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Sony 'OtherOS' lawsuit dismissed in U.S.

Dela @ Dec 14, 2011 02:37 | 8 comments

Sony won't face more financial hurt from its decision to cut OtherOS through a system update.

A Judge in Northern California has dismissed the remaining charges in a class-action lawsuit against Sony over the removal of the OtherOS functionality from the PS3 console. The Japanese firm cut the OtherOS feature through a system update, citing security concerns.

The lawsuit sought to include all PS3 owners who purchased the console between the launch day, and March 27 of last year. However, most of the initial charges it made against Sony were dropped quickly by the judge.

The lawsuit argued that Sony breached its sale contact by disabling OtherOS.

The judge had allowed the plaintiffs to argue that Sony broke the law by effectively forcing users to choose to install the firmware update and lose OtherOS, or decline the update and lose access to the PlayStation Network, but the judge's decision shows the plaintiffs failed to argue this point successfully.

"The flaw in plaintiffs' analogy is that they are claiming rights not only with respect to the features of the PS3 product, but also to have ongoing access to an Internet service offered by Sony, the PSN," the judge wrote.

"A somewhat fanciful, but more apt, analogy would be if Toyota sold hybrid vehicles with an advertisement campaign touting that Toyota owners would have access to a recreational driving facility, a no-speed limit amusement park for cars. Then, at some time thereafter, Toyota instituted a rule that its hybrids would not be permitted in the park unless the owners allowed the battery feature to be disabled.

"In those circumstances, Toyota hybrid owners who declined to authorize disabling of the battery feature would still have fully-functional hybrid vehicles, capable of running on an electric motor or a gasoline engine, as appropriate under the conditions. Similarly, PS3 owners who declined to install Firmware Update 3.21 still have fully-functioning devices, capable of either being used as game consoles to play games on optical disks, or as computers, with the Other OS feature."

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