Gregory's ServerIf you went to a cyberpunk author from the early 80s and said "in 40 years murder will become legal because of a contract provision the Disney corporation attached to a television show" the author would go "yes, yes, of course, exactly that scenario is in my book" and then pause and say "wait but you mean like, for real?"
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40 comments
  Re: Points raised in replies: - It's true the court has means to avoid ruling if the Disney+ arbitration clause applies, by means such as: the arbitration clause on the Disneyworld ticket; ruling arbitration clauses don't apply to wrongful death; ruling Disney the wrong party to sue (another corp owned the restaurant). Regardless, the argument was made and a precedent *could* be set. - No, sending murder to arbitration isn't the same thing as making murder legal. But it gets you halfway there.     @mcc I made the exact same "80s Cyberpunk" comparison about this story to a friend yesterday and it's so damn true. This wasn't the part we wanted! Where's my wardrobe of detachable robot limbs and my job of hacking into megacorps directly with my brain?  @mcc There's a *huge* difference between “some lawyer wrote this” and “this is legal”. Terms of use, license agreements, etc. contain loads of bullshit that isn't actually legally enforceable. Which parts are and aren't valid is interesting to law nerds, but the salient point here isn't whether Disney can get away with murder if they tricked some sucker into saying some magic words. (1/2) Rather, it's that Disney are always ready to send a horde of well-funded lawyers after some poor civilian who lost their spouse due to negligent homicide. If you don't have sufficient resources, no degree of being right can stop them from grinding you down. This is exactly on brand for early 80s Disney. It's just that a lot of people romanticise 80s Disney because, back then, they were naive idiots (a.k.a. children). (2/2)  @nex @mcc The problem is, arbitration clauses are enforceable. Like if this victim sat down to their last dinner and signed a contract saying any problems with dinner would be arbitrated not judged, then this would absolutely 100% be enforceable under US law. It's a bit sketchy saying a streaming contract from years prior applies, but in general, arbitration requirements are 100% enforceable. This shouldn't be true but is.  @mcc "what part of don't create the torment nexus did you babbling buffoons not fucking understand"   Neuromancer was really quite optimistic. They have a thriving space industry and luxury hotels on orbit.  @mcc we're also deeply distressed that the legal defense appears to be that it's the wife's estate, not the husband, who is the plaintiff, and that she wasn't the one who signed up for the now-long-expired free trial and not, for example, that the argument has no merit due to its obvious absurdity @mcc yes, absolutely. we're glad there's a solid argument that this bullshit can't work because of a technicality, but we wish there were a solid argument that it can't work because it's evil supervillain shit. If evil supervillian shit was illegal that would cut into employment opportunities for the law profession.  @ireneista and more specifically, there’s also the shrink wrap argument, which i think is roughly “no reasonable person can be expected to believe that clicking this agreement will lead to waiving rights in the context of this specific service […]” etc @kouhai oh good. yes. we remember the shrink wrap contract law stuff, thank you very much for pointing out the connection. @mcc @ireneista my reaction to this on discord when I saw it was basically “this is pretty standard throw everything at the wall strategies, but it sure would be nice if they didn’t throw Bob and Michelle King plotlines at the wall to see if they stuck” @mcc @ireneista I mean I prefer the good faith (well…) interpretation of “we can’t change strategies halfway through the trial, so we have to start off with all of them and let the court whittle them down for us”, similar to how plaintiffs file against anyone who might even be tangentially related to the suit and then sometimes they go overboard in that and it turns into an episode of The Good Wife (though this one is comically evil enough it might be a The Good Fight episode actually)  @ireneista @demize @mcc The even more evil version of this is in cases where a sick victim is suing, and the lawyers drag out the case until the victim dies.  @mcc For different reasons I half expect to see any of @GreatDismal or @pluralistic or @bruces posting in this thread any minute now. @ErosBlog @mcc @GreatDismal @pluralistic @bruces I like that this post implies (accurately?) that the fediverse is patrolled by roving bands of cyberpunk authors.  |
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