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Fine Print Says Game Store Owns Your Soul
mr_sifter writes "UK games retailer GameStation revealed that it legally owns the souls of thousands of customers, thanks to a clause it secretly added to the online terms and conditions for its website. The 'Immortal Soul Clause' was added as part of an attempt to highlight how few customers read the terms and conditions of an online sale. GameStation claims that 88 percent of customers did not read the clause, which gives legal ownership of the customer's soul over to the UK-based games retailer. The remaining 12 percent of customers however did notice the clause and clicked the relevant opt-out box, netting themselves a £5 GBP gift voucher in the process."
for sufficient definitions of "unconscionable contract".
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
Aside from the obvious fact that this was a publicity stunt, could they even enforce a contract claiming ownership over a mythical construct anyway? Doubtful at best.... how can i keep idle from ever showing up on the front page again?
My soul has been pissing me off.
I mean for real, stop whining - I know - I'm slowly killing you with violent video games - give it a rest already.
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/02/23/2315211
Dear GameStation, I would like to inquire as to the price of my soul. ... and if you have a chance, could I have a quote on the soul of "1337gAm0r122" from your forums
.
Best Regards,
Joe
"I'll throw in my sense of decency for an extra $5 - It's a Bart sales bonanza, everything must go!"
"By agreeing to sell me this game your company hereby forfeits all owned souls to me; In the case of my soul ownership by said company, during this transaction, soul gains ownership of said company."
I'd rather search for the answers than just ask the questions.
If you want me to read it, make it readable.
1. NO legalese
2. One page maximum length
Putting a 30 page wall of text full of legalese and word games does NOT constitute a useful document. I'm paying for a product, not to play lawyer.
If they can find a way to collect it they can have it
You can't claim ownership over something non-existent such as the soul. It doesn't exist.
And no, there is neither God nor immortality of souls.
Colorless green Cthulhu waits dreaming furiously.
Considering that I do not have a "Soul" I fail to see the threat.
Would you like my pet Unicorn with that?
An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"
I sold my soul to rock 'n roll a long time ago. Suckers!
"I'm not a quack, I'm a mad scientist! There's a difference." - Dr. Cockroach
The company store already own's my soul!
So, even by accepting your terms, YOU STILL F*CKING LOSE! /cackle
If you split it into seven pieces and secret them around the world?
--- Mercutio was right.
Funny how everyone picks up on the 'aint no such thing as a soul' and no one comments on how this is quite an interesting way of showing how nobody ever reads the terms (me included), and encouraging people to do so. ... of course, on the other hand you could call it cheap cynical publicity... as if reading the terms and conditions ever made a difference.
thanks to a clause it secretly added to the online terms and conditions for its website.
Er no, no it doesn't, thanks to a clause I secretly added to our agreement. They can come to my house and read it if they want.
After all, if the law allows a party to state implicit agreement to a contract and/or modify said contract - the law applies to EVERYONE, including the other party of the contract.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Return to the foul, eldtritch depths from whence you came, Beast from Beyond! The stars are not yet aligned and your time has not yet come! Back! Back I say! No Slashdot User IDs for you!
Here's to hot beer, cold women, and Glaswegian kisses for all.
OK, it's a joke. But selling one's soul is a cardinal sin in some significant religions. Want to bet that more than one priest hears this about in the confessional? And some folks will not be amused.
Bruce Perens.
sucks if you actually own one of those fugly kia's ...
Everybody knows that to transfer the rights of the sould you will have to sign the contract in blood, or it is not valid. I can still make a legal contract.
-- diablo
What if I don't believe we have a soul?
I care not for your karma and your mod points.
I am surprised it was that high, I have never ready any of the terms and conditions I have ever agreed to.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
People aren't reading 65 page terms and conditions? Who would have thought...
This is an important problem. And this was a really great way to highlight it. Huge props for Gamestop for doing this, instead of profiting from it.
The real problem though, is not people not reading it. The problem is, that in practice it’s impossible to read all the terms of all the contracts.
First they are deliberately written in undecipherable legal code. Something that should be illegal, but isn’t because it’s so hard to define.
Then it’s way too much. You would have to read a multi-page small-font document, every time you pull out your wallet. (Yes, the terms can change in the two days between you going to the same shop to buy your food.)
And finally, the whole thing is also deliberately made hard to access. How often did you go into a building with house rules, or signed a contract that mentioned them or some other external document, but they never handed them to you, and even acted annoyed and insulted, when you pointed it out, and demanded the document?
It is 100% crystal clear that pretty much all companies do not want you to read any of it, for the very purpose of them biting you in the ass as soon as you trip over the tiniest irregularity. Or even without doing anything.
Most contracts basically go like this:
[big font] WE MAKE YOUR DREAM COME TRUE FOR FREE [/big font]
[tiny font] There is some hidden document in the lower drawer in the basement of a building on the other side of the world, that is part of what you sign [tiny font]
[hidden document] We give you NOTHING, but take from you EVERYTHING! [hidden document]
And that is no different than mob tactics. In fact I say it out loud, and call every major corporation on this world a criminal mob with the sole purpose of making as much money as possible, even when it means walking over more dead bodies than the Nazis. ...hell, Microsoft is a silly small fish in that area, when compared to those. But still way above the line of acceptable moral behavior.
