Judge Trips Up Settlement In Hot Coffee Class-Action 74
GamePolitics is reporting that a judge has put another substantial hurdle in the Hot Coffee class-action case. Claiming that individuals involved in the suit could be affected differently by laws in their respective states, Judge Shirley Wohl Kram declared that this case could not be resolved by a single proceeding. "'Accordingly, the court decertifies the settlement class on the grounds that common issues do not predominate over individualized issues,' the judge wrote. The judge's latest decision undermines a settlement agreement reached between lawyers for purchasers of the game who contended they were offended by the hidden scenes, on the one hand, and lawyers for the game's makers, Take-Two Interactive Software and Rockstar Games."
oh that Hot Coffee (Score:5, Funny)
I thought that McDonald's case was resolved years ago.
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Hey! I spilled your LOX & Coffee on my pants, and my penis broke off! I'll sue!
The Judge is an Idiot! (Score:2, Informative)
Re:The Judge is an Idiot! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:The Judge is an Idiot! (You don't get it.) (Score:1, Insightful)
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Yeah, that's a great excuse. "I didn't know what I was doing, those damn lawyers sprung it on me. I was so confused, they just baffled me with one of those legal argument thingies."
Perhaps if it was sprung on him last minute he could extend the hearing and take a minute to think it over, instead of wrapping up quickly to get home in time for his soaps.
Maybe it wasn't a bad decision, but if it was the blame lies squarely on the judge.
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This post is not Insightful. It is flamebait.
See? I can make moderation suggestions without evidence too!
Aside which, I think a judge hearing this case in the first place is making a mistake. People shouldn't have the right to complain about this sort of thing, much less get monetary compensation for damages to their poor civilian psyches.
But hey, while(true) { nanny_government++; }
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A class action suit can be of benefit to the person or corp being sued. Would you rather have one case to win or lose or 30,000 cases in various courts across the country.
The Judge should launch an action... (Score:2)
... against those hot coffee makers. It can cause nasty scalding if you trip up and spill it.
Another hot coffee lawsuit that ended poorly... (Score:3, Funny)
Money for nothing (Score:5, Insightful)
No amount of money can repair my psychological damage at having seen two poorly drawn, scantily clad video game characters going on it, but I'll take 2 million.
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Remember, beating the police up so much that they shit out their bones is something completely natural; the real harm comes from the hidden consensual sex scene. My child will probably start demonically masturbating by... oh... age 13, because of your horrid game. You, Rockstar, owe my child a second chance of not becoming one of those godless heathens. I'll shut up with a few mil.
Re:Money for nothing (Score:4, Insightful)
Well then you shouldn't have researched moding your game to put it in, and you shouldn't have downloaded the mod for the game to allow a removed part.
Personally I'm still waiting on my check for The Elder Scrolls; Oblivion. All I had to do was download the bodies mod from an adult only mod site, installed it and added the needed files, and then dragging the bodies of two female characters I killed which weren't in referance to the storyline of the game at all into sexual poses... and then THERE WAS PORN IN THE GAME!!!!
I also have a case going against photoshop. Seems like EVERY photo I find now days only takes a few hours editing to make both men and women appear naked with the naughty bits pulled from online porn.
Won't someone think of the children!!!
What I want to see... (Score:5, Insightful)
Could the plaintiffs please explain how they could possible wilfully hack and modify their software to show the hidden content widely described in the same forums where the hack was made available, and then become upset that the visual results of the hack were exactly as advertised by the purveyors of the software modification?
Re:What I want to see... (Score:5, Insightful)
Justice is something the legal system has considered but decided to eliminate as too much hassle.
This case should have been finished long before (Score:4, Interesting)
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It wasn't even 'hidden content' it was a hack you applied to the game to change the character models, a third party program take two has no control over, just like the idiots who have a 'nude' skin for world of warcraft.
Its a computer game with a tweaked graphic overlay. you cannot 'accidentally' stumble over nude images, you have to go out of your way to a website, and put effort into HACKING YOUR GAME, which was probably against the ToS anyway.
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Actually it was hidden content, that was the entire problem.
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Re:This case should have been finished long before (Score:5, Informative)
Wouldn't porn be easier? (Score:2)
Seriously, I have a BS in computer science and I couldn't get that patch to work (I only tried for a minute or two before just watching the video) and it seems to be to be considerably easier just to get porn on the internet. I am absolutely perplexed how difficult to get to work, crappy drawings, in a game, at a part of the game that nobody should care about (who the hell ever dated her after the fire anyway?) and a pain in the ass to do to boot should be so traumatizing to require a lawsuit.
I fully unders
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Complaining about it now is the height of hypocrisy, as everyone except the plaintiffs is fully aware.
How do you know they aren't aware of it? Wouldn't an equally rational explation be that they are simply psycopaths who care only about the legal fees they thought they would get as part of the settlement.
