Steam Precludes Class Action Lawsuits

Valve announces an updated Steam Subscriber Agreement, becoming the latest company to attempt to avoid potential class action lawsuits by prohibiting them as a term of service. Here is their explanation of this:
We’re also introducing a new dispute resolution process that will benefit you and Valve. Recently, a number of companies have created similar provisions which have generated lots of discussion from customers and communities, and we’ve been following these discussions closely. On Steam, whenever a customer is unhappy with any transaction, our first goal is to resolve things as quickly as possible through the normal customer support process. However in those instances in which we can't resolve a dispute, we've outlined a new required process whereby we agree to use arbitration or small claims court to resolve the dispute. In the arbitration process, Valve will reimburse your costs of the arbitration for claims under a certain amount. Reimbursement by Valve is provided regardless of the arbitrator’s decision, provided that the arbitrator does not determine the claim to be frivolous or the costs unreasonable.

Most significant to the new dispute resolution terms is that customers may now only bring individual claims, not class action claims. We considered this change very carefully. It’s clear to us that in some situations, class actions have real benefits to customers. In far too many cases however, class actions don’t provide any real benefit to users and instead impose unnecessary expense and delay, and are often designed to benefit the class action lawyers who craft and litigate these claims. Class actions like these do not benefit us or our communities. We think this new dispute resolution process is faster and better for you and Valve while avoiding unnecessary costs, and that it will therefore benefit the community as a whole.
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Re: Steam Precludes Class Action Lawsuits
Aug 1, 2012, 12:44
Re: Steam Precludes Class Action Lawsuits Aug 1, 2012, 12:44
Aug 1, 2012, 12:44
 
Mr. Tact wrote on Aug 1, 2012, 11:01:
nin wrote on Aug 1, 2012, 10:33:
You own a license. One that can be revoked at any time.
I do not understand this position. It is a stupid lawyer/corporate position. It has no place in common sense. It's like saying I can't own a book. That at any time the author can take the book back from me. Or are you claiming that owning a digital copy of a game on Steam is fundamentally different than owning a physical DVD with the game on it at my house?

Actually, you paid ONLY for the license.
The game's DVD and packaging were FREE.
The DVD is just a medium to convey the licensed game to you, and it is 100% irrelevant.

The license is commonly a single user permission to use the game.

So long as you have a license, how you get the game or how you store it is irrelevant.
You have a right of access to the program.

It's the difference between buying a product (eg. a music CD, where 'the physical item' is what you're paying for), or buying a license (eg. software, where 'permission to use' is what you are paying for).

This actually gets to some legally contentious ground, as publishers would like to enforce both copyright and license agreement, for stronger control over software - both the data, and the disk it's on. But so long as they are selling only licenses, then they don't have control over the disk.
But soon as they start selling the disk to you, then they can claim copyright if you copy it, but then they also have to pay different tax rates - which they want to avoid.

Some years ago, it wasn't uncommon to call the publisher and get replacement disks.
I suspect that nowadays they don't want to bother...

In any case, steam is a method to convey the software, just like a game DVD purchased from a brick&mortar.
For all intents and purposes, they serve the same purpose, and are the same. Simply a medium.

Albeit steam has built in DRM, which is a separate issue.




But getting to the class action stuff...
I personally dislike class actions.

Because :
If there is a class action lawsuit about X, then you are personally precluded from suing about X.

The theory is that the class action represented you already, and so you can't sue twice.

A) It's insulting and presumptuous for a 3rd party to think that they can speak in my name without my permission.
B) If you were to sue individually, you'd get a lot more in damages. The class action really just blocks you from being able to sue as an individual.

If you happen to know about the class action, you can write a letter asking to be excluded from it. Then you can preserve your right to sue as an individual.
But if you don't know about it, and you go to sue later, you find that your hands are tied.

-scheherazade

This comment was edited on Aug 1, 2012, 12:50.
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