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.
This is suuuuuuuper common, most software makes you agree to some sort of arbitration clause. It doesn’t mean that you can’t sue them, it’s just an obstacle to deter you.
I wonder why Roku make you sign this agreement out of the blue. I think they’re about to drop either an acquisition announcement, or news they were hacked.
I of course signed it like an idiot. I hate this cyberpunk present.
Was it your or you’re 8 year old who was just trying to watch some cartoons? 🤔
You are right there is something coming though
My money is on a data breech - happens all the damn time.
Man if a hacker wants to break into my Roku to watch my streams I don’t really mind. Would be kinda cool to see what their preferences are on what they watch. Just don’t use my profile, that’s an act of war.
Data breach doesn’t mean hackers know what you watch, it means hackers know your name, address, and payment info
Here in Brazil, EULAs can only deal with the way service is provided and can’t limit user rights in any way. Even if the contract has these types of clauses, it’s considered void by default.
These types of things never fly here.
The same is mostly true in the US. The companies use them to scare people into settlements. But it does depend on the state.
Binding arbitration is not only a thing, but has been upheld by the courts as enforceable.
It depends on your state. The verbiage that works on one state doesn’t necessarily work in another.
Never allow internet access to unrooted devices. My TVs are airgapped.
Ah yes, airgap the streaming device.
It can still stream video over the hdmi port just fine. This is about containing the rooted malware inside the tv’s firmware from exfiltrating and then self destructing.
I believe it is possible by simply attach a rooted device to the TV with streaming capability, like a computer, or a rooted nvidia shield.
Although I don’t agree with OP that everything needs to be rooted, for example, my phone runs grapheneos without root, I do believe most rooted OS are more usable than proprietary OS like Roku.
Lol sure mine is waterboarded
Waterboarding, Earthed ground, Fire wall, Air Gap, Long ago, the four protections lived together in harmony.
Till new Nvidia power connector started fires
But all that changed with the Fire Stick attached.
I’ve sent mine to a CIA dark site for advanced interrogation.
Isn’t this equivalent to those trucks that have “stay back 300 feet - not responsible for damage” signage, when in reality they are legally responsible if their load isn’t secured?
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.
These EULAs are often just corporate wishlists
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.
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.
it certainly hasn’t been tested in court yet, at least not that I’ve been able to find.
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.
legally responsible if their load isn’t secured?
kek
Pray they don’t alter it further
My muscle memory is to hit power-right-ok to open youtube when I turn the tv on, most of the time without looking at it. The other day, it ended up still sitting on the default menu item after I did that. This must have popped up then. Something that can be dismissed without ever actually seeing it is certainly not enforceable.
The real question is what is Roku doing that might necessitate a jury trial in the first place.
The answer is spying and selling all your data to advertisers. Using ACR they can tell everything passing through that box and display adverts accordingly. Just what you want when watching a DVD.
TV is a TV. Nothing changed at all.
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.
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.
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.
Analysis of how EULAs are reviewed by courts depends primarily on whether the particular EULA is determined to be a contract for the sale of goods, and thus governed by the terms of the UCC, or whether it is a contract for services, and, accordingly, governed by the common law.’ Although it may be of little practical import (because even those contracts governed by the UCC can be modified to waive a consumer’s traditional Article 2 inspection and rejection rights), it is important to understand the framework by which software-and by extension videogames - are analyzed by courts in the United States.
From the document Rated “M” for misleading.
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.
They are unenforceable for more reasons than that. They also can not prove that you agreed to it, only that someone did.
Also, they can’t change the terms of your previous purchase after the fact. They can make you agree to something new going forward, but if they make your current device a brick because you don’t agree (which they are doing here), then they need to reimburse you for causing the loss of use of your device that you already purchased and was working under the previous terms.
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.
Surely corporations aren’t being intimidating to take the uneducated for a ride when they dispute it. Surely.
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.
The only argument i have gotten against this is “But what if I get a shitty lawyer? I should be able to pay what I want for the quality of lawyer I desire.”
