A PlayStation owner has taken legal action against Sony following the company's decision to drop the 'Other OS' option from the PlayStation 3, via a recent firmware update to the console.
The 'Other OS' update was released earlier in April, causing one aggrieved California man to sue Sony for essentially dropping Linux support for PS3.
Mandatory update
PlayStation 3 firmware 3.21 was a mandatory update, with Sony Computer Entertainment reps claiming the decision was made to exclude Linux support on PS3 due to 'security concerns.'
Sony added that dropping a secondary operating system would "help ensure that PS3 owners will continue to have access to the broad range of gaming and entertainment content from SCE and its content partners on a more secure system."
Plaintiff Anthony Ventura has now filed a class action lawsuit against SCEA in a North District of California court, which says he believes the change "reflected Sony's concerns that the Other OS feature might be used by 'hackers' to copy and/or steal gaming and other content."
"Sony's decision to force users to disable the Other OS function was based on its own interest and was made at the expense of its customers," reads Ventura's complaint.
The suit was brought on behalf of "a nationwide class of all persons who purchased a PS3 during the period November 17, 2006 and March 27, 2010 and who did not resell their PS3" in that time.
Ventura wants "damages for Plaintiff and each class member, including but not limited to compensatory damages; restitution; injuctive relief; attorneys' fees; and the cost of this suit." Specific sums are not listed, although court documents note "the amount in controversy is in excess of $5 million."
Via Kotaku
Your comments (14) Click to add a new comment
clearer
May 30th 2010
14. @mgillespie Changing specs is fine, but retroactively changing machines is something entirely different. That no-one has challenged such a change in the past doesn't make it legal (regardless of how common it is). Besides, the laws are not identical on this topic all around the world -- in the EU for instance it most certainly is not legal. There is nothing in the EULA that says that they can remove features at all and the official blurb about it even says that all the features of the previous versions are still present in the new versions (even though it also states that one of them have been removed).
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danderson00
May 3rd 2010
13. This is absolutely ridiculous, a gold digger looking to get rich quick, and yet another example of how society is becoming ridiculously litigous. I think I'm going to change careers to law!
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mgillespie
April 29th 2010
12. @shadowtd
Sorry, you are wrong. It's VERY common for manufacturers to change specification (both adding and removing).
Sky, Microsoft and Nintentdo have all removed major features in firmware updates. The only difference there of course, is you don't have an army of Microsoft shills leading PS3 owners into battle.
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mobius
April 29th 2010
11. @shadowtd, I don't know about US specific law either but you're right in the UK at least the retailers would be obligated to give refunds for anyone that requested one under the sale of goods act, and I imagine the retailers would then sue to recoup the cost from Sony.
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shadowtd
April 29th 2010
10. Just because something is in the T&C's doesn't mean it's legal. A good test of EULA's in court is long overdue. I'm not sure how this differs in the US but in the UK & EU a manufacturer isn't allowed to remove a feature that the device had initially. Simple as.
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mobius
April 29th 2010
9. @mgillespie "They can basically do anything they like to the firmware."
This is what I don't understand what you're saying, the TOS you've quoted only inform of changes to the OS, not firmware changes that would alter behaviour "outside" of the OS and certainly nothing about removing advertised features.
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mgillespie
April 29th 2010
8. @mobius
They can basically do anything they like to the firmware. Users have accepted that agreement, and thus had the luxury of updates like BD Profile 2.0, trophies, DLNA Media Streaming and tonnes of other features. This is the price they pay by accepting the terms of the update, that something may come along that removes something (in this case because of hackers, who frankly should be the ones that people are blaming and suing)
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mobius
April 29th 2010
7. @mgillespie, I may be missing something but I couldn't see anything in those quotes that covers other OSes, only changes to Sony's OS.
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m185874
April 29th 2010
6. Someone whose life has been ruined by this PS3 change to the extent that they need to bring a court case SERIOUSLY needs to get out more.
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cheysuli
April 29th 2010
5. It's comparable to Apple firmware disabling the video function of the iPhone 3GS because "it might be used to film clips in cinemas".
Good luck to the guy. He won't win though, justice goes to the highest bidder.
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mgillespie
April 29th 2010
4. And this will be thrown out of court before lawyers can blink an eye.
The Terms of Use and Terms of Service for PSN and use of PS3 have always stated that: (quoting the terms that have been inforce since V1 in 2006)
"Such content may include automatic updates or upgrades which may change your current operating system [...]. Such upgrades or updates may be provided for system software for your PS3™ system, the PSP® system or other SCEA-authorized hardware. Access or use to any system software is subject to terms and conditions of a separate end user license agreement found at http://www.us.playstation.com/termsofuse. You authorize SCEA to provide such content and agree that SCEA shall not be liable [...] for provision of such content or maintenance services."
Anyone running a non-slim will have already accepted these on numerous occasions. Anyone with a slim never had OtherOS so haven't lost anything.
This will be thrown out of court in the blink of an eye (the Media won't report that thou, they are only interested if it's succeeds). Idiots and their money are soon parted as they say, this idiot just wasted his money on lawyers for a case he can never win.
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weezer
April 29th 2010
3. Because Sony said that you could? Some people love this homebrew stuff - and a PS3 is still cheaper than a mid-range PC.
Fact is, Sony advertised the machine as having the capability of running other OSes. You can't just remove features that you were using to sell the machine on.
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zoydwheeler
April 29th 2010
2. Because you were a bit bored? Because you wanted to connect to all the other PlayStations in the world and create a open-source-supercomputernetwork to save mankind from certain doom?
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richmurrills
April 29th 2010
1. I really don't understand why you would want to run another OS on a console. Can anyone enlighten me?
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