Has Sony Finally Realized That Open Platforms Are Good?

from the for-real? dept

Sony is pretty famous for creating closed platform after closed platform locked down with incredibly damaging DRM. Back in 2005, there was a surprise statement from Sony's Ken Kutaragi, where he admitted that the company made a mistake in focusing on proprietary consumer electronics... but it seemed like no one was listening. The company kept on coming out with locked down, proprietary offerings. So, we were a bit skeptical a year ago when Sony CEO Howard Stringer once again claimed that Sony should have been more open. You can say it all you want, but if your solutions are still proprietary, it's pretty meaningless.

Could Sony finally be realizing that there really is a benefit to openness? Perhaps only after getting crushed in the market. But, people are noting that Sony's agreement to use Google's open GoogleTV platform is extremely un-Sony-like. Of course, it might just be a desperation ploy -- and too little, too late -- for a company that hasn't been considered a real leader in the space in many years.

Filed Under: closed, open
Companies: google, sony

Air Force PS3 Supercomputer Screwed By Sony Killing Off Linux Support

from the don't-mess-with-the-air-force dept

Back in March, we wrote about Sony's bizarre decision to delete a feature on PS3's, that would let you install other operating systems. This was an advertised feature that, while not used by most PS3 buyers, was used pretty widely and creatively. In fact, we noted in that post that the US military had used PS3s to build a supercomputer. While Sony has now been sued for this form of bait-and-switch, Ars Technica checked in on the Air Force folks who built that PS3 supercomputer, and found out that they're not particularly happy about this development. While it doesn't immediately impact them (since their PS3s aren't connected to the network and don't need the upgraded firmware that will break the Linux support), it does mean that if machines break down and replacements are needed, the Air Force could be in trouble:

"We will have to continue to use the systems we already have in hand," the lab told Ars, but "this will make it difficult to replace systems that break or fail. The refurbished PS3s also have the problem that when they come back from Sony, they have the firmware (gameOS) and it will not allow Other OS, which seems wrong. We are aware of class-action lawsuits against Sony for taking away this option on systems that use to have it."

The article also details how this wasn't just a gimmick by the Air Force, but it really was a cheap and effective way of building a supercomputer -- significantly cheaper than other options. After comparing a bunch of different solutions, they found that there were only two options for the kind of performance they wanted: the PS3 option or a Xeon-based multithreaded system. But in comparing the cost, the Xeon system would be "more than an order of magnitude greater than the PS3 technology."

You would think that Sony would know better than to piss off the US Air Force.

Filed Under: air force, linux, ps3
Companies: sony

As If On Cue, Sony Sued For Making PS3 Less Useful

from the soon-your-new-purchase-will-be-worth-nothing dept

We recently noted how Sony decided to make their Playstation 3 game console less useful by removing the ability to run alternative operating systems. Sony wanted to retain stricter control of the hardware to battle piracy, but it's something that annoyed some hobbyists -- who'd found a number of creative uses for the feature. The decision made it clear that in the broadband age, the product you thought you purchased isn't always the product you now own -- and it raised the question whether products made less useful post purchase demand a refund. One UK customer thought so, using a UK consumer protection law to force Amazon to give him a 20% rebate. At the time, we noted how a class action lawsuit seemed likely in the U.S., and right on cue -- Sony's now facing a lawsuit:

"The suit claims that the "Install Other OS" function was "extremely valuable." According to the suit, the plaintiff he has not yet installed the latest firmware update so that he can continue to use the Other OS feature. The suit also notes that PS3 owners who choose not to update their firmware cannot access the PlayStation Network, play PS3 games online, nor can they play new games or Blu-ray videos that require firmware 3.21."

So with the recent Avatar DRM flap in mind, users not only lose useful functionality, but if they refuse to update their system with the latest firmware -- they also lose the ability to go online, or watch/play the latest Blu-Ray titles or games. In other words, if you refuse a hardware downgrade designed to battle piracy (which punishes paying customers), your PS3 console becomes progressively less useful. So what exactly is a Playstation 3 worth if it can't be used to do anything?

Filed Under: hardware, piracy, ps3
Companies: sony

PS3 Owner Given Refund After Sony Makes PS3 Less Useful

from the what-you-thought-you-bought-is-not-what-you-now-own dept

We recently discussed how Sony has decided to eliminate some rather useful functionality from their Playstation 3 -- specifically the ability to run other operating systems like Linux. This annoyed a number of PS3 owners, given that thanks to a Sony "update," the product they thought they purchased is not the product currently sitting in their living room. Sony is obviously interested in keeping their hardware locked down as part of an attempt to retain control in their fight against pirates (and apparently hobbyists). But if the console you bought suddenly does less, are you due a refund? One UK PS3 owner apparently thought so, and was able to use a law created in 2002 to get Amazon to refund about 20% of his original purchase price. The law in question specifically applies to retailers not manufacturers, and requires that goods:

• comply with the description given by the seller and posses the same qualities and characteristics as other similar goods.
• be fit for the purpose which the consumer requires them and which was made known to the seller at the time of purchase.