It doesn’t seem like a strong argument to me but to those who use it as a reply it seems rock solid?
The other route that could work is public civil defenders. It requires the government to properly fund and staff, but having a legal firm sponsored by the state willing and ready to take up cases would mean that the private entities can still get their lawyers but they can’t steam roll over someone that doesn’t make $500k a year.
Of course, there could be corruption issues. I wouldn’t want the lawyer on my case being drinking buds with the lawyer on the opposing side.
This is a good compromise but frankly I think all lawyers should be government employees assigned by the court with 3rd party independent oversight.
Its not perfect but it is better than ‘if you are rich you will likely win or just drive your opposition into poverty’.
Can’t you request a new lawyer if you feel yours isn’t representing you well? Or appeal based on that?
t’s so the company can financially punish you even if you are in the right.
This doesn’t make sense to me. If it’s unenforceable, what happens if you just ignore any demands from the suing company?
Welcome to the US system of justice it’s shitty all over and built for the rich to tap dance around.
That’s why I advocate heavily for the environmental and economic benefits of consuming the wealthy.
Makes me wonder what eating a cow that has eaten delicacies its whole life would taste like
Chewy and bitter especially close to the skin, and gamey depending on diet. The more meat, the more gamey. I wonder what vegetarians taste like.
If a company takes you to court, you can’t just decide to ignore them. Either you/your representative turns up on the designated court dates and presents a case, or you’ll most likely lose by default.
If it was possible to make a court case go away just by ignoring it then everyone would just do that.
If an EULA is not a binding contract, what standing do they have to bring forth a case?
An EULA is nominally a binding contract, in the sense that it is presented as such. No court has ever ruled and given precedent to the effect that EULAs are universally non-binding (because companies have always settled out of court for cases where it looks like they’re going to lose).
It is well understood that the arguments against EULAs being binding are solid ones, and that the reason why so many cases settle is because companies are not confident of winning cases on the strength of EULA terms, but you still need to go through the rigmarole of attending court and presenting your defence case. That’s how court cases work.
Edit: And perhaps more to the point of the OP, if you want to sue a company over some defect or service failure, it’ll be them who introduce the EULA as a defence, and it’ll be for you/your lawyers to argue against it. Which adds complexity and time to what might otherwise have been a straightforward claim, even if you win.
You get sanctioned and maybe even thrown in jail.
You HAVE to participate and pray that the judge in the case is willing to listen to you arguments for dismissal. If you don’t do that much a judge is free to issue punishments for not participating. Sanctioning can be as bad as fines but could further be things like “Ok, you’ve failed to participate so we are going to assume you are guilty” (Which, btw, is what happened to Alex Jones. He did not participate in discovery in any of his cases and so got a default judgements in multiple cases).
If the judge decides that there is any sort of merit (and the standard for that is really low. Cases almost never get dismissed) you enter the most expensive part of trial, pretrial and discovery. This is where both sides get to see each others documents on the case and lawyers spend countless hours filing pretrial motions with the court. This is something that can literally last years and even decades, especially in civil matters which take a back seat on the docket to criminal cases. Generally speaking, this is why people and companies tend to settle. It’s a cost saving measure because making you way all the way to trial can easily dwarf the cost of settlement.
This also, btw, is why patent trolls are so effective. They’ll often ask for an amount low enough that most companies will just pay the fees yet high enough to keep them in business. Even if the patents themselves are potentially invalid.
Yes, it doesn’t make sense. In fact, a big issue is that we don’t have any sort of public civil defenders (we absolutely should). So for most individuals lawyers are prohibitively expensive. You basically have to either be rich, be lucky enough to have a case that aligns with a charitable legal organization’s goals, or luck out on a legal firm deciding to take your case pro bono for their own reasons.
So let me get this straight, some rich fuck could sue me because he doesn’t like my haircut and if I don’t pony up cash to get a lawyer the judge will just assume the rich fuck is right?
Burn every inch of this corrupt as fuck system down.
You don’t have to get a lawyer, but you do have to respond to the lawsuit. That is, participation is not optional.
