Sony Sued for PS3 Linux Block
- Categories: Games, News
- Date: Apr 30, 2010 22:54 JST
- Tags: Copyright, Law, Linux, Litigation, PS3, Sony, Technology, USA
A lawsuit has been filed against Sony for its removal of the “Other OS” feature in a recent PS3 firmware patch.
The class action lawsuit, of course filed by an American, alleges Sony advertised the Other OS capability as “an important PS3 feature,” and quotes Sony marketing hype as evidence of this.
The plaintiff claims he bought his PS3 in 2007 largely as a result of this Other OS functionality, and that the recent 3.21 firmware disables this functionality, constituting “breach of contract,” “breach of the covenant of good faith and fair dealing,” “unjust enrichment,” and violations of California consumer protection laws.
The scope of the suit is broad – all US PS3 owners who bought their units between 2006 and 2010 and did not resell their consoles – and damages sought are predictably huge: all “unjustly retained” profits and a full or partial refund for all buyers affected.
The only indication so far of how much is sought is the “in excess of $5,000,000″ stated in court documents.
The lawsuit probably hinges on whether courts accept that Sony’s firmware update is a voluntary process with no impact on previously released consoles (and one which is covered by the EULA users must agree to), as Sony is likely to insist, or whether Sony has indeed established “a vast and sticky web of restrictions” which “downgrade” users sticking with older firmware, as the lawsuit claims.
The consequences of the suit could be significant (not least for Sony’s already weak financial position) – on the one hand consumers are rightly dubious of companies unilaterally withdrawing advertised functionality after product release, and on the other hand manufacturers providing online services on computer-like devices are likely to consider rules preventing them from removing functionality a potentially huge liability.
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Just to let all the people that are complaining about the lawsuit know that the guy who started the lawsuit will only get a refund for lost functionality just like everyone else that has been effected by this. He doesn't get $5 million and only gets a small portion of that.
This is the same as every other simular class action lawsuit that has succeeded.
PS. Sony is guaranteed to lose since they did something that is clearly illegal with the removal of Other OS support and their EULA is unenforceable because of it. Also they just changed their EULA to give themselves the right to automatic updates without consent on your PS3 which is in violation of criminal law and makes their EULA unenforceable. People should get ready to report Sony to the police when they try to automatically update your system without your consent.
Bitching about Americans aside (which is justifiable in a lot of cases), Sony DID take out a prominently advertised feature. As the lawsuit states, the update being mandatory essentially means you have to choose between features that Sony promised to you when you bought the PS3--either give up Linux or all online functionality and ability to play Blu-Rays. It is technically optional, but personally I'm hoping that if Sony doesn't settle the judge rules in favor and forces Sony to put the functionality back in instead of making them pay some stupid amount for every PS3 sold.
I think the biggest damage caused by the loss of linux is the total lack of indie game development on the PS3. To my knowledge, the PS3 has nothing like the XNA creator's club to foster game development education/creativity. Sony forces aspiring young devs to actually purchase a full development kit, and while the price of dev kits has fallen quite a lot, it's still out of reach for most average people that want to mess with console development.
FUCK PS3!!!!! The XBOX ftw once again!!! FUCK FF13 linear piece of Kobe Beef Shit!!!
I hope this lawsuit does tremendous damage and even potentially crashes that company. I'd be screaming mad over this Linux thing, but I'm now planning to make a "Plug Computer Cluster" for 3D rendering, so moot point. Let me note, those are Linux and totally "Open" and willing/begging for programmers to put whatever they can shove through them and gadgeteers to connect to bots and stuff.
Any device a person owns should be theirs to modify as they see fit. Any exceptionally good modifications should be either shared with other users or perhaps even to the original company that might incorporate the modification as a policy.
All this "Lockdown" fascism doesn't stop any hacker or any "Reverse engineering corporate spy" by even a day. But at the same time it is pointless and frustrating to many people and a punch in the gut to many "Independent innovators" who want to learn, modify and have fun.
