fuck everyone around.

The law will evolve, but it will take more than one guy in the small claims court. It'll take an army of highly paid lawyers. The lawyers will win in the short term but (hopefully) in the long term the law will start to catch up with the technology.

Very sad.

[ahaubold]

Yet another case where money > consumer protection/right.

Another link

[Lliam33]

Forum post from the guy involved. Scroll up for some more info.

Re:Appeal posible

[julesh]

Is there? I've spent a frustration 30 minutes bouncing from link to link looking for some actual details without much luck.

Yeah, the details are rather scant. But the decision was apparently made by a magistrate, which means he filed either in a local court or in the federal magistrates court. Either of these can be appealed (*almost* automatically) to a higher court, if he chooses to do so.

Re:He should appeal

[jimicus]

There's a forum linked elsewhere - in essence, Sony's argument was "you can't sue us, the EULA says so" and the judge agreed.

Re:Facepalm

[cc1984_]

I know you're trolling but let me explain why the UK does what it does.

The Sale of Goods act (1953) was brought into being to protect the consumer from shops palming off problems to the manufacturer. Your equipment is faulty? Send it back to the manufacturer. The book you bought has pages missing? Phone up the publisher to get it replaced. With this act the retailer is obliged to offer a replacement to the purchaser and it becomes the retailer's responsibility to get a replacement from the manufacturer. No flux capacitor required.

The story so far

[Lord Bitman]

A man walks into a shop:
"Hello, good sir. I would like to purchase a computer."

"Here you are. That will be $600"

"A fair deal indeed. Thank you."

[ Several months later, our hero comes home to find his computer missing. In its place is a short note and a paddle-ball ]

"Dear customer. We have taken the liberty of replacing your computer with a paddle-ball, as we learned that people were attempting to use their computers for non-paddleball-related activities."

Re:Facepalm

[TheRaven64]

The same act provides the shop with grounds to take it to the supplier. Basically, it means that the supply chain works both ways. You take the problem to the shop, and they are required by law to address it. They then take it to their supplier, who is required by law to address it. The complaints go from the customer to the retailer to the wholesaler and then to the supplier.

Part of the logic behind this is that you have a lot more leverage against the person closest to you in the supply chain. Your decision to boycott Sony and tell all of your friends to do so makes little difference to them. Your decision to boycott a local shop and tell all of your friends to do so makes a bigger difference to them. The shop's decision to boycott Sony won't make much difference, but their choice to switch wholesalers would. The wholesaler's decision to stop providing Sony products would be a much bigger threat to Sony than a single customer.

Re:Facepalm

[Xest]

Indeed, and it makes the retailer less likely to do business with problem publishers/manufacturers, hence putting greater pressure on them than an individual by themselves could to rectify their poor business practices.

It's easy for a manufacturer to fob off multiple independent individuals, it's harder for them to fob off the retailers who are their gateway to getting their products to consumers in the first place.

To use a car analogy

[scdeimos]

Customer: I bought this Sony Car because it had headlights. I need headlights so I can drive my car at night.

Sony: We removed the headlights feature at your last service because headlights can be used to flash oncoming drivers. But removing headlights has made your Car lighter, so it can go faster and use less fuel. We hope you like the changes.

Customer: I can't use my Car any more because you took the headlights away, thus it's no longer roadworthy and it would be illegal for me to drive it. Give me back my headlights, and pay $800 for the rental car I've had to use in the meantime.

Sony: No.

Judge: No.

Rest of the world: Dumb-asses.