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What's Happening in the Class Action Against Sony About Removing OtherOS?

By Pamela Jones et al.

I thought you'd be interested to know what's been happening in the litigation against Sony filed by customers upset that Sony took away the OtherOS capability on their PlayStation3's. Sony Computer Entertainment America, or SCEA, filed a motion to dismiss [PDF] the lawsuit. The court granted in part and denied in part. It has dismissed [PDF] all the claims against Sony except for one -- but with the right to amend -- and the one claim that survived is the one alleging that SCEA violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Right to amend means the plaintiffs can fix the deficiencies, if they can.

Some of you may conclude that there may be more justice in this world than you thought, when you reflect on the fact that now both Sony and George Hotz face claims of violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

The plaintiffs have 20 days to refile an amended complaint, but no matter what happens with those claims, the case will now proceed because the CFAA claim was *not* dismissed. And interestingly, this litigation is being heard in the US District Court for the Northern District of California in San Francisco. That's the same court hearing SCEA's litigation against Georg Hotz, but a different judge. And the plaintiffs have been following the SCEA v. Hotz case, and they noticed what they believe are contradictions between what Sony says in that case and what it says in this one.

Full post as published by Groklaw on February 21, 2011 (boomark / email).