Apparently Sony is sick of class action lawsuits, so........They're banning us from doing them!

[witheringsanity]

ehhh, chances are that wont hold up in court at all

for those who don't know, this is now completely legal to do. this "anti-class action" thing was passed by the supreme court a few months ago. it is now 100% completely legal for companies to put "you can't class-action us" in their contracts and terms of service. it'll be kind of hard for any court to overturn or ignore this ruling, since it was made by the supreme court.

i hope everyone's ready to get screwed big time, cause trust me it's all going to go downhill very soon. this may not have much of an impact on disputes with sony, but think of all the other companies that it will soon be impossible to sue. (and by impossible, i mean "it will be you vs huge company with millions of dollars".) car companies? food companies? makers of dangerous equipment?

people dont seem to realize how much power this gives corporations. lets say a car company decides to save a ton of money building a car with unsafe parts. the car goes to market, and sells well because of the reduced price they can sell it at. oops, turns out the cars overheat and explode, resulting in several deaths and millions of people stuck with a car they're afraid to drive and can't sell. wanna all gang up and sue the crap out of them?? sorry. you signed a contract when you purchased the car that says you can't file a class-action. unless the government steps in (which they usually won't) you're stuck with having to take on a multinational corporation with million dollar lawyers BY YOUR SELF. good luck

 

[MightyMole]

inb4 someone sues Sony for this being unconstitutional?

Honestly, I already didn't like Sony starting off my experience with them this gen. As a wee lad, I earn the $400 needed (Plus some extra for games and accessories) to buy a PS3. I go into my local electronics store and by an 80gb PS3 for $400. I get home and discover that they removed PS2 compatibility from it. People claim it was so they could drop the price of the PS3, but if this is true, why is it I payed the same price for that as I would have for a BC one? And then they resell people the same games they could have played if they just didn't take out Backwards Compatibility. But that's a rant for another time.

Then PSN gets hacked and is down for a month. This is pretty ridiculous, but I suppose they were a victim, it just showed poor business practice that they continued to lie to their customers instead of leveling with them and acting as their partner to work together to get through a hard situation for the company.

Then they sue Microsoft, which is honestly kind of silly in itself, but then to make matters worse they do this? Hypocritical, much? I really... Really don't like Sony now.

 

[Aeshi]

I can't honestly blame them, what with all the "Pirating Games/Modding consoles with auto-aim/whatever is FREEDOM OF SPEECH[tm]!!!!1!!" crap that's been going on recently.

 

[Findlebob]

The odds are this will get them sued.

 

[Callate]

"Marge, if you're going to get mad everytime I do something stupid, then I guess I just have to stop doing stupid things!"

Not a Sony gamer. Not likely to become one. But if this is legally supportable, it's pretty awful. Say what you will about "bandwagon jumping", most people don't have the disposable income to mount a serious individual legal case against a Goliath like Sony, let alone face the possibility that they might get saddled with Sony's legal fees as well, depending on the ruling.

 

[Apollo45]

Funny how now, if they fuck up, instead of a single lawsuit with thousands of people backing it they'll have thousands of lawsuits with one person each. Now, it might not exactly work that way, but if the shit really hits the fan that's how I'm seeing it go down.

We'll see how long that lasts when something serious actually comes up. I'm positive the courts would rather see a single large case than thousands of smaller ones.

 

[sapphireofthesea]

Oh yes, all the customors are their partners. what with the frothing hate you get from this community for them, and we're supposed to be one of the better forum communities.

Besides, people didnt read very well cause it only says that you cant sue as a group. Now its going to be as an individual case by case thing, which... actually sounds like a better idea to me for both parties involved. You get to potentially win more suing the company solo then splitting up a class action suit, and as sony you can pay less cause the area of damage is targeted specifically to one person.

EDIT: Plus you acutally know the person is having a problem, and what that specific problem is, and you can work towards a satisfying compromise. Most Class Action Suits are just people bandwagoning cause they hear that the money will be distributed to the winners, which in their eyes means free money for bitching.

