[fsfe-fi] Oikeustapaus: Lenovo ordered to pay €1920 for making French laptop buyer pay for Windows too

[Otto Kekäläinen]

Mielenkiintoinen oikeustapaus:


----- Forwarded message from Manon Ress <manon.ress at keionline.org> -----
...
> Lenovo ordered to pay €1920 for making French laptop buyer pay for Windows too
>
> The court based its judgment on a European Union directive, which
> campaigners hope will make the ruling applicable elsewhere
> http://www.techworld.com.au/article/414500/lenovo_ordered_pay_1920_making_french_laptop_buyer_pay_windows_too
>
>     * Peter Sayer (IDG News Service)
>     * 07 February, 2012 03:15
>
> A French laptop buyer has won a refund from Lenovo after a four-year
> legal battle over the cost of a Windows license he didn't want. The
> judgment could open the way for PC buyers elsewhere in Europe to
> obtain refunds for bundled software they don't want, French campaign
> group No More Racketware said Monday.
>
> Stéphane Petrus bought a Lenovo 3000 N200 laptop from French retailer
> Cybertek in December 2007. The PC had Microsoft Windows Vista and
> other software installed on it, none of which Petrus wanted, so he
> sought a refund from Lenovo under a French law forbidding the sale of
> one product to be tied to the sale of another. In November 2008, the
> court rejected his request, telling him that if he didn't want to pay
> for the copy of Windows, he should have returned the PC.
>
> The judgment was overturned by the Court of Cassation two years later
> on appeal, and sent back to the court in Aix en Provence for retrial,
> on the grounds that the lower court had not considered whether the
> case was covered by the provisions of the 2005 European Union
> directive on unfair commercial practices.
>
> After reconsidering the case, on Jan. 9, Judge Jean-Marie Dubouloz
> ordered Lenovo to pay Petrus legal costs of €1,000 (around US$1,300),
> damages of €800 and to refund the cost of the Windows license. Petrus
> had estimated the cost of the software at €404.81, but the court found
> that excessive, given that he had paid €597 for the PC and software
> together. Observing that "it is commonly accepted that the price of a
> piece of software represents 10 percent to 25 percent of the price of
> a computer," the court ordered Lenovo to reimburse Petrus €120 for the
> software.
>
> The campaign group No More Racketware welcomed the ruling, saying it
> symbolized the crumbling of the bundling of hardware and software in
> France. But more significantly, the group said, the ruling was founded
> on a European directive regulating unfair commercial practices,
> opening up the possibility that it could set a legal precedent in
> other E.U. countries too.
>
> Frédéric Cuif, attorney for Petrus, wrote in a blog posting that the
> ruling was a step in the right direction, although he would have
> appreciated something less terse.
>
> No More Racketware is not the only group campaigning against illegal
> software bundling: Consumer group UFC-Que Choisir has been fighting
> similar actions for years. A case pitting Que Choisir against
> Hewlett-Packard and retailer Darty in 2008 returned to the courts last
> year with a win, on appeal, for Que Choisir.
>
> Peter Sayer covers open source software, European intellectual
> property legislation and general technology breaking news for IDG News
> Service. Send comments and news tips to Peter at peter_sayer at idg.com.




-- 
Otto Kekäläinen                   []         otto at fsfe.org
Finnish Team Coordinator        [][][]  GPG/PGP 0xB7F7E4E1
Free Software Foundation Europe   ||      +358 44 566 2204
http://www.fsfe.org/                      finland at fsfe.org