Now, there is protection from the “bad haircut” lawsuits. It’s called “Vexatious litigation”. If someone sues you for a bad haircut, and they’ve sued others for it as well, you can ultimately seek sanctions (including covering your legal fees) against them and their lawyers. That’s why you don’t generally see bad haircut lawsuits.
Further, if the lawsuit is so bad that it’s “bad haircut” level, it’s possible to get sanctions against the lawyer that filed it for wasting the courts time.
But again, participation isn’t optional here. You HAVE to respond to a lawsuit, you can’t just shut your eyes and hope it goes away.
Still seems like a massive waste of time and money that anyone with means can just apply to anyone they feel like.
I mean IANAL but in a rational world there would be a minimum of grievance requirement before being able to file such a lawsuit.
We need tort reform but the average person just doesn’t seem to care until it affects them personally, and doesn’t have the context to understand it.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Its more complicated than that, EULA’s can’t require an illegal act, i.e.: If you don’t kill your cat you can’t use our service.
So they’re not perfectly binding if they don’t follow state and local law.
While true, it would be up to you to prove their EULA is requiring an illegal act and then win that court case. Only then you could go after them for killing your cat. By the time you are done with legalese you are already broke and your cat is dead.
Time for a class action suite.
I hope the suite (sounds like sweet) has snacks because I’m hungry. We’ll be waiting there while the law(suit) is pending.
Noooooooo, you just signed that right away! /s
“My cat stepped on the controller, your honor. I never actually saw or agreed to those terms.”
I thought I linked to my blog post about it, but it just used the image
Roku’s Ultimatum: Surrender Jury Trial Rights or Lose Access to Your TVs
Just an FYI, although they aren’t physical products like this Roku, many apps and digital services have added the very same binding arbitration clauses recently.
The McDonald’s app for one. I ended up deleting the app after it tried to force me into binding arbitration and I didn’t want to go through to opt-out process for marginally cheaper, shitty food, so I just deleted the app altogether and haven’t eaten there since November.
Watch out for it if you drive for doordash or ubereats as well. I opted out of both, although they claimed you couldn’t opt out in an new contract when you didn’t before (a bunch of BS, if the current contract you are about to sign says it supercedes all others, you can’t make the lack of an opt-out on a previous contract hold up).
On-going services might make sense for these shitty enough clauses, but to be strong armed into it for physical product you bought free and clear … Disgusting.
It’s like all these companies are locking themselves down to minimize legal exposure because they know that their services and products are getting more awful or something.
I legit don’t know how binding arbitration can be legal.
Agreeing to terms of actual usage of the product, I understand. Like for a pogo stick, assuming your own risk of injury.
But I don’t know how they can legally just say that suing is impossible.
If you own one of those and you’re a US resident, contact your state attorney general.
Ken paxton? Lulz, he’d probably come after me for saying anything.
Before I even finished reading that comment I thought, “Fuck. Ken Paxton would probably just take it as inspiration to accept money from Roku.”
Congrats to those in other states though. I am envious.
Good advice, depending on state. I think there is something in MD law that says you can’t sign away your legal rights.
I’ve been saying in other threads; if it has an internet connection you don’t own it, you use it with the parent companies permission
Technically according to USA law you don’t own anything, ever. You own the medium, like plastic on CD, but not the data on it. You don’t own the music you own the right to reproduce recording for your own personal and enjoyment. By subscribing they are not selling you the access to service, they are giving your the right to use it for set period of time.
If you don’t have admin, and arguably source code, you don’t own it.
That’s not a great metric. Plenty of devices connect to the Internet without sacrificing user privacy or freedom. It’s not connectivity that ruins the product, it’s where on the Internet that product connects, and if you are allowed to have control over how the product works.
We need to have better literacy about proprietary software, walled gardens, automatic updates, and the consequences to the user experience if you become dependent on these kinds of products.
But I don’t have much faith. Microsoft puts ads on the start menu and inside of Solitaire, and Windows remains solidly the most popular OS. People overwhelmingly let enshittification happen without serious resistance.
