Slashdot Mirror
You Can Now Claim Your Cash In the PS3 'Other PS3' Settlement (arstechnica.com)
If you've purchased a "fat" PlayStation 3 before April of 2010, you can now claim up to $55 as part of the settlement over the removal of the console's "Other OS" feature. PS3 owners with proof of purchase or evidence of a PSN sign-in from the system can receive $9 from the company. However, if you've used the "Other OS" feature to install Linux on your PS3, you can receive $55. The online claim form can be found here. Ars Technica reports: The opening of claims after a long legal saga that began in March of 2010, when Sony announced it would be removing the "Other OS" feature from the PS3. Sony claimed it was a security concern, but many class-action lawsuits filed in 2010 alleged the company was more worried about software piracy. While one lawsuit over the matter was dismissed by a judge in 2011, another worked its way through the courts until June, when Sony finally decided to settle. Though the company doesn't admit any wrongdoing, it puts itself on the hook for payments to up to 10 million PS3 owners. Note to those affected: "Claims are due by December 7, and payments should be sent out early next year pending final approval of the settlement."
I mean in the title?
Proof that You Used The Other OS Functionality.
The following are acceptable forms of proof of use:
What about writing out a valid tar command?
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
If you bought it for some $500 to run Linux on it, all of a sudden you had something that was useless to you. So $55 is about 1/10 of the value to you. You presumably also put in some hard work to configure it, etc, all that work wasted -- but no compensation for that.
It is all too late now, but Sony should have been forced to reverse the change back in 2010 ... if you bought it according to a published specification, Sony should not be allowed to retroactively change it.
What crimes are you hiding Hillary!!!! Tell us!!!!!
Class action lawsuits are for punishing the company. The lawyers take most.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
PROOF? Sony has the goddamned LOGIN TIMES.
They KNOW ALREADY.
will they pay out the us air force or limit them to only 1 claim?
So I bought one, EIGHT years ago. I no longer have it. In order to prove that I'm even eligible for the mostly-pointless $9 payment, I have to have my PS3 serial number. For the higher payment, I have to have incredibly unreasonable proof that I used OtherOS functionality.
Insane, but not unexpected. That's the way the legal system works. The lawyers will get almost all the cash, and we'll still have given Sony full price for a then-crippled console.
If firefighters fight fire, and crimefighters fight crime, what do freedom fighters fight? - George Carlin
Don't buy a PS4, or a PS5, or a PS6, etc.
Our legal system is basically garbage. $9 wouldn't even pay for the lunch I ate today. Luckily, free societies/markets have an inherent justice system, whereby consumers can vote on the level of culpability of companies with their dollars.
Sometimes it can be hard to stick to your principles in this way when a company comes out with something you think you really want, but luckily, it seems like consoles are basically dying, and there is not really anything you need a PS4 for.
I actually bought a PS3 for it's blu-ray capability. I think I may have only bought about 4 games for my PS3 over it's entire life (most of which I didn't play more than a few hours). I play games on PC.
What it would take to prove I accessed the PSN other than my Email address would take much more than the $9 refund; I blocked PSN - they had no reason to know when I was on-line.
I'm also on my second PS3 (Backward comparable) system, it's just beating my head against a wall for pennies.
a screenshot (or picture) showing Linux operating on your Fat PS3;
Shouldn't take much effort to find a pic to doctor on Google images.
As I recall, they bought a bunch of PS3s to run as a supercomputing cluster.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
https://games.slashdot.org/sto... $10 vouchers in 2015
by spire3661 ( 1038968 ) on Sunday March 28, 2010 @10:22PM (#31653572)
"Even if a class action suit is filed and they are found guilty or w/e ill receive a coupon in the mail for something i didnt want and have to pay real money to get
anyways. Thanks alot Sony. I dont use my Linux on my PS3 whole lot, but i didnt give up 10 GB of precious HDD space for nothing".
Sony has my PS3 login proof, and this post should serve as proof i had Linux installed. --
Good-bye
Let me guess, US only
Microsoft didn't even allow you to install any other OS. Instead, their security was so completely shot that they could not keep you from doing so.
Don't trust a company to keep their promises. Instead rely on their security record, or lack thereof, to be unable to keep you from fulfilling your own wishes.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Does Sony have to re-enable "Other OS" installation as part of the settlement? Or should we just keep using the key that George Hotz extracted for us?
It seems to me that Sony should have to pay George a significant sum for suing him over re-enabling a feature that should never have been disabled.
If you google my slashdot handle and OtherOS, it will be blatantly clear that I was really big into using my PS3 for OtherOS. I helped others past the technical hurdles of trying different distros/DE's on it back in the day. Hell, playing with OtherOS was what I used my ps3 most for - just for fun, even though I had Linux on my PCs.
That said: I can't claim my $55. In fact, I can't even get the $9:
Two years or so back, my PS3 got the yellow light of death. I refuse to give Sony any more money, so I did not have them repair it. I trashed it and now use an AlienWare Steam Machine. So, I don't have the PS3 serial number. I also don't have statements (if I even used a credit card - don't remember) beyond the last few years - definitely not all the way back to the release day in 2006. So, proof #1 can't be provided.
Sony has records. They know I bought it because the can see it logged into the PS network. They could probably even show login records that make visible the year gap where I refused to update so I could keep OtherOS. But they're adding a hurdle that will save them money and screw over a bunch of their former customers.
Fuck Sony. They're never getting another dime from me or anyone in my family.
Let me make sure I've got this straight - So let's say I never did the 3.21 upgrade but didn't necessary install Linux. Conceivably I could install Linux now, take a screen-shot, and be eligible for the $55?