Lawsuit Against Ubisoft for Starforce 106
Cyber Akuma writes "Due to Ubisoft's intentional use of the highly controversial copy protection scheme Starforce, despite user protests and purposeful deletion of any forum discussions about the protection, Christopher Spence has filed a 5 Million Dollar lawsuit against the company for use of the crippling DRM in their games. Starforce has been reported to cause system instability, slowdowns, and possible damage to optical drives. As well as questionable business practices when dealing with customers and other companies, which has been reported on Slashdot before."
Out of control lawsuits! (Score:2, Interesting)
It is often a shame IMO when legal action is the only way to take care of issues such as the wonderful rootkits, spyware and drm on music and video game disks.
All I know is this: (Score:0, Interesting)
Anecdotal Evidence (Score:3, Interesting)
Proof? Out-of-specs equipment? (remember the problem one of the linux distros had).
All I know is this: People don't read. (Score:1, Interesting)
It says on the outside of the box, before you buy it that you may have problems with some hardware and why. Ubisoft can't be responsable for people not reading what's in front of them.
Re:do some research (Score:2, Interesting)
I may be wrong about this, but it's what I've seen so far. I haven't downloaded any StarForce protected games so I don't know for sure how the pirated copies work, but the fact that there are pirated copies avaliable says that there is some way to run them without the disc, and without really bad hassles.
Re:Dude..... (Score:2, Interesting)
Always remember, kids: (Score:2, Interesting)
I hope it stops these practices, I've held off from purchasing quite a few games because I'm not sure starforce is trustworthy and I'm VERY sure that I as a legitimate customer do not tolerate being treated like a criminal. Well, actually the criminals get treated much better since the warez versions usually remove such inconveniences completely. "Here's your reward for purchasing our software instead of downloading: A worse user experience! Isn't that great?"
Re:Anecdotal Evidence (Score:3, Interesting)
I was baffled to how this happened (just blamed Windows
Anyway, if so, that will be the last Ubisoft game I buy.
Re:Anecdotal Evidence (Score:3, Interesting)
Had no clue why until the first article on
Re:Lawsuits vs. Accidental or Intentional wrongdoi (Score:3, Interesting)
What most people don't know want to admit is that the hot coffe suite wasn't about someoen spilling coffe, it was about a company serving coffe that was too hot for the cups they served it in. Yes, the coffee was so hot it melted the cups and caused the lids to come off. After recieving many complaints about it at that particular (yes it was only one store serving it this hot too) store, a customer suffered third degree burns on thier crotch and leg areas.
MCdonalds offered a free coffee replacment after being told about it. after seeking treatment, MCdonalds offered some small amount of money. Thats when she decided to sue for medical bills and this store offered a settlement of some low amount that wouldn't even pay for the drugs. The lawsuite was originaly for medical bills but when the jurry found that the store has paid medical claims in the past over the exact same complaints that specificaly claimed the lid to the coffee cup melted off and caused the spill, they decided the company was purposley serving a faulty and dangerous product and riased the punitive damages.
Of course on apeal, the judgment was lowered to a number more closly resembling the original requested amount. It wasn't frivilous by anymeans except maybe the jurry's huge sum of money they awarded to punish MCdonalds.
Now, malpractice.. This is a fun subject for several reasons. I specificaly know a person that suffered from malpractice. He had an operation on his heart to fix a valve when he was little (about 10-13 years of age). The breast plate didn't grow back properly and cause the r ibcage to slip under the one side and protrude inot his heart. The fix was to cut the sternum back on both sides do somethign to the bones and re attach them properly. This is were the malpractice comes in. The doctor who decided to scheldule a vacation the next day after open heart surgury,felt rushed by his plans and instead of cutting both side as they explained the operation or e ven performing the operation as the "plan" called for too some shortcuts. First they only cut one side, second instead of trimming out the exccess material that grew form t he first botch repair, they re wired the ribcage under the breastplate in a position that opened the lungs up a little. Then he rewired the sternum shut at an angle that caused inability to stand up straight. Of course claiming the entire poeration had been done as they initialy claimed it was, the coverup causes the therope to work on standing straight wich caused the wires to break and the ribs to seperate again. Now because it was easier to slop the poeration and keep the vacation plans, i have a 26 year old friend who has wires sticking into his lungs causing breathing problems. Ribs abd sternum plates resting directly on his heart and if he moves too suddenly,he has shooting pain that mimics a heart attack two years after the operation. To make things worse, when the wires broke, and when the ribs fell again, and when the sternuum droped onto the heart, the doctors said that it was normal and he would get used to it in time. To make things even worse, knowing this was going on, the doctors saw that the insurance was starting to run past the amount of time aloted for recovery and sent him back to work as an automechanic were he couldn't use his arms above his chest without lots of pain and got laid off because he couldn't perform his job. (now without insurance at all) It is almost as if they tried to make him broke so he didn't have enough money to get a lawer.
If a lawsuite over that malpractice is firvolous, then I say we need more of them. This isn't a surgeon forgeting to remove all his tools. Although i would consider that malpractice too. I have seen people fired for leaving tools at job sites. This isn't some mild mistake either, it is a surgeon who deliberatly changed the operation so he didn't miss the flight to cancoon.