Slashdot Mirror
Sony Sued Over PSN 'No Suing' Provision
An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from the Examiner:
"In a grand dose of irony today, Sony was sued over a term in the PlayStation Network's End User Agreement that states that users cannot sue Sony. These terms were added in September, after a long string of Sony hacks (the official count is that Sony got broken into 17 times in a space of about 2 months), which included a massive outage of the PlayStation Network itself. The suit that was filed today is a class action suit for all of those who bought a PS3 and signed up for the PSN before the September update to the EULA. The suit also claims that this is a unfair Business practice on Sony's part, and requires users to forgo their rights in order to use the device that they purchased."
"The suit also claims that this is a unfair Business practice on Sony's part, and requires users to forgo their rights in order to use the device that they purchased."
I don't know about the rest (avoiding legal culpability isn't exactly uncommon in EULAs), but this part is untrue. You don't have to use PSN to use a PS3, and you are also free to return the PS3 if you don't like the EULA for its online component.
Anti-Sony stories are one of Slashdot's most common page-view drawing tactics, so I'm always a little suspicious of any stories Slashdot posts. Not to automatically dismiss this one, but lawsuits are filed literally every day for every reason imaginable, and this one is only getting reported because it's "ironic" and it's a well-known company that Slashdotters love to hate. Strangely, Nintendo gets a lot of love even though it has a history of being even more evil than Sony.
No doubt there will be comments about the evils of EULAs following mine (assuming I'm not modbombed into oblivion), but I should mention that EULAs are no different from free software licenses--they are contracts you agree to the terms of in using the software. The majority of U.S. courts have upheld the enforceability of EULAs.
One is not allowed to sign rights away in Canada, from what I heard (from lawyers, although I'm most definitely not one)
Mind, EULAs aren't normally considered binding either.
I can't speak for the rest of the world but here in Australia it is illegal to infer in a contract that a consumers "legislated" rights have been waved, from memory it's $10,000 per infringement.
Too bad, you got screwed... Now, do you plan on buying their products again?
I looked in the PSN agreement last time I updated a couple of days ago and couldn't see it; I live in the UK though. This sounds like it would be totally unlawful here.
Nick
I agree it's an unfair act to strangle customers with new provisions to older purchases. I don't believe I have a working system that could log onto PSN currently to accept those provisions but I'm considering sending an opt-out to Sony's legal department just in case because I have a lot of older digital purchases from the Playstation Network dating from 2006-2009. If a lawsuit does happen over the EULA and it works in the favor of people that are entitled to class action ability (or even the ability to launch a lawsuit on my own), I want to be a part of it.
You can't get a refund for anything on the Playstation Network. Trust me, I tried. After SCEA turned the keys over to SNEA (or whatever abbreviation Sony's using for their digital networking division) and the hacking that bought PSN down for a month, I wrote a letter to Sony explaining that I've lost faith in their digital service and their ability to secure vital financial and personal information and could no longer A) Be their customer B) Agree to their new terms because it's not the service I signed up for in November of 2006 (and it might have never been with the way EULAs are crafted). I can either have to forfeit your ability to log in or accept the new terms.
EULAs have become this living contract that only favors the company and totally, unconditionally screws the customer. Period. Sony is a case example of excessive abuse of EULAs because of their management and business shortcomings and have a total disconnect with their customers.
The Supremes already ruled on this, and unsuprisingly we got a 5-4 ruling that corporations are better than people. Until the conservative stranglehold on the SCOTUS is broken, Americans won't be allowed to sue any company they've entered into a contract with. Now, maybe EULAs don't count for this. But given the court's corporatist bent, I wouldn't count on it.
I totally agree lots of EULAs these days are one sided crap, with terms like, "We can change these terms any way we want and all you can do is suck it up".
I even see that often you can't see the EULA until you buy the product, which seems horribly unfair to be "bound" by it then. I should think that would be found illegal, even.
But once these terms are well known and publicized, what I don't get is, why does ANYBODY else ever buy that product again? Why would any otherwise sane person buy a product which to continue using as intended, you have to give the company you bought it from that much control, and the ability to *change the terms* later on without you being able to to jack except stop using the thing?
If people just woke up and said, "hey, that's idiotic!" and stopped forking over $$ for that particular item of entertainment, the terms would change within days. Nobody *needs* a PS3. It's a luxury item and there are plenty of other ways to scratch a gaming itch without agreeing to such terms.
It seems to me like, I say, "Hey, I'll sell you this sandwich for 5 bucks". You say, "OK". I say, "Wait, there's more. You have to agree to anything I tell you to do ever again". Why in the name of sanity would you say OK to that too?
That is something the courts have been hesitant to rule on but I believe that the US courts have ruled things like First Sale Doctorine, etc, take precedent over any such agreement. (ie: the EULA can't violate the law or otherwise impose a system contrary to the law.) Not being able to sue Sony in the event of Sony violating civil law - ie: denial of access to any system that can give relief - is usurping the courts entirely. This might not go down too well with judges, since if it's allowed, any product could have such a provision. If they allow one company to exempt itself from the legal system, they create a precedent (something judges are VERY loath to do) and case-law which would essentially state that any company could stipulate that a purchaser can't sue.
