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New Sony PSN ToS: Class Action Waiver Included
rwven writes "Yesterday Sony sent an email to PlayStation Network members regarding a change in the Terms of Service for PSN. When agreeing to this new terms of service, you must waive your rights to a class action suit against Sony. I, for one, will not be agreeing to any such thing. You can view section 15 of the new ToS here (PDF)."
Time to go for a class action lawsuit for trying to make us waive our right to a class action lawsuit. Sony can burn in hell.
Onda Technology Institute
It is surprising how a company that used to be regarded as the highest quality whatever-it-was-trying-to-sell can now have the level of respect usually afforded used car salesmen.
Thirty four characters live here.
The law in Denmark is a bit funny on this, which may be why I haven't seen this mail yet.
Basically you can not waiver your law given rights in a contract, if the contract (ToS) contains such demands, it pretty much invalidates the entire contract...
FTFToS:
RIGHT TO OPT OUT OF BINDING ARBITRATION AND CLASS ACTION WAIVER WITHIN 30 DAYS. IF YOU DO NOT WISH TO BE BOUND BY THE BINDING ARBITRATION AND CLASS ACTION WAIVER IN THIS SECTION 15, YOU MUST NOTIFY SNEI IN WRITING WITHIN 30 DAYS OF THE DATE THAT YOU ACCEPT THIS AGREEMENT. YOUR WRITTEN NOTIFICATION MUST BE MAILED TO 6080 CENTER DRIVE, 10 TH FLOOR, LOS ANGELES, CA 90045, ATTN: LEGAL DEPARTMENT/ARBITRATION AND MUST INCLUDE: (1) YOUR NAME, (2) YOUR ADDRESS, (3) YOUR PSN ACCOUNT NUMBER, IF YOU HAVE ONE, AND (4) A CLEAR STATEMENT THAT YOU DO NOT WISH TO RESOLVE DISPUTES WITH ANY SONY ENTITY THROUGH ARBITRATION.
You just have to go through the pain-staking task of writing them via snail mail and don't forget to keep a copy of your tracking receipt.
Ontario, Quebec and Alberta actually have legislation that prevents such a clause, which renders Section 15 invalid. This is mentioned in an article about a BC consumer filing a lawsuit against Telus, see this. I haven't tried to track down the actual legislation that prevents these clauses, but CBC tends to be fairly reliable.
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice.
Okay, sooo... who's up for a mass individual filing of, oh, say, 20,000 lawsuits?
About 12 people.
Of course you can. If you hire enough lawyers almost anything is legal. Notice how no one at Sony has gone to jail for hacking thousands of computers with their rootkit. However, if I just hacked one Sony computer, what do you expect would happen?
The US government plainly does not care about the law, or its citizens. All they care about is pleasing powerful corporations and well connected individuals.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Arbitration provisions are generally enforceable. Unconscionability is a matter of contract law, which varies by state. In New York, to be unenforcable due to unconscionability, the provision must reflect both "procedural" and "substantive" unconscionability at the time it is made. In other words, one party must have used its superior bargaining position to somehow trick or "surprise" the other party into accepting a term which was unexpected or out of the ordinary, and the term itself must be unreasonably oppressive to the party that was tricked or surprised into accepting it. An example of an unreasonably oppressive arbitration provision would be a requirement to use a particular arbitration body that required a $1000 fee for all parties involved in the arbitration, where the customers in question were only complaining of goods worth $500.
I fairly doubt Sony's term would be held unenforceable, at least in NY. They warn you about the new arbitration clause in big red bold underlined text on the first page of the EULA. That would seem to dispense with any "procedural unconscionability" objections. Additionally, if you win the arbitration, Sony covers your legal costs, and Sony even provides in the EULA that if you wind up having to engage in arbitration outside your home county, against your preference, they'll pay the additional costs you incur by having to arbitrate out of state.
This is to say nothing of the provision that actually allows you to OPT OUT of the arbitration provision, making this even more of a non-story. All told, I'd say this will be enforced if anyone ever tests it in the courts.
—Legal.Troll (only allowed to post once per day because Slashdot fucktards mostly have an irrational hatred of the law and lawyers)
It became legal rather recently:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AT%26T_Mobility_v._Concepcion
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