Lawsuit over loss of Linux Support on Playstation 3
Posted by SonyBrands-Bex on Apr 29, 2010 in News, Sony Gaming | 4 comments
April the 1st saw the release of an official system update for the PlayStation 3, an update which has landed Sony in hot water with one disgruntled customer. The update – v3.21 disabled the ‘install other OS’ facility which basically blocked the ability to install the Linux OS on any PS3, although this feature was available on all but the ‘slim’ versions of the PlayStation 3 prior to the update.
PS3 owner Anthony Ventura has lodged a class action lawsuit against Sony because of the update for what he claims “disables a valuable functionality originally advertised as available” and as such he claims that “Sony has breached its own sales contract and deceived “millions of unsuspecting customers”. Mr Ventura also states that this lawsuit is being brought “on behalf of a nationwide class of all persons who purchased a PS3 during the period of November 17, 2006 to March 27, 2010 and who did not resell their PS3 before March 27, 2010”.
Sony are being asked to pay up to $5 million by the claimant as compensation and to cover legal fees. We will watch avidly as the case progresses as we’re aware of many unhappy PS3 owners that were unimpressed with Sony’s decision to remove the Linux support from the console, it should be interesting to see how the lawsuit plays out.
Oh wow. Sony has a bunch of monkeys for lawyers if it’s even considering fighting this. You can’t take away features people paid for without offering a refund. What if sony’s new update was to only allow bluray videos and no longer allowed you to play ps3 games? Or vice versa. It can’t be done. Now whats going to happen is sony will without a doubt lose and will absolutely have to offer a refund to anyone who purchased the system during that time period. Good luck sony lol.
As much as I hope they do lose, because I believe they were in the wrong to remove the feature, I actually doubt they will. They’re lawyers might be monkeys (:p) but, I bet they’re smart monkeys. And they will fight this. A multi million dollar company has more chance than a single person unfortunately :(. I’m sure they’ll use the “it was in the EULA” that firmware updates may remove functionality. But, it’ll be interesting to see how it goes, because it may well be in the EULA but, you wouldn’t see that until after you’ve bought the PS3 and if it was advertised highly as having it and on that basis you bought it…well, we’ll just have to see. That’s in part of the lawsuit I believe, I saw somewhere yesterday.
Though I’m not sure if it’s in the EULA (I’m sure no one has read it entirely except the poor guy who had to write it), it doesn’t always matter. EULA’s are not laws. And what sony is trying to do is unconscionable. They can put in their EULA “we have the right to make the machine inoperable after 24hrs of purchase”. They can put whatever they want in the EULA, that does mean it will stand up to a judge. Sony’s only defense is that you don’t have to update. But the problem is that you would lose another feature that was advertised when you bought it.
In addition, this isn’t one person fighting it. It is a class action lawsuit. And I encourage everyone who has bought a system in that time frame to join. It DOESN’T matter if you used the feature or not. When you purchased it, you had the ability to use that feature at any point in the future. And that has been unjustly taken away.
My advise to sony is to figure out another way to stop the hackers. That is the bottom line of the whole issue. George Hotz hacked it in January with the use of the “otherOS” feature. It was not a patchable hack. The only way sony has figured out how to stop it is by disabling the “otherOS”. But I think sony is going to realize that the cheaper way to fix this is by researching other ways to stop the hack.
Ah, didn’t think of it that way. To be honest, I have no idea about lawsuits etc. I really do hope Sony dont win it though, it’s a disgrace.
Also, I think, the last update – 3.30 (3.21 removed the Install Other OS option) is a forced update, while the others were sort of optional, as long as you didn’t want to play online or use the PSN store. And a forced update is always a mistake imo, is why I started using my PS3 more than my Xbox when it came to watching vids. The 360 would make me update before I could watch anything :|. Anyway, straying.
I think I will get onto Sony myself, I actually contacted Amazon and they said no, and referred me to Sony, as did GameStation, so I’ll see what happens with Sony :).