The legality of suggestions

Kedri

I just wanted to touch on this issue, to be sure. I've seen other companies who almost refuse to accept suggestions from their fans for new product lines or the like because they fear a lawsuit. What is Telltale's stance on the matter? I ask this because of the threads lately asking if Telltale would make this or that game. Is there any chance the ideas shall be implemented?

TelltaleTool

http://www.telltalegames.com/termsofuse

Section 5c in particular.

Kedri

Hm, that'll work. Thanks for the prompt reply, Tabacco.

-=[The_Razgriz_Ace]=-

I personally dont get that idea...this is where lawsuits have become too entrenched in modern society...

Im of the opinion that, if you dont want your ideas or suggestions heard to the extent that you will file a lawsuit then you probably shouldnt be spouting them off in the first place...I would much prefer telltale to maybe take my suggestions on board, because I cannot make a game of the quality of Sam & Max, and so to maybe see my suggestion implemented in the game would be very cool...not that many of my suggestions would get implemented, if any, but it is good to know they are listening...

And realistically, how can you improve a product if you dont take feedback from the people who use it everyday?

taumel

I wonder if it needs a hand or just a thumb to count the number of persons who read through that before they attended the forum and i'm not even counting the ones who understood what they've read.

TelltaleTool

You actually agree to it when you register, by the way. There's a check box and everything.

taumel

Douglas Adams was so right...

Kedri

tabacco wrote: »

You actually agree to it when you register, by the way. There's a check box and everything.

Actually, I think I may have manuvered around agreeing to that by getting a site account first. I may be wrong, though.

DrakeFox

Clickthrough licenses are a bit of a legal greyzone since apparently judgements are starting to move towards the opinion that you just click agree, which most do, without reading them, and as such you aren't bound by the agreements. Silly thing to say though. If you sign up for something and click agree then you've agreed. If you haven't bothered to read it, you still read enough that you agreed to something. You can't come afterwards and act all surprised at what you just agreed to.
Usually you just tend to believe you agreed to standard terms, be nice, behave and all that...but honestly, long EULAs and other agreements tend to be a huge pain if you had to read them through and understand them every time you read through them. I usually tend to skim the things, thoroughness depending on how much I trust the one I'm agreeing with to be a fair player and not have any interesting surprises.

Legality and everything taken into consideration. If you go around telling the world+dog about your ideas and not once mentioning you're trying to use it for something of your own, should it come as much of a surprise if someone else bases something on it? Sure it might be nice to ask you if they can, but it still shouldn't surprise you too much. And I believe many will respect that they shouldn't use anything like it if there's a mention that they're still working on it as something they want to do...

then again, what do I know, my knowledge of the intricacies of human interaction is sorely lacking, owing mainly to a healthy fear of people and a computer which I could at least understand and has therefore spent most of my time with since the age of 4

Harald B

As a logician I find sentences of the form "By/in doing X you are agreeing that/to Y." highly suspect. You can interpret such a sentence either in the pseudo-legal contractual sense or merely as a (possibly false) factual statement. The reasons for it to be worthless if read in the latter way are obvious enough, but the real problem is that the obligation to interpret it in the former way and be bound by it derives exclusively from that reading itself. Thus, the text uses a question-begging argument to try to convince you it has some sort of binding power, while it is actually has the status of "just a bunch of stuff someone says to you".
It also doesn't matter how many checkboxes you check or what the button says. Again, they are only effective to the extent that you already accept that these words have some kind of binding power over you, with the argument for that being question-begging. There is a vast difference between merely saying "I agree." and actually agreeing (of course such lying would be unethical in real life, but there's nothing unethical or illegal about lying to a computer program).
From a different angle: if clicking "I agree." had any significance, why would there be a need for a statement like "By clicking 'I agree' you are agreeing to Y."? If there is such a need then clicking "I agree." doesn't by itself imply agreeing to anything. But then there is nothing to imply I agree with the sentence "By clicking 'I agree' you are agreeing to Y.", and thus I can click "I agree." without actually agreeing to anything.
I'd say merely clicking something, anything, cannot have legal binding power, especially if you are not communicating with any legal person. If nothing else the mere fact that the company doesn't know for sure that the person using the product is the same person who clicked "I agree." (or even that the agreement wasn't simply hacked past) is testament to the sillyness of these things.

I'd go on but I notice this post is far too long already...:o



By replying to this post (or any part thereof) you are asserting that you agree to the analysis presented therein.

Kedri

The law ever on spins a more complex web. Old forms of contracts are ignored, new contract designs compensate, more complex than before, further inconviniencing the innocent..

Rasher

I think this whole fear of lawsuits is getting silly. You would expect that any thoughts or ideas mentioned on an internet forum is up for grabs.

It's right there for all to see and by putting the idea is such a public place one would think that you relinquish any form of copyright.

There is a big difference between telling someone you know anout this awesome new idea and putting it on a forum with over 1000 members. (I have no idea how many members this forum has).

Maratanos

Dude, the problem is that there is a very good reason to be afraid of lawsuits. They cost a lot of money for the defendant, even when they win. And anyone can waste your time over it.