Given that Sony "made it known to the seller at the time of purchase" that the PS3 would be able to run other operating systems, Amazon ponied up the refund -- without the user having to return the unit. Of course the refund will be kicked up to Sony, who isn't going to want a significant chunk of the UK suddenly demanding their money back. So the question then becomes whether Sony backs down and re-instates a feature many of their customers found useful, or just points to their user agreement. Said agreement claims Sony has the legal authority to do whatever the hell they'd like if the changes are applied in order to "prevent access to unauthorized or pirated content."

Less broad consumer protection laws in the States means users here probably won't see refunds, but you may see your obligatory dollar or two should Sony's decision result in a class action lawsuit.

Filed Under: playstation 3, refunds
Companies: amazon, sony

Bunch Of Companies Sued Over Encryption Patents

from the but-of-course dept

Another day, another story of a company no one's heard of who seems to produce nothing but patents, filing a lawsuit against a ton of companies in East Texas (of course). This one, sent in by the Bored SysAdmin, involves a company called The Pacid Group, suing Asus, Samsung, Sony, Sony Ericsson, Fujitsu, LG, Gigabyte, GBT, MSI, Motorola, Research in Motion, Nikon, Microsoft, Nintendo, HTC and Palm, claiming that they all violate two of its patents (5,963,646 and 6,049,612) on encryption. While it's often difficult to find any information on the no name companies who sue big companies for patent infringement, at least The Pacid Group has a website, where it clearly shows the company's only products: patents.

As we've seen in other similar lawsuits, the company appears to think that pretty much every bit of modern technology violates its patents. According to the lawsuit, all of the following types of products may violate these patents: laptops, mobile phones, printers, routers, digital cameras, Blu-ray disk players, gaming devices, wireless adapters and portable media players. Now, sure, you could make the claim that all of these companies found these patents from a company no one had heard of, and decided to "copy" the idea into their product. Or, the fact that this basic idea appears in so many places might lead you to conclude that the idea was the natural progression of the technology and obvious to those skilled in the art, and thus not deserving of a patent. But that would make sense.

Filed Under: encryption, patents
Companies: asus, fujitsu, gbt, gigabyte, htc, lg, microsoft, motorola, msi, nikon, nintendo, palm, rim, samsung, sony, sony ericsson

Hollywood Threatens To Stop Selling DVDs In Spain In A Push To Increase Unauthorized File Sharing?

from the confused dept

Robert Ring points us to the news that Hollywood studios are now threatening to stop selling DVDs in Spain, and are blaming "piracy." Specifically, Michael Lynton, of Sony Pictures, the guy who insists that nothing good has come from the internet, is claiming:

"Spain is on the brink of no longer being a viable home-entertainment market for us."

I'm really curious how Lynton keeps his job when his response to a market challenge is to leave the market entirely, shifting the unauthorized rate from whatever it is all the way up to 100% by choice. This is the same guy who claimed that the internet was killing the movie business, in the midst of a year with more movie releases than ever before and the largest box office take ever. He's also in charge of the company that wouldn't even support one of its own movies for the Oscars because it was afraid that the Oscar reviewer copies would end up online, even though the movie was already available for download.

This is a CEO who seems to want to blame everyone else for his own failures in giving people a reason to buy. He's blaming the internet when the real issue is his own inability to figure out how to provide scarce value that people want to pay for. I can't imagine how the board meetings go: "Hey, so how are you capitalizing on this massive increase in movie interest?" "Ah, well, we're dropping out of markets because the kids download." How do you manage to lead a company when your response to a boom in interest in your business is to take away one of the reasons to buy and then to blame the people who want your product? It's astounding.

Filed Under: dvds, hollywood, piracy
Companies: sony

Sony Deletes Feature On PS3's; You Don't Own What You Thought You Bought

from the the-digital-age dept

It used to be when you bought a product, you owned it. Simple, right? And once you owned it, you could do what you want with it? But, lately, thanks to digital products and an always connected world, many companies have changed things around -- so the products you thought you owned, you actually rent. But, it can go even further than that, where a product you thought you owned can be irrevocably changed without your permission, long after you bought it. Take, for example, the recent story of Sony deleting a feature on the PS3 that let users (not owners, apparently) install other operating systems, such as Linux. It's going away. Sony announced that when the next PS3 firmware upgrade comes along, it'll wipe out this feature, whether you used it or not. The only way to avoid that is not to upgrade, but that will also greatly limit what you can do with your PS3.