Examples: Monsanto, Haliburton, Eli Lily, Shell, Elsevier.
They all have private armies. They all have revolving doors with every big government. They all make huge profits with lies, death and deception.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
By posting this message on slashdot, slashdot hereby agrees to stop posting so much apple propaganda.
Your welcome!
Blood is required to sign a soul-selling contract. Without agreement is not valid :-)
this is not idle. this is a very serious and important issue. it proves how useless and detrimental current legal contract system is. it is infeasible for any user/customer to sit and read 4-5 pages of text and then to weight it and then to agree. EVEN if you did that, chances are high that you would still fail to assess it properly, because most require extensive local legal knowledge. The article shouldnt have been in idle. its some important issue that affects everyone and every business.
Read radical news here
This contract is not valid, the ritual to get a hold of a human soul is more complicated than a simple "click here". First and foremost, the contract must be signed with blood.
In Canada you can't be held to a contract unless your of legal age. Since the majority of the target audience of console games is under 20 most of the people agreeing to the EULAs can't be held accountable, at least in Canada.
Hopefully as a result of that the Sony EULA, you agree to by just taking your PS3 out of the box and starting it up, will be tried by a court. Maybe there's a couple of judges out that will agree EULAs are unreasonable for people to be able to read and just clicking an OK button isn't sufficient indication someone read or understood it. EULA should be something that an average member of the target audience can read and understand. Since according to all the statistics I've read about a large population of kids coming out of high school can't read, there would be no more EULAs
Sorry the pot I'm smelling from the school next to my house must be giving me crazy ideas.
Ha, joke's on them! I sold my soul on eBay YEARS ago, twice!
Adidas To Bring Back Sneakernet
I suggest you sue and claim the full value of your soul. Current consensus is that's about £5
--- Yx3 = Delilah ---
And there is no such thing as an "unconscionable contract" when it comes to souls?
In fables, a lot of soul acquisition turns on trickery.
This would be a pretty major supernatural event.
The store owner could die and find he has major stroke in the afterworld.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Remember Alf? He's back. In pog form.
1. Be no more than 800 words (2 pages or so)
2. Contain no latin or other legal terms that the average High School Graduate does not understand.
If the contract is longer or uses other words, than non-lawyers can NOT be expected to understand them anymore than I could be expected to understand a page in French.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
I'm really surprised that 12% actually read the TOS enough to opt out of the soul ownership clause. I would have expected a much lower number.
Is buying a Harley Davidson as your first motorcycle since you were 16 at age 49 a midlife crisis issue?
If the clause was on the terms and conditions, where was this "opt-out box"? Maybe it was just a checkbox (as in "send me the newsletter"), not an actual terms and conditions clause?
How would one tax such a transaction? Are some souls worth more than others, and how would that be determined? Weight or Volume?
They can pry it from my cold dead . . oh . . wait . . nevermind.
"was added as part of an attempt to highlight how few customers read the terms and conditions of an online sale."
Interesting. To me it looks like an example of how retailers drown customers in excessive terms and conditions, leaving the retailer free to make unreasonable demands in bad faith if they so choose. I realise that GameStation were illustrating (in a humourous way, it was funny and good-natured) something that's worth knowing - that you are agreeing to whatever that says (in principle, subject to whether a court upholds the contract, you then have to abide by it). But really, if I want to buy a game in a bricks and mortar shop I just buy it, I don't have to wade through pages of T&Cs on my own time. That happens when I open the box ;-)
GameStation have moved their T&C page so that you don't even have to look at them during the order process, so it's not really surprising if people are treating their online shop like ... a shop.
I actually think it's pretty cool that they rewarded the people who paid attention. Granted, I never read those things because what is the likelihood I'll ever run afoul of it, but the fact that they rewarded somebody for simply reading the agreement and opting out is cool.
I make games, and while I don't go as far as claiming customers' souls, I do say that they and their descendants will be my slaves for 1000 years. if you don't believe me, download a demo from EnterTheStory.com
A contract is not legal if it is in contradiction with the law.
But seriously, I don't know why having "fine print" in contracts is even legal. For any "reasonable person" it's obvious that having fine print is an attempt of one party to have the other not to read the print, which is a fraud at best. Seriously, what a honest person would need a fine print for? Conservation of paper?
http://www.gamestation.co.uk/Help/TermsAndConditions/
12% scrolled through the TOS and saw the opt-out checkbox, an uncommon control for this kind of agreement. That is probably what grabbed their attention. If the opt-out had been phrased "you must write a letter to our corporate office," then I would wager it would've been more like 0.12% opting out, simply because they didn't have their attention drawn to that point.
In Canada you can't be held to a contract unless your of legal age. Since the majority of the target audience of console games is under 20 most of the people agreeing to the EULAs can't be held accountable, at least in Canada.
Small quibble, but the age of majority (in terms of contracts, anyway) in Canada is 18.