I think the real motive behind things like this is and entrenched corporation mentality that fears a new economy that totally ignores their old models of distribution and sale. Not copyright theft, but "Independents" who get super popular and perhaps quite wealthy with no "Record Deal" etc. They want to lock down computers or turn them into "Internet terminals but only through OUR service!" and eventually ban art, music perhaps even writing from being accessible to any individual not working for them. In short, turn it into TV with more dumb programming and even more commercials.
I think there should be both "Freedom" and "Competition".
Let's say people want porn on their iPads... Frankly that console should be forced unlocked so they can use Flash, porn, 3rd party, etc. Apple should have the option to close it's doors and shut down, freeing up their customers for others willing to cater to them. If we force unlock it, they are still free to not make porn for iPads, but others will fill the void;-)
What I'm clamoring for isn't some "Fairy World" of ideals. It's if anything to preserve the thing that made our PC's so powerful.
If original PC's had been this locked down, we'd not likely have a "Home PC" since at the time (ironically Apple) made their own innovation most company heads only saw the "Industrial/Government/University" aspect. Likewise, if Apple and IBM had made it impossible for individuals/3rd party programmers to make anything without their express permission for their home systems, we'd probably be at 200mhz by now and playing a movie and a game like the original "Doom" would be "Around the corner for the $10,000 home elite systems".
Isn't that what Sony did with the psp "cough" internet radio "cough" when adding new features? I mean home brew for the psp did stuff WWAAYYY before Sony made it an official feature.
lol yeah, this news made my day/ weekend/ entire week.
Make 'em Sony bastards pay for being such useless, consumer-swindling faggots.
I know a college in my country (Brazil) that bought 3 PS3's to attempt to make a Maya render farm.
It DID work wonders (and fast as fuck) and since those ps3's where never used to play anyway the old firmware will stay forever (they are not even hooked to the internet ^^).
With that said, I almost bought a ps3 myself PRECISELY because outside game and movies I would be able to take away my render loading from my crappy PC... if that was the case I would be suing Sony for their fucking underwear! People who say "suing is stupid" and etc clearly are not looking for at both sides of the coin, these guys DO have a fair argument on their hands, either they are only money whores or actually suffered from this stupid STUPID decision from Sony.
I agree with what you say, and people who say it's stupid don't care about the Other OS feature or just like going "hur hur hur america is full of sue happy cunts".
first: LOL
second: buy a computer if you're gonna whine over it.
third: get a life
last: stfu, quit wasting time on "OMG they did something i dont like!!".. i bet it's a friend of the xbox industry finding this and wanting to pull one over on sony.. seen it before. watched it fail. Californians ARE retards.. sorry arnold, but ya got a state of dumbass'
So if someone hit your car I guess you would get over it and buy a new car? Because you would just stfu because you don't like it. I wonder how you would act if someone removed a feature you really wanted.
I bet he'd flip and sue... Forgetting he ever posted something like this.
As for me, I'd like my Linux functionality back.
No, he wouldn't buy another one 'cause I doubt that he works to buy anything. Typically the ones that don't care about this stuff are the ones that have everything bought for them so they have no sense of what it's like to be fucked out of your hard earned money.
funny thing is I bought my ps3 base on it saying it could run Linux and boy did I try Linux at the time and almost all the version I tried never freaking installed. I had to run one version from the cd and it ran like it was emulated slower than my cell phone speeds.
If American money-hungry suit isn't going to stand up for people's issues then who is? End result will becoming a Hikikomori like the one in this article. Just keep taking and taking...
http://www.sankakucomplex.com/2010/04/18/hikikomori-baby-butcher-stabs-family-of-5-over-net-access/
you guys are all fucking retarded, of course they're going to go for the money.
why the fuck would anyone want a piece of shit OS on a bigger piece of shit console.
I hope they destroy sony.
This is all thanks to one fucktard who decided to hack his PS3, thanks for ruining my console asshole.
Doood...
Any major technical device on the consumer market is "Hacked" the day it comes out, at least...
But, it's not so much by "Pimply faced teenagers", it's by rival companies and competitors who want to "Reverse Engineer" it.
Hey man sony got their psp features from homebrewers.
it was removed because of geohots patch which re-routed the firmware check to a bogus site to allow people to play online without updating firmware
sony has since patched the bypass leaving non-updated consoles stuck offline
I hope the guy wins the lawsuit because there was absolutely no reason to disable the feature
So, for Academia, does this mean no more massive parallel processing using the cell procs and Linux?
