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."

Comments

"Proof" required for the full payment

[pushing-robot]

Proof that You Used The Other OS Functionality.
The following are acceptable forms of proof of use:

• proof that you purchased a version of Linux that was compatible with and was installed on your Fat PS3 before April 1, 2010;
• proof that you downloaded a version of Linux that was compatible with and was installed on your Fat PS3 before April 1, 2010;
• a screenshot (or picture) showing Linux operating on your Fat PS3;
• a screenshot (or picture) showing that a portion of your PS3 hard drive is still formatted for the Other OS with Linux installed;
• proof of communication between you and SCEA or a third party dated before December 31, 2010 that discusses your use of the Other OS or concerns with Update 3.21 due to your use, including but not limited to, copies of an email from or message board posting by you containing such discussion; or
• any other documentary proof that you used the Other OS before April 1, 2010 that the Settlement Administrator reasonably determines to be valid.

What about writing out a valid tar command?

Re:"Proof" required for the full payment

[bondsbw]

I don't see why any of this matters. If I purchased a PS3 before the announcement with the intention of putting a different OS on it, but had not actually done so by the time the update was sent out, I should still be eligible.

Re:"Proof" required for the full payment

[Opportunist]

The same way Sony usually proves that you had the intention to distribute their copyrighted material: By claim.

Re: "Proof" required for the full payment

[bondsbw]

It shouldn't matter anyway. If I buy a car with a DVD player that I had no intention to use, and then during routine maintenance at my dealership they remove the DVD player, that is wrong.

Perhaps I realized its usefulness after having kids. Or not. Doesn't matter, it was unmistakably part of the purchase.

Re:"Proof" required for the full payment

[ArylAkamov]

So unless you happen to have a picture of your drive formatting or a picture including both your TV and PS3 (And also somehow proving you don't have a desktop hooked up back there), you don't get jack shit.

So, a handful of people will be getting $55. Great job guys.

Re:"Proof" required for the full payment

[CronoCloud]

So, I'm one of the "OtherOS" users who was directly impacted by this - forced to dump OtherOS because I had an active PSN account that required me to update to continue using it - basically choose OtherOS or games, couldn't have both anymore.

I thought about using a two PS3 solution, getting a new slim PS3 for games and keeping OtherOS on the FAT model, but decided to go another way and go X86 for Linux and update the PS3.

Sadly, for those that don't know, OtherOS partition methods weren't optimal, either you had 10GB for games, and the rest for OtherOS which would basically cripple the PS3 for gaming because of teh HUGE for the time cache files some games install (I had an 80GB CECHE and seriously started thinking about an HD upgrade after a year), or else you have 10GB for OtherOS which SRSLY limits OtherOS (You had to be rather frugal with yum and certain compiles were impossible because you wouldn't have enough swap space with the default Linux partitioning of that 10GB....unless you manually added more to swap which reduced the space / and /home even MORE.

I'd be absolutely shocked if they didn't have some indication in their records of my OtherOS usage.

AFAIK, PS3's booting into OtherOS don't contact the PSN servers.

Re:That is poor compensation

[Alain Williams]

If you bought it for $500 to only run Linux on it you're an idiot. A $200 PC can be bought that will be better.

This was 6 years ago ... you could not have got one for $200 then.

Re:Class Action Suits

[Moof123]

Sadly you are correct. A lot of the BIG ROUND NUMBER settlements come out to rounding error per plaintiff, and 20-50% going to the lawyers. Somehow there need to be ethics and rules to assure that the actual damage is roughly remedied and in a timely fashion. There is too far of a gap between what a law firm can readily settle for quickly to maximize their profit per hour of effort, and what will actually make things right for their clients.

Years back near my old neighborhood there was a train wreck, leading to a damaged high pressure gasoline line, leading to a massive fireball that killed folks and burnt out many houses. The ensuing lawsuit was fought tooth and nail, drawn out, and eventually the plaintiff's lawyer ran into money issues. So he settled for an amount that went entirely to "legal fees" and he skipped town. Many residents were left with nothing. There are countless examples across this range where justice is excruciatingly slow, with unjust results at the end. It becomes punitive to hold out hope for a remedy. There are a couple suits we didn't even know about that sent us $20 checks, and others we lost track of and stopped updating our address with because any settlement would be worth less than the time needed to possibly get something at the back end.

