Aussie Gamer Loses PS3 Court Case Over 'Other OS' 206
dotarray writes "An Australian man who took Sony to court over the company's decision to remove Linux functionality from the PS3 console has now lost his claim, with the court clearing the manufacturer of any wrongdoing regarding the upgrade."
Re:Is this any surprise? (Score:5, Informative)
It's not quite as simple as that for a number of reasons:
1. A number of countries have a system for dealing with claims with a low monetary value (which this would almost certainly fall under) and generally speaking this system is set up to make it practical for you or I to sue a huge company by limiting the amount of costs (and, for that matter, messing around) either party can incur.
2. "How could any court not view this as false advertising?" : Good question. IANAL, but I can think of three things: I seriously doubt many people genuinely used their PS3 for Linux - and Sony could easily dig up numbers to support that, the fact that the feature was removed in the update was well known and in the release notes and the update may well have shipped with a "regardless of what this does to your console, you can't sue us" disclaimer.
I would add that IMV the only thing worse than Sony doing this is that I haven't yet heard of a single legal case where the judge(s) involved seem to be taking it particularly seriously. I really don't like the idea of living in a world where a manufacturer can release a product with features X, Y and Z only to remove Z - even from items already sold - at a later date. Could be particularly interesting here in the UK where no matter what the manufacturer does, it's the retailer who's on the legal hook if they sell you something which doesn't perform as advertised.
Another link (Score:5, Informative)
Judgement apparently not posted yet (Score:3, Informative)
When it is, I'd expect it to appear here [sa.gov.au].
Re:Very sad. (Score:2, Informative)
Justice by credit line
Re:Appeal posible (Score:4, Informative)
Is there? I've spent a frustration 30 minutes bouncing from link to link looking for some actual details without much luck.
Yeah, the details are rather scant. But the decision was apparently made by a magistrate, which means he filed either in a local court or in the federal magistrates court. Either of these can be appealed (*almost* automatically) to a higher court, if he chooses to do so.
Re:Is this any surprise? (Score:2, Informative)
With that being said how can you say that linux users are against copyright if we want it enforced on our own products. Yes there are people who use linux to "break" copyright and move around things. However, this happens in the Apple world as well as the Microsoft world. May I remind you that majority of the copyright cases filled by the RIAA are users using programs that were developed for a Windows Operating system.
There are just as many people out there using the other operating systems who don't give a crap about copyrights as there are those that use linux who don't care for copyrights.
Re:He should appeal (Score:5, Informative)
There's a forum linked elsewhere - in essence, Sony's argument was "you can't sue us, the EULA says so" and the judge agreed.
Re:Facepalm (Score:5, Informative)
I know you're trolling but let me explain why the UK does what it does.
The Sale of Goods act (1953) was brought into being to protect the consumer from shops palming off problems to the manufacturer. Your equipment is faulty? Send it back to the manufacturer. The book you bought has pages missing? Phone up the publisher to get it replaced. With this act the retailer is obliged to offer a replacement to the purchaser and it becomes the retailer's responsibility to get a replacement from the manufacturer. No flux capacitor required.
Re:Is this any surprise? (Score:3, Informative)
I don't believe this is false advertising, as no one who purchased a console before the update was required to install the update
Unless they want to play new games, new BluRay movies, or continue to access PSN. If you don't install the update, you lose these features (which the console was advertised as having), if you don't install it then you lose the ability to run Linux (which the console was advertised as having). Whichever choice you make, you lose some of the functionality that the console was originally advertised as having.
I hope that Microsoft and Nintendo will remember this for the next round of the console wars, and remind people that Sony doesn't sell you a console, it lends you one and reserves the right to disable arbitrary features in the future.
Poor Choice of Damages (Score:3, Informative)
It says he sued to get back $800 (AU), which was the cost of renting a laptop for some unspecified period of time.
He should have sued for the retail price of the PS3.
Re:Is this any surprise? (Score:2, Informative)
I used Linux largely for Cell development when I worked at Sony, but also for occasional browse-on-the-TV stuff.
It's a memory-constrained box, though there is a bit of hackery available (and in use, on mine) to use graphics memory for a little large-page help. The HDD is a laptop drive, and everything works fairly well with a wireless keyboard/mouse. You can rip/archive Blu-Ray (which I've never done) and do most Linuxy things. Still, Eclipse, big GIMP work, and anything else that leans hard on memory is in tight quarters. Picture the Flash working for FedEx, carrying one package at a time. The trucks would win.
I haven't started the system because I have Linux elsewhere, am not currently writing code for the Cell, and was pretty much sticking to gaming online. Since going online would mean making a cripple-the-system choice, I've just skipped it altogether, opting instead to buy some games on Steam. I'd been looking forward to several games, but the Linux removal killed my interest in the system.
We now have a component Blu-Ray player.
It's a Samsung.