Too bad...I was saving up for my second one......
Didn't they only do this because of pirates? How do we know the person suing isn't a pirate himself?
How do we know you're not a serial murderer? I hope Artefact logged your IP, as local authorities are going to need to be getting in touch with you.
NOTE: On the US PS3 blog site it said that the firmware 3.3 update was mandatory, thereby forfeiting their claim that firmware updates are optional.
The ppl behind the lawsuit might want to note that ;)
Yeah, they should. That blows away one of Sony's arguments. Really, NONE of these updates should be mandatory in the slightest, and people with older versions of software should still be able to use the services that they paid for.
I call BS on anybody who bought a PS3 for the other OS function back when it was freaking 800 dollars. A computer with linux installed would be 400 dollars cheaper. Just another money grubbing american making the rest of us look bad; Then I wonder why we can't have nice things.
"I call BS on anybody who bought a PS3 for the other OS function back when it was freaking 800 dollars. A computer with linux installed would be 400 dollars cheaper. Just another money grubbing american making the rest of us look bad; Then I wonder why we can't have nice things."
Me my bro and a few of my comp sci friends wanted a ps3 for other os so.....we don't get that we don't want a ps3 now
Actually, we can't have nice things because people like you permit companies like Sony to pull stunts like removing the nice things from a bought and paid for product, while saying things like "Yeah, right! Nobody bought a PS3 for OtherOS!" and "Pfft, I never used it anyway!"
We can't have nice things because companies like Sony are permitted to take them away while people stand and laugh about how they don't care one bit.
(American writing here, IANAL)
The U.S. legal system has been shifting towards a dollar-amount-damages mentality, away from a make-the-injured-party-whole mentality.
I don't know if that due to lawyers wanting more money (percentages of damages awarded), or other forces (insert description of your favorite conspiricy here).
I see two parts to this:
(1) "Making the injured parties whole" would consist of Sony creating a yet-newer firmware update which added back in the "OtherOS" feature;
(2) Punitive damages ("Bad corporation! BAD corporation! No biscuit for you!") to encourage the corporation to quit taking actions which violate the rights of the consumers.
But that's "logic and fairness", and has little relationship with what goes on in, and comes out of, the legal system.
Just because a EULA has a paragraph stating, "CUSTOMER agrees to give SONY his/her firstborn son, who will then be fed to the lions, and also agrees to be shot in the head by SONY agents, at SONY's sole discretion", does NOT make it legal.
No, the U.S. legal system hasn't been shifting towards dollar amounts. The JUDGES have been shifting towards that, there is still the right of the judges to require that something be fixed/repaired/returned to it's previous condition if the manufacturer breaks something when it comes to computer equipment.
That is the only place where that applies however: computer equipment and nothing else.
Sony deserves to be sued and will mostly likely lose unless it settles out of court. Its blatant false advertisement to kill a feature that it once used as a selling point. Further more a good company would work to patch its vulnerability rather than kill the total feature. Just look at all the vulnerabilities in Internet explorer, we don't see Microsoft killing its IE. They just constantly patch it. I'm sure some one will mention the eula that everyone must agree too before using there machine. This is the US, DVD eula says u cant copy a dvd but US law says u can make a back up copy for yourself. Bottom line is Eula inst a law, its just some BS the company comes up with to try and restrict a products use. It wont be any help in court.
Just to add, contracts are binding if and only if their stipulations are legal - contracts due not supersede the law. For example, a contract cannot compel someone to kill or steal. In the same way, contracts cannot remove rights that are guaranteed by law. This is why in every EULA you see, there's a provision that invalidates provisions individually (rather than the whole EULA) where the law would invalidate the provision, especially with warranties.
American's bitches about what other countries do and carrying so little about what their own country does.
How about you bitch about HD-DVD faggot.
Nobody suing Microsoft for dropping the original XBoxLive? I mean those Halo 2 players must also want their feature back right?
There is a loophole somewhere in the American suing system.....