But as individuals there is a much greater drain on resources. In otherwords it is much easier for sony to simply run you out of money. That is why class action suits are done, well that and the evidence from all members are considered together as oppose to having to dredge up (at high cost) information from each case as it goes through, which isn't as solid cause it is little better the hearsy at that point (unless it is all considered together as a group).
So yea, this manouver is defo a way of saying we have spent out too much loosing theses cases and want a chance to step on you again cause you leveled the playing feild and bully doesn't like it.

This is why I hate all the need to be online to play games, cause you would need to sign up for this to truly run the game where as if it wasn't so, sony would just tag this onto it's internet based services (which seems to be the target).

 

[Xanthious]

This is the crux of it. The Supreme Court has indeed already ruled that this kind of stunt is in fact legal. It's sad that government officials in all branches are really nothing more than the bought and paid for puppets for big business anymore. It's even sadder still that the average supreme court justice is well well past the average retirement age and grossly out of touch with the times.

Where this is a super sweet deal for Sony is this. Lets say they find a way of screwing customers that amounts to putting Sony 50 bucks in the good at the expense of butting their customers 50 in the negative. Well that means if you want recourse you, the individual consumer, have to go after Sony, the multibillion dollar company with an army of lawyers at their beck and call all by your lonesome. Pretty much, you are fucked. Sony is free to screw you over by nickels and dimes til their hearts content and there is fuck all you can do about it. "But they are just trying to protect themselves". . yeah right!

 

[artanis_neravar]

A friend of mine just sent this to me, and while I don't like IGN much...

If this is in fact, true...Rage will ensue.

http://ps3.ign.com/articles/119/1194580p1.html

What the hell, Sony? Why the hell would you do this? Your customers are your "partners", not criminals after your money!

If you read the contract you can send them a letter with in thirty days of agreeing to the contract and you are not binded by that section of the contract. That section only states that if you have a problem with Sony, that you take it up with Sony personally in arbitration, which means an outside source settles the dispute between you and Sony.
Please update you post to include this info.

Is that even legal for them to do?

No, no it's not. But since the EULA and TOS aren't legally binding anyway, they can put whatever they want in it. If anyone ever wants to form a class action suit, them agreeing to this stupid TOS isn't going to stop them.

Actually it is, many companies include these and it is a common practice.

Is that even legal for them to do?

Yes it is

 

[artanis_neravar]

ehhh, chances are that wont hold up in court at all

for those who don't know, this is now completely legal to do. this "anti-class action" thing was passed by the supreme court a few months ago. it is now 100% completely legal for companies to put "you can't class-action us" in their contracts and terms of service. it'll be kind of hard for any court to overturn or ignore this ruling, since it was made by the supreme court.

i hope everyone's ready to get screwed big time, cause trust me it's all going to go downhill very soon. this may not have much of an impact on disputes with sony, but think of all the other companies that it will soon be impossible to sue. (and by impossible, i mean "it will be you vs huge company with millions of dollars".) car companies? food companies? makers of dangerous equipment?

people dont seem to realize how much power this gives corporations. lets say a car company decides to save a ton of money building a car with unsafe parts. the car goes to market, and sells well because of the reduced price they can sell it at. oops, turns out the cars overheat and explode, resulting in several deaths and millions of people stuck with a car they're afraid to drive and can't sell. wanna all gang up and sue the crap out of them?? sorry. you signed a contract when you purchased the car that says you can't file a class-action. unless the government steps in (which they usually won't) you're stuck with having to take on a multinational corporation with million dollar lawyers BY YOUR SELF. good luck

That is an easy case to win, a single engineer can prove that it was the companies fault, this kind of thing happens all the time

 

[Bad Jim]

Do you know how others get around limitations such as these? They form cause groups and support an individual who will help their cause. Basically, only that individual can sue, but there's nothing stopping a team of people funding that person through the court process. Nor is there anything to prevent them from doing that for one person, winning, then funding the next.

I was thinking that. I also figured that if thousands of people just sue individually at about the same time, they won't be able to fight all the cases. That happened when Martin Lewis of MoneySavingExpert.com got a bee in his bonnet about bank charges. He wrote up a handy guide about how to challenge them in court, filling in the forms yourself. Thousands of people did just that. The banks never even showed up in court.

 

[jonyboy13]

Is this big company troll season?
EA's Origin, now this... Next Microsoft gonna own our bank accounts through Windows 8.

