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Roku’s Ultimatum: Surrender Jury Trial Rights or Lose Access to Your TVs
(programming.dev)
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.
it certainly hasn't been tested in court yet, at least not that I've been able to find. These EULAs are often just corporate wishlists and until they go in front of a judge it's difficult to know what provisions will actually stick. I hope that they don't have the ability to bait and switch EULAs but this is America, some judge somewhere might take it upon himself to protect my freedom to have my TV remotely disabled after I pay for it.
There have been US court cases where arbitration clauses were voided if they weren't prominently visible outside the box before purchase. Dang vs Samsung
"This is the type of shit I be talking about" ---dmx
Iirc wasn't that one on the box of a fridge, but the people who installed it deboxed it first and then Samsung tried to argue that the customer was still bound by a EULA they never knew existed?
That's another one still working through the court.
Then I really wish there were regulations over what kinds of things you're allowed to put in a contract. If there were punitive measures for putting things in contracts that anyone should know is not enforceable, then maybe companies would think twice before putting language like this in.
There are some regulations. A contract can be ruled unconscionable by a court, which is basically saying "no one in their right mind would ever agree to this so we're not gonna enforce it". Contracts have to give both sides duties (things they have to do) and consideration (things they get for performing the duties), so no court will enforce a contract that doesn't materially benefit both sides in some way.
But I agree with you that there should be some sort of blowback to putting together purposely overreaching contracts and then counting on people not knowing their rights or not having the resources to enforce them in order to profit from an illegitimate contract.
Yeah, that second paragraph is more what I was thinking (terrible phrasing on my part). The issue is that fighting these contracts in court is risky - you might lose, and even if you don't, it's a big commitment to fight a legal case against a large company no matter which jurisdiction you're in.
To put it another way, look at it from a game theory perspective - there's plenty of benefit from putting these terms in, and no downside whatsoever. So the optimal move for vendors is to put garbage like this into the contact.
Arbitration is allowed in an EULA and has been sanctioned by courts.
Most agreements are considered enforceable as long as their content is reasonable, you have been granted sufficient notice to accept or decline the agreement, the agreement is not unconscionable, and it doesn't violate the UCC.
The question isn't whether arbitration clauses are legal the question is whether selling someone something and then, after the sale, presenting them with a take it or leave it EULA that disables the product if they dont agree, and also what recourse the consumer has if they don't agree to a post-sale EULA. Brower v Gateway said that post-sale EULAs are binding but only because in that case the consumer had the option to return the product for a refund and didn't. Klocek v Gateway ruled that any terms presented after a sale represent a separate contract beyond the one that was agreed to by both parties at the time of sale. It's possible that either of these would apply to the OP. It's also possible for courts to rule that the sale of the physical TV was a one-time agreement but that this EULA is separate and represents an ongoing agreement to allow access to Roku's services.
Your comment actually circles around the issue at hand when you say that EULAs are enforceable if "...you have been granted sufficient notice to accept or decline...". The thrust of the argument is that adding conditions after the sale of an object that, if not agreed to, render the object inoperable feels an awful lot like not being given sufficient notice and is essentially a backdoor by which the contract can be unilaterally amended after agreement.
I just think that contracts of adhesion (IIRC) should be illegal or unenforceable. Make me wet sign a document or go to a separate docusign at least, this click wrap is crap. Get me to affirmatively agree, not click OK till the install or setup completes. Otherwise I strongly disagree there's actually a meeting of the minds. And if I can't send back my suggested alterations for cross signatures, it's not a valid contract either IMHO.
That said, we've decided to continue to screw people over as we all know.