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Judge Dismisses 'Other OS' Class-Action Suit Against Sony
An anonymous reader writes "You may recall that in early 2010, Sony decided to roll out an update that would remove the ability for PlayStation 3 owners to install a different operating system on the console, citing security concerns as the reason. Geeks and Linux enthusiasts were outraged at the move, particular since the "Other OS" functionality had been advertised as a feature of the PS3. A class-action lawsuit was soon brought against Sony. Many of the initial claims were thrown out, and now, a federal judge in California has granted Sony's motion to dismissed the lawsuit, saying, 'As a matter of providing customer satisfaction and building loyalty, it may have been questionable. As a legal matter, however, plaintiffs have failed to allege facts or articulate a theory on which Sony may be held liable.' Here's the full text of the order (PDF)."
Geeks and Linux enthusiasts were outraged at the move ...
And the United States Air Force.
My work here is dung.
Courts don't think false advertising is against the law anymore
just wow.
2015. Sony releases the PS4. Sony releases an update for the PS3 which removes all remaining functionality. When the console is turned on, the message "Buy a PS4!" is displayed. No games will play.
And now it's legal!!!
Would the judge have come to the same conclusion if a car manufacturer released a mandatory update that removed cruise control?
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Sony advertised this as a specific feature of the platform. They then took it away (or took away other abilities if you chose to keep that one). How the hell could the case be dismissed?
In Finland Sony lost this battle and were judged to pay damages to everyone with the 1st gen PS3s that were affected.
Sony Marketing Executive: Okay all we're going to do is advertise that the Playstation 4 can play the games from any system ever made. ... well, I mean it could technically run some sort of emulator for each system if it existed but ...
Sony Engineer: But that's not true
Sony Marketing Executive: Shut up, we just announce after the launch that this functionality was disabled because of "security concerns."
Sony Lawyer, Son of Satan: I can work with that.
My work here is dung.
"Security concerns." This made me laugh, coming from Sony. Especially since it came in early 2010. It's a lie. Trotting out the "security" card just makes them look better.
Unless, of course, by "security" they meant "preventing people from hacking our bootloader." Or trying, rather.
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
Sure we were stuck with bugs and we wouldn't get wonderful whiz-bang features, but at least we wouldn't have to worry about the vendor modifying the device that we purchased after the fact. (Even though I wasn't hit by the PS3 fiasco, TI did something on their calculators quite a few years back.)
For what it's worth, I think one of the arguments made in favour of Sony was that you didn't have to upgrade your PS3's firmware. Which may be true, but it doesn't negate the fact that the firmware updates are required for newer games and people also expect to buy newer games when they get a PS3.
You have to love the new EULA Sony put in place.
http://legaldoc.dl.playstation.net/ps3-eula/psn/u/u_tosua_en.html
Class Action Waiver. .... ((sorry had to remove the text I pasted -- stupid slashdot filter says I am using to many caps. I copied the original text verbatim))
I'm pretty sure a blatant bait-&-switch brakes some sort of law...
Better judges would be preferable.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
how the fairly basic logic of "they sold me the product with the marketed feature xyz which I valued and used, then disabled it after purchase, without compensation and with only forced permission" doesn't warrant relief?
You have to squeeze in another step:
"they had me agree to an EULA that basically allows them to do whatever the hell we want as a condition of using their product".
You can see the judge's logic on p. 5 of the order. He says users had the option to refuse the software update, keep running Linux, and stop using PSN. "Nothing in plaintiffs' factual allegations or their arguments is sufficient to support a conclusion that Sony has any obligation to maintain the PSN in operation indefinitely." This seems strange to me. When you buy a PlayStation, part of what you're paying for is access to PSN. Of course nobody expects PSN to be operational in 100 years, but neither does anyone expect PSN to be permanently shut down one hour after they buy their PlayStation.
Find free books.
Don't attribute this to corruption or bribery, as there is evidence of none and there is no reason to believe they exist here--particularly with federal judges, there is almost never an issue as to corruption. They don't need to be reelected.
No, here the problem was that the judge viewed Sony's behavior as akin to operating a private park it allows people to drive in if they agree to disable a feature of their cars. So people are still allowed to use the features of their cars if they do not go into the private park, but if they agree--i.e. if they agree to disable the Other O/S feature in order to use Sony's network--then that's fine, and it's not illegal for Sony to ask them to. To win, plaintiffs would have had to show they had a legal entitlement to continued access to the network. They didn't, so the judge tossed the case.
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
How dare you intervene on my behalf! I'll have you know that I'm easily twice as dim as he is!
I prefer to remain underestimated with low expectations of my performance.
My work here is dung.
It is explained clearly in the order. The key is PSN, which is owned by Sony, not you. Access to PSN is completely at their discretion, and you have no reasonable expectation that you will have access forever. They changed the rules of PSN access to be 'no OtherOS'. YOU elected to install the upgrade (remove the feature) in order to continue access to THEIR service. Nothing was 'forced'. It was YOUR decision.
In a big bureaucracy like the military, I assume everyone now knows that buying anything other than traditional computer equipment is going to be a significant carrier-limiting move.
"Several Nimitz Class Aircraft Carriers were rendered immobile after a large acquisition of non-traditional computer equipment on Tuesday by the USAF ..."
My work here is dung.