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This will go on your permanent record (Score:5, Insightful)
idiot n. - Person who is fine with the ESRB rating of a game that allows fucking hookers in a swaying van, then killing them, then taking the money you just paid them, but files a complaint about hot coffee because of the rating. "Any settlement for the 2,676 complainants doubles as a searing, cherry-red brand of idiocy for life and thus serves us all."
Re:This will go on your permanent record (Score:4, Insightful)
"Well now I bought this game for my grandson thinking it was just about good ol' wholesome gangland killing. And then I find out that the game actually has... sex in it!"
I forget the source, but I'm basically paraphrasing the real complaint of some grandmother I recall reading back when the scandal broke. How we can live in a world where the dramatization of taking human life is considered fine but the dramatization of creating it is considered perverted and dirty is simply beyond my comprehension.
Re:This will go on your permanent record (Score:4, Funny)
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Don't blame the world for Christian narrow-mindedness.
Why did we stop feeding them to the lions again?
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If he is old enough to play M or 18+ rated game, then he is old enough to have sex instead of just watching low res pixelated version of it.
Just Plain Dumb (Score:5, Insightful)
You bought a game. No one forced you to buy it. You hear about a patch that opens up some secret stuff. It would have been pretty hard to not have heard something about the type of content when hunting down the patch. You go ahead and apply the patch so you can see the content. No one forced you to apply the patch. In fact, you had to go out of your way to do so. You are offended. So fucking what! If I pay money and walk into a clearly marked XXX movie theater, should I be able to sue them because I was offended by raunchy sex scenes?
These are people just looking for a free ride.
Re:Just Plain Dumb (Score:5, Funny)
What if they forgot to mention that Ron Jeremy was one of the stars? I think you could have sued for that....
Re:Just Plain Dumb (Score:4, Interesting)
So fucking what! If I pay money and walk into a clearly marked XXX movie theater, should I be able to sue them because I was offended by raunchy sex scenes?
While I think this suit is ridiculous, that's not a very good example. XXX Movie theaters clearly show X rated movies. San Andreas was rated M, not AO.
Further on that topic, and to play Devil's Advocate a little more, I can envision a scenario where a parent allows his/her teen to buy a game because it's rated 'M'. Then their teen goes on the Internet and downloads a patch, without the parent's knowledge or consent, that unlocks some stuff which in effect turns the 'M' rated game into an 'AO'. In this specific case we all feel it's absurd because the game contains pretty graphic material and the 'AO' stuff is sex. It's obvious that many slashdotters (myself included) feel that sex should warrant a milder rating than graphic violence. Yet that's kind of besides the point. The point is that the game was advertised as one thing and certain people were ok with that. At least, they knew what they were paying for. Then their kids or spouse or kids friends etc. go and download some free patch that turns it into something they didn't pay for. Should those people get money in court ? IMO no, but my opinion only really matters to me. This is an interesting case in that I can't think of any similar.
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Then their teen goes on the Internet and downloads a patch, without the parent's knowledge or consent, that unlocks some stuff which in effect turns the 'M' rated game into an 'AO'
But lack of AO content in the original game data files is hardly a barrier to someone creating a patch to trun the game into an AO rated one. Hell there are some games that will even auto-download third party content when you connect to servers for online play (and yes I have seen game maps with porn running in them while doing th
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If someone's teenage son grabbed the patch, I'm sure they've gotten there hands on a whole lot of more interesting stuff. The game patch would be mild by comparison.
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"If I pay money and walk into a clearly marked XXX movie theater, should I be able to sue them because I was offended by raunchy sex scenes?"
Perhaps you should try it. Might be some money to be had. Some people would call you a douchebag at first, but the rest of us would realize that you're just helping to fix the system.
I'm so offended (Score:5, Insightful)
Let me see if I understand the mindset...
I'm offended! I buy a violent video game with sexual themes and references, then I find out there's a crack, which enables sexual content. I then hunt down, download and install the crack which activates scenes I'd never have seen had I not done so. When I'm done enjoying the crack - laughing at it, beating off at it, whatever these people do watching video game porn - I decide there's money to be made by being shocked, so I sue. After all the content was in the game and it wasn't rated correctly. I only had to take several deliberate steps to release it.
Fucking idiots. Since you can't find a law that applies in all cases, I say apply the old biblical reference. If your eye offends you, pluck it out! While you're at it do the same to their legal counsel. No I'm not serious, but surely there are less stupid things to waste court time on.
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It's obvious what needs to happen here. (Score:5, Funny)
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No, you just have to be damned good, but you can hijack one of their tanks, drive around the city annihilating everything in your path, and make your way to the nearest autobody shop so that you can steal another vehicle and get it spraypainted.
Law and enforcement and military personnel ,i>always fall for the old "that can't be the same car, it's a different COLOR" trick.
