products-liability
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LGJ: Products LiabilODST
Each week Mark Methenitis contributes Law of the Game on Joystiq ("LGJ"), a column on legal issues as they relate to video games: Something that comes up from time to time in the gaming world is faulty products. Or potentially faulty products. Most recently, it seems to be Halo 3: ODST at the center of the issue (which, for the record, I've had no trouble with thus far), but the issue has touched numerous games, including Guitar Hero III, and consoles. While most people might lump all this together into 'stuff that's broken,' the reality is it touches two legal topics: warranty and products liability. To make the distinction between the two simple, a warranty makes sure you get a working product, and products liability makes the manufacturer liable for damages the product may cause because of defects. Both concepts are ones that arise from state law, and thus the exact provisions do vary among the US states, and of course they vary between countries. But there are once again some general rules that can be applied to the ideas, as well as some complexities that enter specific to the gaming world.
Law of the Game on Joystiq: Let the payment fit the damages
Each week Mark Methenitis contributes Law of the Game on Joystiq, a column on legal issues as they relate to video games: There are a lot of theoretical claims an injured party could make against a game manufacturer, but the one I'd like to focus on is the world of products liability. After all, the crux of most of these claims is "this video game product caused this person to do this act, which resulted in damages." It would certainly be a novel claim, and one that tweaks the traditional definition of products liability, which surprisingly can be applied to video games outright in certain circumstances.The reason I've picked products liability is because if the current laws were expanded to account for the kind of civil liability for game makers that has been talked about, then products liability would be a logical place to put the new causes of action. Not to get ahead of ourselves, it's probably a good time to explain what products liability is: Products liability is the area of the law where parties on the chain of a product, from the retailer to the manufacturer to the manufacturers of sub-assemblies or parts, can be held liable for damages caused by their products. So, if for some reason the video game console you're playing randomly exploded, this would be the theoretical means for recovery.