That isn't really true. The Finnish Consumer Complaints board investigated and came to the conclusion that they feel Sony should pay €100 in compensation for removing the feature.
They are not a court body and their 'judgements' have no legal power. They are simply a consumer rights lobby group.
When you buy a product, there's a reasonable expectation that, for the lifetime of the product, the features available to you at time of purchase will continue to be available, barring hardware/technical issues.
For example, it is unreasonable for a company to sell, say, a laptop with a DVD burner, then disable your WiFi with a warning that enabling it will disable your DVD burner. It just doesn't make sense, from any angle, that a feature advertised on the box would be disabled in order to keep another feature mentioned on the box. It just boggles the mind that they feel this is an acceptable course of action.
That said... a reasonable expectation may not translate into something actionable in a court of law. At the least, Sony should be shunned (I, for one, haven't purchased another Sony product since the incident, and have no intentions of doing so in the future. My PS3 is collecting dust at the moment, despite titles that intrigue me. I won't fund them directly or indirectly through licensing deals with game companies.) by all customers.
This is exactly analogous to purchasing a microwave which, two years later, has its firmware updated to remove the defrost feature.
Judge is stupid and megacorporation is evil, news at eleven.
actually, the PSN network is again one of the items that IS marketed with the device. Unlike xbox, PS3 allows free online play as a reason to pay sony for the hardware in the first place.
Removing it after the fact (other than for breach of contract terms) should be considered bait and switch as well.
And newer games?
Some games might require PSN for their DRM, or might require a newer firmware. Now, since most stores won't take back games, it's either
a) give in and remove OtherOS by updating the firmware
b) bite it and lose 60$ for an unplayable game.
What if my console breaks and has to be serviced? I would *love* my carmaker to disable cruise control because the car was serviced under warranty...
I've got better things to do tonight than die.
A $200 linux box isn't running on a cell processor which is what many people who give a shit about the other OS were after.
What is the next cheapest device that you can buy and load your own OS on that uses the cell processor?
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
Actually, any games that were compiled after the release of firmware update 3.21 do require that firmware or later. I don't know exactly what the rules are, but I think Sony requires game developers to use the latest SDK available prior to release. Even with older games, there's no way to tell if it will work since there's no indication of firmware version requiremenst on the box and newer disk runs may carry the newer firmware requirement.
Knowledge Brings Fear
... and if you're picking Microsoft over another company for ethical reasons, people should really think about how bad that company must be.
Correct. They hinged it all on "We deserve PSN forever" instead of "if you don't update you can't play games released after March 2010". Don't see how the judge could say "When you buy a PS3 there is no reasonable expectation that it will be able to play new PS3 games and BluRay movies". But they didn't make that claim so there's nothing to rule on in that regard. Judges can't do the lawyers' jobs for them!
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
Blame the litigants.
They didn't make that argument, it seems.
Sure, anything published after April or May of 2010.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
Microsoft takes features out of their software the second Tuesday of every month. It's called "Patch Tuesday". That most people didn't want those features is irrelevant: some people did. That the features can be quite important is told by the fact that major enterprises employ teams to "vet the patches" against their golden images and designated sacrificial customers so they can avoid the ones that break critical infrastructure until the software that relies on the features can be upgraded, modified or replaced. Microsoft has no choice but to remove these features since they're also vulnerabilities that lead to compromise of the computer. In the best case these vulnerabilities can be considered poor design choices. In the worst cases like AutoRun they're just stupid.
Retail Windows users are on their own, and are typically divided into types: auto-update and no-update. The auto-update crowd have become used to some portion of their environment going dead now and then and waiting for their software vendor to issue an update - even if it's in the software library that interacts with the driver that drives the solenoid that opens their cash register drawer. The no-update crowd have become used to being very careful opening emails and clicking links and resigned to rebuilding their PC once a year when it's become too crap-infested to work at all. Neither set sees Windows as a reliable platform for home or small business use but what are they going to do? They don't have an IT team to keep them safe and can't afford one. Most of them would prefer their PC work more like their iPhone or Android phone, their iPad or Android tablet. But they don't sell something like that at BestBuy, Walmart or Staples yet.
I never held much hope the courts would find against Sony in this. It's probably legal. Wrong or right is a complete other thing. By keeping it in play for so long the suit has put it in the public eye that Sony will defend to the death their right to sell you a major software feature and then take it back. And that's the lesson we should all take away from this. It's a cultural thing. In Japan noone would question this at all. Sony is Japanese. The Japanese have great respect for authority, even corporate authority. They're not going to understand why we think this is not OK. Sony thinks this decision benefits their corporate brand, not diminishes it because it "proves they were right" - and there's nothing we can say to them that will counter this estimation because the concept is so alien they can't understand it.
I feel sorry for those affected of course, but that's not me. I don't own any Sony stuff. For fifteen years what the Sony brand means to me is "a thing that doesn't work with your other stuff." I was never in any danger of being impacted by this issue. See, I'm a "progressive" guy, and when I'm considering buying a new thing I look at both whether it is designed with open standards so it works with the things I have - but more importantly, will completely work with the amazing things I'm going to have after they've been invented and produced in the future. Sony doesn't pretend to offer that, so they don't get my money. I do like Samsung though - for now.
Help stamp out iliturcy.