Roku’s Ultimatum: Surrender Jury Trial Rights or Lose Access to Your TVs
Did your Roku TV decide to strong arm you into giving up your rights or lose your FULLY FUNCTIONING WORKING TV? Because mine did.
It doesn't matter if you only use it as a dumb panel for an Apple TV, Fire stick, or just to play your gaming console. You either agree or get bent.
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Pretty sure EULAs are unenforcable in the US since nobody can reasonably be expected to read every single one of them for every one that they agree to.
I think it's more that you have to purchase the item before you can agree to the EULA. That said, it's extremely rare for anyone to try and challenge them in court, and when they do they pretty much always settle so the court can't actually demand any changes to EULAs.
From the document Rated "M" for misleading.
They are even more so on the US, maybe you were thinking of the European Union? Cause in the US you have no rights if the EULA says so.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ProCD,_Inc._v._Zeidenberg
In USA, they can supersede laws in some cases. Technically they can't but you'd have to prove they do before you can sue the company. If you agreed in EULA that Roku can kill your dog if you stop paying for their service, they are within their right to do so. You'd have to go to court to free yourself from the EULA obligation first before Roku can get any punishment for killing an animal. Incredibly stupid.
Yeah right lmao
So, all these companies are wasting money getting their lawyers to write up (and maintain) these documents that we all have to agree to, but they're totally unenforceable because... they're too wordy?
If you believe that, I have a bridge to sell.
Yup.
Because here's the thing, lawyers are super expensive and these corporations have in house lawyers for handling anyone that wants to sue. They'll happily argue the validity of the EULA because they know just getting through the pretrial phase will cost you tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Corporations have weaponized this fact at every chance they get.
It's the exact same reason why companies in California and other states make employees sign noncompetes, even though they are explicitly unenforceable. It's so the company can financially punish you even if you are in the right.
This is what I like to call "bullying". I don't think anyone should be able to hire private lawyers. All lawyers, no matter how rich you are or if you're a corporation, should be public and randomly assigned dictated by a random number generator and a publicly viewable algorithm IMO.
The US has the right to a fair and speedy trial in its constitution. Current litigation is niether.
Dude this is totally how it works.
You have general counsel, firms on retainer, etc and the cost is amortized over all legal needs... And 99.999% of users will never even THINK about legal action nevermind actually pursue it.
It's the same reason they send C&D letters....an ounce of legal effort (which you likely already have to buy anyway as a corporation) is worth a TON of consumer litigation protection.
The exception to that is class action suits, where 100% of users could be included in the class even if they have no idea it's going on. Especially when the company does too little harm to any one person for it to be worthwhile to sue individually but a fuck-ton of harm in aggregate, this is the only way to hold them accountable.
And that's what these forced arbitration agreements are designed to neuter.
Surely corporations aren't being intimidating to take the uneducated for a ride when they dispute it. Surely.
The companies have the burden to provide them to the user. If they forget something, somebody loopholes them in court, they will lose.
The EULA is more of a rolling document, and something like a "We are legally obligated to provide this, so we better cover our asses in the process." legal doc.