 

[spartandude]

yh like this is going to hold up in court, if it did then any company (or any one)could do this and that would really be a blow to the law

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

Don't worry people. Sony can't take away your constitutional rights. The clause is completely in violation of law. Which means the agreement doesn't produce any legal consequences. It doesn't exist. Because they did this, you can do with your Sony products whatever the fuck you want now. Legally there is nothing stopping you because you signed an illegal agreement. I wonder who's in their legal team because this is something you learn in first year of law school. Depending on how big the violation is, the agreement can be completely illegal or just partially. In my country, this would render it completely illegal. I'm not sure about America though.

 

[Wintermoot]

The main reason I'm a pc gamer, although STEAM still restricts you and more and more games have DRM.

but at least no company is saying what you can,t and can do with your purchased software/hardware. (excluding offline play unless you run a modified backup).
OT
coincidentally I was talking with a friend of mine about last years PSN clusterfuck.
I,m pretty sure this is going to harm the PSN brand!

 

[dfphetteplace]

Oh yes, all the customors are their partners. what with the frothing hate you get from this community for them, and we're supposed to be one of the better forum communities.

Besides, people didnt read very well cause it only says that you cant sue as a group. Now its going to be as an individual case by case thing, which... actually sounds like a better idea to me for both parties involved. You get to potentially win more suing the company solo then splitting up a class action suit, and as sony you can pay less cause the area of damage is targeted specifically to one person.

EDIT: Plus you acutally know the person is having a problem, and what that specific problem is, and you can work towards a satisfying compromise. Most Class Action Suits are just people bandwagoning cause they hear that the money will be distributed to the winners, which in their eyes means free money for bitching.

And you obviously don't understand the point of class action lawsuits. An individual could not afford to fight Sony alone. So when people sue corporations, it is with others that have to same problem, so they can all share the cost.

 

[Rednog]

i don't care. i don't plan to sue and never will be. Don't like EULA? Don't buy Sony products, simple.

Not really simple at all, that is easy to say for someone who doesn't own a sony product, but about for those of use who already have a sony product?
If you don't agree, congratulations you can't use your product anymore! Call sony and tell them you don't agree with their EULA and want a refund because you can't use the product now, tough luck you either sign it or you get nothing.
EULAs are bs in the world, once I buy a product I shouldn't have to be under the iron grip of the company who sold it to and have to bend to them constantly changing their EULA.
It reminds me of the case where the guy legally changed his agreement with Microsoft and sent a letter informing them of the change and that they had respond or they legally accepted the changes. Guess what MS and any other company isn't happy to be pushed on like that, so why should this only be a one way street where it is their way or the highway?

 

[emeraldrafael]

Oh yes, all the customors are their partners. what with the frothing hate you get from this community for them, and we're supposed to be one of the better forum communities.

Besides, people didnt read very well cause it only says that you cant sue as a group. Now its going to be as an individual case by case thing, which... actually sounds like a better idea to me for both parties involved. You get to potentially win more suing the company solo then splitting up a class action suit, and as sony you can pay less cause the area of damage is targeted specifically to one person.

EDIT: Plus you acutally know the person is having a problem, and what that specific problem is, and you can work towards a satisfying compromise. Most Class Action Suits are just people bandwagoning cause they hear that the money will be distributed to the winners, which in their eyes means free money for bitching.

And you obviously don't understand the point of class action lawsuits. An individual could not afford to fight Sony alone. So when people sue corporations, it is with others that have to same problem, so they can all share the cost.

Oh I understand, but no ones ever actually won something worth while from a class action lawsuit. A CAL is a groupd of people, and the profit is split evenly among them. lets just look at the sony one. the last time i cared to look at numbers, you were getting a refund of 400 dollars. So you could easily be losing money on a prodcut you bought, and at best getting maybe an about equal return.

Not to mention, youre better off just going alone, cause you stil have to have someone represent your CAL, and if they can be ought off, youre basically fucked and you have to take it.

You can easily go after sony, sue them and make a case. CALs just create an annoyance on the company's ass that pisses them off and keeps them from actually address an issue.

I personally find them pointless, but if you want to go ahead and start one, then by all means be my guest.