Doesn't detract from the rest of your thoughtful point though.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
And Shigeru Miyamoto is betting his wiimote of gold in a Wii Sports Resort match.
I purposely never read EULAs. I know this isn't a valid legal theory, but morally I feel a contract is only valid when there is a meeting of the minds (this is "supposed to be" the way contract law works, if I understand correctly). Thus, if I don't read it, it is not possible for me to meet my mind with theirs. If I read a EULA, I might feel a moral compunction to abide by it; but if I skip right to the software, then my actions need only be directed by my pre-existing moral compass.
Yet, because I am interested, I do sometimes read open-source licenses. Of those, I haven't yet found one that I couldn't agree to.
(Let me re-emphasize, because I'm confident that some people will ignore what I said: I know this isn't a valid legal theory. This is simply a matter of structuring my actions to comply with my moral notions.)
Maybe now Idle will get some respect. This may or may not be a "good thing."
So, wouldn't it be an act of fraud to sign a contract, if you know it isn't legally binding? If this is the case, then how is it legal for children to play video games?
And here I thought they were just salesmen.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
...the small print taketh away."
If this is the case, then how is it legal for children to play video games?
The way I understand it, they can play the games, the just can't legally agree to EULAs or ToS. I guess that means the little brats playing WoW or counter strike that are running around calling everyone fags can't be held accountable and have their accounts suspended... Or it means they can have their accounts suspended for no reason other then they can't agree to the ToS or EULA
Are the store owners all Irish, or something?
My issue is that any contract should be presented and explained to me at the point of sale...Not when I've just inserted the shiny new DVD disc.
It's a Bart sales bonanza, everything must go!
The quote is actually "Everything about me must go!
... and then they built the supercollider.
So, they stole a standard Microsoft EULA?
http://www.zebpalmer.com
... sold his soul to the devil for his rugged good looks and unmatched martial arts abilities. Soon after he round-housed the devil and took his soul back. BAM!
Bid deal. Microsoft has had that clause in it's TOS for over a decade.
...but I wanted the game store to own my soul.
> One says you can't make a contract with a minor, the other says the minor may rescind or void the contract.
IANAL, but I once sat in on a contract law class that covered this part of US law. I believe that this descends from common law, so the UK should be mostly the same, but I'm not sure. The legal thing is that there's a difference between "voidable" and "void" contracts. Contracts (except those for "essentials" like renting a house) are "voidable." This means that they're not yet void, but if the minor wants to, they can void them. So they're not yet void, but they could be if the minor wants out of it. The exception about "essentials" exists so that emancipated minors can still get people to do business with them. Otherwise, they could use their minor status to escape from paying rent and whatnot and then nobody would do business with them, making it impossible for them to live on their own.
That said, remember that even illegal contracts can be both made and performed, e.g. someone can contract another person for assassination. But, for obvious reasons, the courts won't enforce an illegal contract. So you can always draw up and sign a contract. You can always choose to perform according to your obligations under the contract. But you can't always get a court to enforce the contract.
Even if we set aside all the other legal considerations, this contract is clearly unenforceable. Exactly how would any court force someone to hand over their soul? And even if they were willing to attempt that, how would they know that ownership of the soul had been transferred?
The standard legal assumption is the same as when a child buys a candy bar at the corner store (yes that is also a legal contract - albeit a purely verbal one): that the child has the permission of his/her legal guardian and said legal guardian would cosign any physical contract.
This provides however a powerful challenge to unfair contracts/dealings/rip-offs practiced on kids as any parent who challenges by merely so doing automatically voids the contract (clearly the permission wasn't there). This would normally only apply to such verbal contracts as a physical one would contain both signatures.
Generally if a parent comes and complains the store will immediately just accede the matter as they know full well they WILL lose in court (usually small-claims) and be ordered to pay costs.
I daresay it makes video game EULA's agreed to by minors utterly unenforceable however, when there isn't even ONE signature there certainly isn't two. When most ADULTS can read it, there is no way a child could have [including any instruction that his/her parents should read it as well].
It's standard practise for example with phone-in children's shows to state clearly that children should ask permission before calling - because failing to do so could make the show liable to significant criminal and civil penalties (at the very least - paying the phonebill).
EULA's are on shaky legal ground as it is and court cases have repeatedly found them invalid (and yes UK courts ARE allowed to use US court decisions as precedent unless a clear distinction in the written law exists - for contract law, it really doesn't) - where signed by minors they have about the same legal enforceability as the Godfather's offer-he-couldn't-refuse (and slightly less moral enforceability).
All that said: IANAL - but I do come from a family of lawyers - this sort of thing was dinner-table conversation my whole life.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
Assumptions were made by the researchers that the decision to opt-out is based on not wanting to sell their soul. What if you don't have a soul; I don't believe in the concept of a soul. Therefore they can say the bogeyman's coming to get me if I sign, and I don't care, because there's no bogeyman! This is a huge logical flaw in their research.
Also: didn't we know no one reads that crap anyway? We needed to research this!?
Thanks for clarifying. I knew that no court in the US would agree with my original comment, but wondered if there was any reason other than "c'mon, That's ridiculous!" that would explain why.