from the Shriveled-fruits-of-the-legal-system dept.
I received my PS3 "OtherOS" class action lawsuit settlement payment yesterday: $10.07.
Have other members received settlements yet? More, less, or the same amount?
[We previously covered this in PlayStation 3 "OtherOS" Class Action Settlement Claims End on April 15 . Whatever happened to the $65 settlement that was mentioned there? --Ed.]
Related Stories
PlayStation 3 Phat owners have a month left to claim 'OtherOS' class action settlement
The settlement was reached in October 2016, and originally PS3 owners were told to expect up to $55. That's increased to $65 now, possibly because fewer claims than expected were submitted in the 18 months since.
This resolves, legally anyway, the removal of the so-called "OtherOS" feature from the PS3's operating system eight years ago. That feature allowed users to partition their PS3's hard drive and install Linux on it. You may remember that, before then, the console was pitched and even used as a computer, including by the Air Force (which created a supercomputer cluster out of more than 1,700 of the consoles) and in distributed computing applications such as Folding@home and SETI@home.
But in April 2010, Sony stripped out the OtherOS feature, citing security concerns, which pissed off a small but very vocal contingent of PS3 users. That led to the lawsuit, which alleged false advertising, breach of warranty and etc. Sony admits no wrongdoing, which is customary in civil settlements.
"Phat" refers to the original console, which weighed approximately 5 kg and measured 325 mm (W) × 98 mm (H) × 274 mm (D).
Also at BetaNews.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 16 2018, @09:38AM
You'll be celebrating tonight!
(Score: 4, Insightful) by FatPhil on Friday November 16 2018, @09:48AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2, Informative) by effbee on Friday November 16 2018, @10:45AM (1 child)
Got my $10.07 too!
(Score: 1) by nwf on Saturday November 17 2018, @05:56AM
Same here. That has to be one of the slowest litigations I've ever seen, and for almost nothing. I paid $400 for the PS3, so this is 2.5% for the value of running another OS.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 16 2018, @12:46PM (9 children)
I’ve never much cared for class actions, the only real winners are the lawyers. It’s like that every single time.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday November 16 2018, @01:12PM (3 children)
What's the problem? The lawyers get their fat payday, a company that you might not like gets punished, and you get a $10.07 check. Win-win.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday November 16 2018, @03:05PM
And... the general public gets a reminder about just how "fair" our legal system is, and what you can expect anytime you engage a lawyer... Win, win win.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 16 2018, @11:21PM (1 child)
They just bundle the cost of the fine into the next set of products, as a cost of doing business. YOU got punished.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday November 17 2018, @07:11AM
Higher price of the console leads to less sales. Unless Sony is now Apple or something.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by stretch611 on Friday November 16 2018, @04:47PM (3 children)
While I never owned a PS3, it pretty much disqualified me from getting a check.
However, I still remember the time I was in a class action against Iomega because of the unreliability of their zip drives. (for any possible youngin's those were expensive 100MB removable drives, a little larger than 3.5" floppies, that existed before CDs were writable.)
The Iomega drives had a click of death [soylentnews.org] resulting in damage to the drive and any media put into it. A class action suit was filed. The lawyers were paid in cash. I received a coupon for $10 or $20 off a 6-pack of Iomega Zip Disks. I remember that the coupon was only valid at 2 or 3 stores... ones that charged full retail price of $150 for the 6-pack of disks, while I knew where to buy them for $99. Essentially the coupon was worthless.
So the people in the class get nothing... The lawyers get paid, and the business gets off the hook for a lot less.
As much as class actions are a scam, at least they sometimes hold a company slightly responsible. In this light, I would prefer having class actions to not having them and removing this occasionally useful but minimal amount of accountability.
I also received a settlement for Sirius Radio recently for them marketing when they shouldn't. I always ignored registration so the only information they got about me was from the Car Dealer (which sadly was probably significant.) I got a whopping 3 months of free Sirius service.
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday November 16 2018, @06:24PM
While I never owned a PS3, it pretty much disqualified me from getting a check.
Pretty much?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 16 2018, @06:35PM
I was in a class-action lawsuit years ago. My Honda Civic's sun visor had a problem where the little cam or whatever inside broke, and it would no longer stay flipped up against the roof of the car. I paid to replace it, installed it myself, and the replacement worked fine after that. After a year or two, the class-action was filed against Honda about it. Honda settled and agreed to reimburse anyone who'd paid to have it fixed. Luckily I'd purchased the replacement online, so I could go back to the supply site, get a copy of the receipt, and sent it in as proof. A few months later, I got the check for the full amount.
So there are a few class-actions where the people actually "harmed" do get real compensation.
(Score: 2) by stretch611 on Friday November 16 2018, @08:40PM
Damn... screwed up the link in my parent post
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Click_of_death#Origin_of_the_term [wikipedia.org]
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 16 2018, @08:05PM
The alternative is that you get jack shit, or huge legal fees trying to take the international company to court on your own where you go broke because they drag the entire thing out for years or decades, and the company gets away with their bait and switch tactic.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 16 2018, @01:08PM
I also receiveda $10.07 check this week for the settlement.
(Score: 3, Informative) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Friday November 16 2018, @03:14PM (2 children)
This was before the settlement was approved, but certainly reveals the logic of the settlement....
Source [arstechnica.com].
So the claimant above looks like they simply signed up for the suit and did not attest/prove that they had Linux running on their box in order to claim the larger settlement amount. Either that part of the settlement wasn't approved in the earlier story, or someone didn't get their facts straight. Whichever.
Elsewhere I read that the settlement fund amount was $3.7 million, and in the settlement agreement [otherossettlement.com] it makes clear that this is inclusive of the lawyer's fees. So 3.7 million less 2.25 million is $950,000 available for settlement distribution. I can't readily find easy sales statistics to guess at how many users that would be, but at $65 that's 14,600 people. At $10 per person that is 95,000 people. My guess is that it would be around 30,000 or so.
Incidentally many sources report that while Sony has had up years and down years, in 2017, the operating profit was $4.5 billion dollars [ft.com]. Elsewhere reports that just as operating income. Either way, I don't think Sony felt any true pain from paying this settlement out. Maybe I'm wrong, though.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday November 16 2018, @05:28PM (1 child)
> I don't think Sony felt any true pain
Out of all the ways I wish their death, I don't believe a megacorp should be taken down for removing in an update of one product, an obscure function that a lot less than 1% of the buyers are aware of, and an order of magnitude fewer will actually try to use.
Coughing up a quite a few millions is not an unreasonable slap on the wrist.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Friday November 16 2018, @06:42PM
3.7 is not quite a few... I'd bet they also expended more than $3.7M fighting the suit, even if the total were $10M - we're talking 0.2% of annual profits, less than a day's take home...
So, if they screw up and get penalized like this 100 times per year, that's 20% of profits... I think it's safe to say it's all about the PR, and virtually nothing about the $10 checks or the lawyers' fees.
🌻🌻 [google.com]