PSN hacking law-suit binned, Sony cleared of charges

PlayStation Network's outage in 2011 left user accounts at the mercy of hackers, prompting a class-action lawsuit against Sony for failing to protect customer accounts. Get the details of the case's collapse below.

CVG reports - by way of Courthouse News - that Sony's charges were dismissed by US District Judge Anthony Battaglia.

The reason? "Because none of the named plaintiffs subscribed to premium PSN services, and thus received the PSN services free of cost," Battaglia proclaimed, and he added that the plaintiff's claim itself takes Sony's responsibility out of the picture.

"Plaintiffs freely admit, plaintiffs' personal information was stolen as a result of a criminal intrusion of Sony's Network," Battaglia explained, "Plaintiffs do not allege that Sony was in any way involved with the Data Breach."

Battaglia also recognised that the end-user agreement accepted by all PSN users states that such errors may occur and that the service is not perfect, essentially suggesting that the plaintiffs accepted the terms at their own risk. Claims that Sony misrepresented the level of security on PSN were also thrown out as a result.

What do you make of the decision? Should further compensate be awarded, or is it time for the plaintiffs to stand down? Let us now what you think below.