The civil court system depends heavily on people being able to sue each other. If the civil court system were to allow one party to opt-out, those judges and lawyers dependent on the lawsuits for work would be out of business. I just can't see the judges voluntarily writing themselves pink slips.
Personally, I think there's way too much litigation in the US, but this isn't the right way to reduce it. Especially in Sony's case, when fewer rootkits and more security admins might have been cheaper and have produced better results than hiring lawyers.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
I liked what GameStation did last year :)
GameStation EULA collects 7,500 souls from unsuspecting customers
http://www.geek.com/articles/games/gamestation-eula-collects-7500-souls-from-unsuspecting-customers-20100416
Bottom line: Sony does not care about customers. Since the "Sony/BMG root-kit" fiasco, it was clear to me that the ethics and the consumer friendliness of Sony didn't deserve my business. I've boycotted Sony products since then. I even don't buy blu-ray discs because Sony benefits from the licensing. What else, oh yeah, the lack of security and failure to protect consumer personal information and your credit card data is more proof that they aren't doing the right thing for the customer. Now this. Sony doesn't want to respect your rights, too. Seriously Sony, WTF. In my opinion, I was right to boycott Sony before, and this doesn't change anything.
I don't know what country you live in, but in mine you can't sign away rights. Especially employment rights. This is why HGV drivers *can't* drive for more than X amount of hours no matter what they sign, or why employers can't force you to lose membership of your union if you work for them, or why you're not just given a "Health and Safety Exemption Disclaimer" on your first day at work, etc. It is illegal for a corporation to try to take away the option to use an assigned right. They can say it, they can make you sign every bit of paper in the world, it means nothing in court.
If you have a right, it's unassignable, even if you sign it away. The signing away means nothing in itself because you *can't* forgo a right, which is why a lot of contracts remind you that your "statutory rights" are still applicable. They don't even need to say it, like saying something is "copyright" - they automatically are anyway. If someone sells you something that blows up in your face when you open it, you can still sue them under a million and one laws and rights given to you EVEN IF you agreed to the EULA that said it will maim you when you open it.
Some people, it seems, think that because something looks legal and binding that it somehow is, or that signing that you agreed to it means a court can't just say "No, sorry, doesn't work like that". Otherwise, you would have no rights AT ALL. Just because I sign a contract saying that my employer can whip me if I don't perform well enough at my job (because otherwise they wouldn't let me HAVE the job), doesn't mean it would actually be LEGAL for them to do so or that it's not ILLEGAL to have that clause in there in the first place. And just because a prostitute signs a bit of paper with her pimp that says she has to has sex with him for the next 20 years doesn't mean it's at all binding - the contract in itself is invalid and illegal whether it exists or was signed consensually or not.
That's how the law system works - there are hierarchies of the law and, sensibly, at the top are fundamental rights (and this is why it's STUPID to talk of things like Internet access becoming a "right", even in the modern age). Of course it's a money-spinner, but only if you're stupid and don't understand the law yourself. Even countries have to abide by the laws and rights they agree to - ask the UK about their opinion of the EU Court of Human Rights that overrides just about every "contract"/idea they come up with to screw the public sector, taxpayer, etc. for example.
My own country banned prisoners being able to vote and because it infringed on a fundamental right given to them, it was overruled. You can make all the laws you want, but it doesn't infringe on your rights. It'll be hassle, cost money, maybe cost you vast portions of your life to fight it, but it's still a right.
Sony will almost certainly lose if they don't forfeit early. Some things you just cannot sign away so easily, and some things you *can* sign away but only in certain ways (i.e. a blanket "can not sue" on a consumer product is a bit ridiculous, legally, but might apply if they were to narrow the terms and negotiate a business deal with a corporation, for example). The problem is, because people are just that stupid to think that it was in any way legally binding, the lawyers will be very rich before they do
Thr GPL isn't a EULA. You do not have to agree to any terms to use GPL'd software. The licensing terms are only relevant if you wish to redistribute in a manner that you wouldn't be allowed to under normal copyright law.
All those programs that make you agree to the gpl at installation are wasting time, and may not even understand their own license.
Companies don't get to arbitrarily make laws.
I should say not! There's actually a lot more that goes into making a law. First you have to buy yourself a politician. For some laws you might need to buy several. Then you'll need to write the text for your new law and give it to your politician's staff so they can get it ready for passage. Then you'll need to tell your politician which way to vote-- it might help to pin a note to their shirt and make arrangements for transportation to and from the voting place as politicians are notoriously useless without proper handling.
The benefit to the customers here though, is that Sony will be forced to remove that clause, with additional benefit that other companies will be deterred from doing this.
So even if the console owner gets nothing, they're back in the position they were in before which is what the court should be doing.