Xboxlive is a service. Removing it is the equivalent of me going to a certain place to get my oil changed every year, then this year they tell me they won't do it any more. Its entirely their right to do that.
Removing functionality that you already payed for on the PS3, on the other hand, is like if the mechanic came to your place, took his oil back, and kept the money you paid him to do the oil change in the first place.
They had a legal excuse in the original xbox is now considered obsolete.
They did support it for four years since the last xbox was sold.
Actually, XBox's are still being sold today. I don't mean 360's, I mean the original ones.
But are new games being made for it?
No, but they are still definitely played.
why? you do know that the 360 has backwards compatibility.
If they're done with it they should let someone else take over the original xbox live network.
That would be nice they could release some of the specs of the old XBL so people can make their own network servers that can emulate it.
Not sure they'll do that because the xbox 360 version may use the same protocols.
MS has been acting as the MPAA's butterdog when they are big enough they could have said no to their protected media path requirements.
The MPAA would have had no other option but to eventually drop the requirement for it on blueray.
A required update that causes reduced functionality runs aground several US laws.
What Sony did would be akin to having a car sent to the dealer for a routine checkup and after getting it back it would no longer go faster then 50mph and had a blackbox that reports everything you do to the police installed.
Sony acted in a deceitful manner in that they pretended to do the right thing and later did a 180 which in the west is viewed as far worse then openly being a scumbag.
Microsoft may be a scumbag company but at least they are truthful in their intentions.
I feel no sympathy for Sony and hope enough suits are brought forth that the people who made the decision to remove Linux have to step down.
I expect the HDCP ban feature in TVs and blueray disc players to eventually be challenged as well.
The first company to use it will suffer greatly.
.
When it comes to scumbag companies, Sony is pretty high up.
These days MS is actually doing quite a good job, and they've been working hard to clean their rep up for the last 5 years at least (and they are actually doing a good job too).
Sony on the other hand has been digging themselves deeper and deeper in the fecal matter since the start of this millenium. With (badly coded) autoinstalling rootkits on their music CDs, faked PSP blogs, not realizing that people wanted mp3 players that could play mp3s and not only sonys own DRM-crap format until 2008 (iirc), etc etc etc. All ehile being painfully arrogant and snobby to everyone who dared to question them...
Sony has an mp3 player?!?
Why is it that there are no biased comments on articles that happen in Australia or England, but if it's in America there's always the obligatory HURRHURR ONLY IN AMERICA?
Cause the US takes everything in the ass, we are the bad guys. yet no other county does wrong which is a LIE.
It's simple really. People just don't want their home Countries to be blamed for everything. Said people will try there hardest to look up news (or even make some up) about a country that they dislike and try to make it look bad. For example Japanese on Anime based websites (lets use Crunchyroll) will typically say that any and all cosplays that are based off of an Anime should be done by Japanese and Japanese only and try to provide you with Photoshop or professionally taken pictures of Japanese Anime cosplay all the while, they will try to find any random cosplay through google (most likely with the tags of 'bad cosplay') and use a random pic that they see and claim it as an Amercian and try to tell everyone that American's can't cosplay worth anything and that all cosplayers are fat. Granted America does have a stereotype of the citizen's being fat, but then again each and every other country has their own stereotype as well. Pretty much America is the butt of most (if not all) jokes made thus resulting in everyone else trying to make America look worse than what it is.
I could keep going on, but you got the jest of it right? Also, inb4 someone says that America isn't a country.
What if Sony said "Pirates are using the blu-ray drive to play pirated games so in the next firmware update we are going to disable the drive. From now on you can only play downloaded games and movies on your PS3."
Would you still just rollover and say ok?
Hell no, and most other people wouldn't, but your point will fly over the heads of the 'suing is bad' idiots here.
Hmm...
Even though I don't care for Linux, I'd like to see the end of this court case with a decision to be allowed the option of other OS's.
...it'd be better than just giving the guy the money he's obviously suing for.
because of this my ps3 has not been able to be used since the update. i cant update because i use Linux as my os at home. my ps3 is my computer and game system. if i upgrade i lose my pc and can not do homework in open office. its sad. i want other os to stay, if Sony releases update and my Linux still works then i will update. until then i hope this law suit goes though.