Sony Wins Battle Over Preinstalled Windows in Europe's Top Court (arstechnica.com)

An anonymous reader shares an Ars Technica report: The sale of a computer equipped with pre-installed software isn't an unfair commercial practice because most customers prefer to buy a laptop they can use straight away, Europe's top court has ruled in a victory for Sony. "Failure to indicate the price of each item of pre-installed software" isn't misleading, the Court of Justice of the European Union added in its ruling on Wednesday. The CJEU was asked to intervene after French citizen Vincent Deroo-Blanquart took Sony to court for failing to reimburse the cost of pre-installed software -- Windows Vista Home Premium operating system -- that he did not wish to use on a laptop. Sony refused and instead offered to cancel the sale altogether.

Comments

Bundling is perfectly normal

[l2718]

Just because you may want the company to offer different products, doesn't mean they have to. My electric razor came with all kinds of useless attachments, but it would be silly to ask for a refund for those I don't use. The seller offers the product for sale, the buyer decides whether to buy it, they negotiate the price, and if both are satisfied the sale takes place.

Asking about "the price of each piece of preinstalled software" is even worse nonsense. We don't obliged sellers to disclose their costs of assembling their products (that's their private information!). And the retail price of the components is utterly irrelevant.

In the specific case of MS-Windows on laptops there is a question of abuse of monopoly power (the ruling does have an exception for when the bundling distorts the market) -- but as long as Sony's policy of not offering component refunds is due to Sony (rather than a contractual obligation between Sony and Microsoft) I don't see how that could be a cause for complaint either. I remember situations where MS insisted that to get an OEM license vendors had to promise to only sell machines with preinstalled OS -- but even then I don't think it had to be MS-Windows that was preinstalled, and this is not similar to what's in the complaint.

Re:Seems reasonable to sell a product

[The Conductor]

That points up the technical barriers to treating pre-installed software as chattel goods. True that, but even if you solve that technically, my point is that you are legally enjoined from re-selling or re-purposing the software. So, when it comes to bundled sales, the interpretation (that we have chattel goods) favors Microsoft's business interest at the expense of the consumer, but when it comes to parting out and re-sale, a conflicting interpretation (that we don't have chattel goods, but rather, a license) favors Microsoft's business interest at the expense of the consumer.

The terms of the agreement have been altered, pray that the corporate lawyers don't alter them further [insert Darth Vader breath here].