So why is Sony retroactively taking away a feature that it sold to people? Apparently because some people might possibly use it in a way that Sony didn't intend. The EFF has the whole backstory:

The backstory is that Sony provided the Other OS feature in order to support IBM's Cell Project, which produced the PS3's CPU and made it practical to use PS3 consoles as compute nodes for a scientific supercomputer. The U.S. Army did just that, buying more than 2,000 PS3s to build a supercomputer. Lots of hobbyists also made use of the Other OS feature, using it to write their own games and creatively repurpose their PS3s.

Recently, however, a hobbyist named Geohot announced that he was able to use the Other OS feature along with a bit of soldering in a manner that gave him more control over the PS3 hardware than Sony had intended. Sony responded with the "upgrade" that removes the Other OS feature.

This is, frankly, obnoxious -- and I half wonder if there will be a lawsuit over this. People were sold one thing and then Sony retroactively decided to take away a feature that some found quite useful However, I imagine that in a world of interconnected devices, stories like this are going to become more common. Isn't it time that someone created a movement to highlight what products you actually own once you've bought them?

Filed Under: ps3
Companies: sony

Screenwriters Claim Sony Copied Their Plot For A Video Game

from the judge-explains-basics-of-copyright-law dept

The entitlement some people feel because someone else had a somewhat (but not really) similar idea to what they had, and then actually executed on it better, is really astounding. For years, we've seen people claim that various filmmakers, TV producers and authors had "stolen" their ideas and sued over it. These lawsuits almost never get anywhere. In almost every case, the similarities between the stories are marginal at best, and clearly were developed independently. It's just that the creator of the less-well-known work is jealous of the success of whoever came up with a better version that got a lot more attention.

Apparently, those kinds of lawsuits are now moving to video games as well -- as two screenplay authors tried to claim that Sony copied their screenplay for its game, God of War. Of course, both the video game and the screenplay are apparently based on ancient Greek mythology, which, you know, are sorta in the public domain by now, and the general concepts are rather pervasive in an awful lot of modern storytelling.

No matter. The screenwriters insisted that the gamemakers must have seen their screenplay. Thankfully, the judge is having none of it:

"No one can own the basic idea for a story. General plot ideas are not protected by copyright law; they remain forever the common property of artistic mankind."

Filed Under: copyright, god of war, plots, video games
Companies: sony

CyberSitter Sues The Chinese Government (In Los Angeles) Over Green Dam Filters

from the good-luck-with-that dept

Last summer, of course, there was a lot of attention paid to China's announced plans that every PC sold in China needed to include the new "Green Dam Youth Escort" software, which was a client-side filtering program. After international outrage over the plan actually had some sort of impact, the government backed down. A smaller story, that came out during all of this, was that the Green Dam software appeared to copy significant portions of the commercial filter product, CyberSitter. Now, CyberSitter has sued the Chinese government and a bunch of companies for $2.2 billion. The lawsuit has been filed in Los Angeles, and I would wonder what jurisdiction a Los Angeles district court has over the Chinese government concerning software that was only to be used in China.

While the lawsuit does include the expected copyright claim, it also goes much further to claim trade secret violations and "conspiracy." And while the Chinese government is obviously the headline grabber, it also includes Sony, Lenovo, Toshiba, Acer, ASUSTek, BenQ and Haier, claiming that these computer makers were in on the conspiracy. While many of those have US operations, it seems like a longshot that (a) the court has jurisdiction over their actions in China or (b) the charge of "conspiracy" has any chance of sticking.

Filed Under: china, conspiracy, copyright, filters, green dam
Companies: acer, asustek, benq, cybersitter, haier, lenovo, sony, toshiba

Despite Awful Customer Service, Woman Felt Forced To Buy Another Sony eBook Reader... Thanks To DRM

from the drm-lock-in dept

We were just discussing the DRM tax on a Kindle, which is the "price" of having to rebuy any ebooks you want to keep later on if you decide to switch to another platform. Some of the commenters on that post scoffed at the idea, and insisted that "in the future" this wouldn't be an issue, because most likely there would be ways to take your ebooks with you to other readers. Of course, that's little comfort to people today. Reader Mark sends in this story of how Sony initially refused to fix a Sony eBook Reader that only broke because of an update that Sony pushed the woman to install (oddly, they required her to send them the reader). So, effectively, Sony contacts her, tells her to send in her working eBook Reader, then they send it back and it's broken. And they refuse to fix it because it's out of warranty. Nice.

But here's the kicker. After all of this, she went out and bought another Sony ebook reader. She noted that she would have gladly purchased a competing product "but would have lost access to the library she's spent hundreds of dollars building up." And there it is. The DRM tax at work creating serious lock-in and consumer problems. At least in this case, due to the publicity from Consumerist, Sony agreed to reimburse the woman, but you shouldn't have to get a major publication to tell your story first to get that kind of resolution.

Filed Under: drm, ebooks, ereaders
Companies: sony