Called it in 2010

[spire3661]

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. --

Re:Typical Class Action

[CronoCloud]

I have to have my PS3 serial number.

Unless it is still registered to PSN. IIRC you can find out the serial number there.

For the higher payment, I have to have incredibly unreasonable proof that I used OtherOS functionality.

I could have that proof within minutes.

[CronoCloud@wutai ~]$ cat ps3_info.txt
[CronoCloud@mideel ~]$ cat /etc/redhat-release
Yellow Dog Linux release 6.0 (Pyxis)

[CronoCloud@mideel ~]$ cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor : 0
cpu : Cell Broadband Engine, altivec supported
clock : 3192.000000MHz
revision : 5.1 (pvr 0070 0501)

processor : 1
cpu : Cell Broadband Engine, altivec supported
clock : 3192.000000MHz
revision : 5.1 (pvr 0070 0501)

timebase : 79800000
platform : PS3

or:

From: "*********"
To: yellowdog-general@lists.terrasoftsolutions.com
Subject: Re: [ydl-gen] Alternative Window Managers
Date: Sun, 27 Jul 2008 19:43:09 -0500
Reply-To: Discussion List for General Yellow Dog Linux User Topics
 
Sender: yellowdog-general-bounces@lists.terrasoftsolutions.com
X-Mailer: Claws Mail 3.5.0 (GTK+ 2.10.4; powerpc64-unknown-linux-gnu)

Note that X-Mailer line

or

**** BEGIN LOGGING AT Fri Jul 11 21:10:15 2008

Jul 11 21:10:16 --> You are now talking on #yellowdog
Jul 11 21:10:16 --- Topic for #yellowdog is Terra Soft Wants You! http://www/ .terrasoftsolutions.com/showcase/story-submit.shtml || We're hiring, talk to Owe
n for more info.
Jul 11 21:10:16 --- Topic for #yellowdog set by owen-z60t at Fri May 18 00:4
2:18 2007
Jul 11 21:12:21 >CronoCloudCronoCloudCronoCloud Hi, does anyone know of an xchat sysinfo script that works well with YDL on the PS3? I've been googling but haven't had much sucess.

Note that CTCP version shows me using Xchat, via YDL6.1, on a PPC64, that runs at 3.19 GHz....which is most certainly not a Mac, since G5s only went up to 2.7 GHz. And it is highly doubtful that someone is going to have a IBM pSeries in their home, which means that machine is a PS3....which of course it was as I stated in the chat. I eventually did find a sysinfo script that worked to a certain extent

**** BEGIN LOGGING AT Fri Jul 11 21:25:19 2008

Jul 11 21:25:19 --> You are now talking on #cronocloud_test
Jul 11 21:25:19 --- simmons.freenode.net sets mode +n #cronocloud_test
Jul 11 21:25:19 --- simmons.freenode.net sets mode +s #cronocloud_test
Jul 11 21:25:23 System Information for mideel: CPU: MHz, Cache RAM: 215 MB HDD: 58 GB OS: GNU/Linux 2.6.23-9.ydl6.1 Uptime: 21:25:23 up 5:30, 1 user, load average: 0.03, 0.07, 0.08
Jul 11 21:25:54 CPU: MHz, Cache
Jul 11 21:28:34 Loading lord slapmonkey's sysinfo script (/sys, /net or /up)
Jul 11 21:28:46 SysInfo: Linux 2.6.23-9.ydl6.1 | Cell Broadband Engine, altivec supported (4 CPUs) | Mem: 98MB/216MB [||||------] | Diskspace: 20GB/62GB [|||-------] | Screen Res: 1280x768 | Procs: 111 | ppp0: In: 0.0MB Out: 0.0MB | Uptime: 5 hours 33 minutes | Users: 1 | Load: 0.19, 0.08, 0.08
**** ENDING LOGGING AT Fri Jul 11 21:30:13 2008

or

http://www.ydl.net/board/viewt...

Oh look, there's a CronoCloud who is apparently a moderator at the YDL.net forum who posted a link to this story on Slashdot.

For my sake, proving that I used OtherOS is VERY easy. I think I have screenshots too.

Of course, there are a few config files on my current Fedora machine that date back to my PS2 Linux days.