Plus, you get a tank out of the deal.
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Couldn't you just get the tank spray-painted? I'm sure the cops won't realize that you're cruising around in a 70-tonne death machine, so long as it's painted bright pink ...
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I don't deal with anything *that* hot!
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No, even the few paint-shops that the tank can fit into won't spraypaint it because it's "too hot".
They also won't spraypaint cop cars, or certain other vehicles that are illegal just to drive around.
I've always been confused about the offense (Score:2)
I buy a house. Later I find out there's "Fuck You" written by the builder somewhere in the house. But it's written in tiny letters on the inside of a sewer pipe underneath the house which is encased in a concrete wall.
Nevermind that I specifically requested my house to model Al Capone's.
What a lucky legal system (Score:2)
If they can waste so much time on a case nobody cares about (except Jack Thompson or other, similar loonies), there can certainly be no real, pressing problems that should be solved instead.
Snideness aside, what is that suit about? Where is the wronged party interested in it? The thinkofthechildren crowd? Why did they buy the game in the first place, it's violent, ya know? Oh they didn't buy it? Then STFU, dammit!
End of wasted time (Score:2, Interesting)
can you feel it (Score:1)
Judge Shirley Wohl Kram
i dunno about you guys, but that name makes my internal family incest radar shoot off the charts. come on. laugh.
So if I... (Score:3, Interesting)
... you can find a G-rated MPEG2 of a movie distributed by NetFlix (ignore DRM for now) or some other source, and demonstrate a patch, which when applied to the movie file, inserts an X-Rated scene, you can sue the makers of the original movie, for making that possible?
SWEET!
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Yes, I understand that.
But, technically there is no difference between a patch that inserts one, and a patch that enables one already there: "It was there all along, the right key just had to be used to decrypt it, in this case a BIG XOR with a one time pad."
How do you propose to tell the difference? The relative size of the patch? What if I encode the patch in a new uber-efficient codec? I'm sure that porn lends it self to efficient frequency analysis and compression because of it's, uh, rythmic and repeti
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There's a big difference to the ESRB, they have alot of assinine rules when it comes to ratings. They don't care if it takes a patch/hack to unlock it. If the art assets are there that is grounds to effect the rating of the game. It's pretty stupid I agree. That the assets existed on the disc brings into question the validity of the rating they received, resulting in them having to give it a new rating.
If you want to see for yourself how stupid this content was, at 7:50 here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G [youtube.com]
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If the art assets are there
Sure, and my point is that, as far as technology is concerned "are there" is a murky concept.
What if they "are there" and require decryption?
I suppose that, legally, what matters is whether a "reasonable person" would agree that they already "are there" or not. It probably comes down to can someone "easily" access them, given the right "simple" instructions. But, then we get into an argument of what constitutes "simple": going online and visiting a web site (which actually downloa
Seinfeld (Score:1)
The content is not why they are offended (Score:1)
What gets me (Score:5, Interesting)
The raw absurdity of this case has already been stated many times over, but to restate: people who played a violent, aggressive game took the time and effort to seek out a bad "sex" scene, and are seeking cash to solve their irreparably damages.
But what really gets me is the fact that the 3,000 people, and the theoretical defendants, have to pay legal fees. TFA says that the fees over this case have already gone into the millions! That is money wasted. Literally thrown down the drain. Not wasted like "I want to light cigars with 100 dollar bills," (which is a waste but looks PIMP) but literally millions of dollars have disappeared into an already overly rich system.
They should have just walked in and said "Alright, look - this case is dumb. How about this: We donate half of our theoretical legal fees to Child's Play [childsplaycharity.org], which will help young children who actually need it, and you GTA-players can enjoy our product and, by not taking our money, ensure you continue getting the titles you love so much."
this is really offensive to me. (Score:2)
the hooker killing and the running down pedestrians and the drug dealing didn't bother anyone, but the one sex scene did?
If I were the judge, I would throw this thing out with yesterday's jam.
If you're choosing to consume offensive media, you can't choose part of it to sue against. It's all supposedly offensive. Don't consume it. Return it.
The point is, it was rated M for mature. No one should be suing for this. This is a moot point. I do believe they disclosed sexual content in the ESRB rating.
Analogy (Score:2, Interesting)
While this is completely ludicrous, I think I have an analogy that might make sense in terms of why the case was allowed to proceed.
Let's say you buy a house from a builder, but he leaves behind a bomb inside a bombproof shelter in the basement hidden under the foundation. If the bomb goes off, it won't hurt anyone or damage property. You can only find the bomb if you dig to it and drill through the thick retainer walls. There are warning signs on the outside of the shelter telling not to open it because th
Remember, kids... (Score:2)
...depictions of creating human life are horrible and perverted, but depictions of destroying human life are A-OK!
I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to figure out which socio-religious traditions have brought us to this point.
I want my two dollars! (Score:1)