Regarding the "you can't sue us" clauses that are starting to crop up in EULAs...

[kane_magus]

First Sony and now EA as well.

For any lawyer-types who might be reading this... is this actually a thing that they can do? Well, I know that they can do it, because they've already done it, but what I'm really asking here is if this is something that would just be laughed out of court or would it actually be taken seriously? Like, say, if someone were to take EA to court over the clause in the EULA preventing them from taking EA to court, for example. I'm guessing this is a "try it and hope it sticks, and if not, oh well, we're no worse off than we were before" kind of thing.

Comments

[tokoz.livejournal.com]

From what I recall of my law classes (and that's not much anymore), it'd be an "it depends" answer, probably. On one hand, courts don't like contracts that shaft the consumer. On the OTHER hand, you have a right to contract away your ability to sue (if you didn't, out-of-court settlements would never happen).

Hmm... whether or not hte specific clause is bad would depend on how it was presented (font size and weight), its location (blank space around it, whether or not it's buried in the document), actual verbiage, what similar non-digital contracts say/how non-digital contracts that said the same thing were/are treated, and the individual facts of the case (how egregious the error/breach was that caused the suit, how dickish the company/defendant acted, how much the plaintiff lied, etc).

but on the *other* other hand, I could be completely wrong, too.

[kane-magus.livejournal.com]

I wonder how likely the whole "people almost never read EULAs when they play video games, and these companies know that and were pretty much counting on it in order to sneak these things in" factor would play into it, if at all. After all, it's not like Sony or EA were shouting from the rooftops beforehand that they were adding this crap in, and it apparently only came to light due to some people, well, actually taking the time to read the things. And most people, i.e. the ones who don't read gaming blogs/news sites, will still almost assuredly be unaware of it and will just click through it as quickly as possible (which counts as "accepting" it, of course) just to get their PSN or Origin working again, since otherwise they wouldn't be able to use it at all.

(Generally speaking, my personal opinion is that EULAs are, at best, completely useless anyway. Even when they're not being used in a scuzzy way like this. But that's a rant for another time.)

[tokoz.livejournal.com]

The fact that regular consumers never read the fine print does come into account in contract cases, but how much effect it has is variable, iirc.