Sony has a new message for its PlayStation users: If you try and take part in a class action lawsuit against us, you’re in violation of your contract.
The Sony Corporation, already dealing with one class action suit on behalf of the 70 million PlayStation users whose personal information was lost during April’s PSN security breach, has revised its end user agreement for PlayStation users to deny them the chance of participating in any similar class action suits in future.
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The revised agreement now includes the following paragraph:
“Any Dispute Resolution Proceedings, whether in arbitration or court, will be conducted only on an individual basis and not in a class or representative action or as a named or unnamed member in a class, consolidated, representative or private attorney general action.”
There is, perhaps surprisingly, legal precedent for simply disallowing users to participate in class action suits; in April, the Supreme Court ruled that AT&T’s similar user agreement was entirely legal. Whether Sony is hoping that such language will either dissuade future lawsuits or else be ignored by users and serve as a way to dismiss any future class action suits remains to be seen. Perhaps their lawyers are just more excited about the idea of dealing with thousands of lawsuits instead of one big one, because it’ll give them more chances to try out their new courtroom outfits.
[via Hollywood Reporter]
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Graeme McMillan is a reporter at TIME. Find him on Twitter at @Graemem or on Facebook at Facebook/Graeme.McMillan. You can also continue the discussion on TIME’s Facebook page and on Twitter at @TIME.