Early Bird Samsung Gets Its Worm
February 12, 2008

In this case, the worm is in the form of a potential class action lawsuit, filed out of anger over glitchy Samsung Blu-ray players.According to the suit filed Feb. 5 in the district of New Jersey, Samsung is at fault for selling BD players that can't run all BD titles correctly. Also, Samsung is accused of delivering firmware upgrades too slowly to fix the problematic playback. 
The plaintiff, Robert T. McGovern, wants the courts to declare it a class action suit, since thousands of people have purchased the players since launch in 2006. 
I get where the guy is going. Remember when Samsung and LG were scrambling to deliver firmware so its players could handle BD + copyright protection technology?  But if McGovern is looking to sue Samsung, he might as well sue all the high-def manufacturers, BD and HD DVD. I don't think there is a manufacturer that hasn't released firmware to try to solve some hardware glitch. True, Samsung has drawn a lot of the BD criticism. But then again its players were the first to of the BD players to launch. They had the most time in the market to attract that sort of heat.
But shouldn't early adopters know what they are getting into with new technology? It is all sort of a work-in-progress. You'll be that cool kid on the block with your new gadget. But you have to know it might be buggy as manufacturers basically use you to assess whether the product can ever break into the mainstream. Beta-testing is the trendy word for it! This guy might as well sue Playstation 3, as its Blu-ray player doesn't yet fully playback all of the features on Web-enabled BD titles, like Saw IV. That 2.0 Profile upgrade is still "upcoming" as far as I know. 
I'll wager that McGovern is not going to be successful in his case. It's not that he's wrong to be upset and annoyed by his futzy Samsung player. But I just don't think he can prove Samsung did anything illegal. At worst, Samsung rushed out some rough-around-the-edges players in order to be crowned first to the BD market.

Posted by Susanne Ault on February 12, 2008 | Comments (2)