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Your Chance To Take Sony To Court Is Fleeting

Your Chance To Take Sony To Court Is Fleeting

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After the whole GeoHot/PSN security breach fiasco, Sony doesn’t want to find itself in court again anytime soon, and so they are updating the Terms of Service of the PSN to prohibit you from taking Sony to court for any reason. If you have any sort of dispute with Sony, you’ll need to seek arbitration instead. The new passage in the ToS agreement reads as follows:

Other than those matters listed in the Exclusions from Arbitration clause (small claims), you and the Sony Entity that you have a Dispute with agree to seek resolution of the Dispute only through arbitration of that Dispute in accordance with the terms of this Section 15, and not litigate any Dispute in court. Arbitration means that the Dispute will be resolved by a neutral arbitrator instead of in a court by a judge or jury.



Now Sony is probably counting on you not reading through its Terms of Service agreement because of how long it is. Luckily, there is this little passage that you might be interested in:

RIGHT TO OPT OUT OF BINDING ARBITRATION AND CLASS ACTION WAIVER WITHIN 30 DAYS. IF YOU DO NOT WISH TO BE BOUND BY THE BINDING ARBITRATION AND CLASS ACTION WAIVER IN THIS SECTION 15, YOU MUST NOTIFY SNEI IN WRITING WITHIN 30 DAYS OF THE DATE THAT YOU ACCEPT THIS AGREEMENT. YOUR WRITTEN NOTIFICATION MUST BE MAILED TO 6080 CENTER DRIVE, 10TH FLOOR, LOS ANGELES, CA 90045, ATTN: LEGAL DEPARTMENT/ARBITRATION AND MUST INCLUDE: (1) YOUR NAME, (2) YOUR ADDRESS, (3) YOUR PSN ACCOUNT NUMBER, IF YOU HAVE ONE, AND (4) A CLEAR STATEMENT THAT YOU DO NOT WISH TO RESOLVE DISPUTES WITH ANY SONY ENTITY THROUGH ARBITRATION.

Long story short, start mailing those letters in order to retain all of your legal rights to take Sony to court.

By Angelo M. D’Argenio

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