EOC Week3

This case was about a mini game in GTA that could be unlocked by downloading an application. The lawsuit was started by a grandmother who bought the game for his 14 year old grandson and was offended when she saw the sex scene. This scene had been locked by the developers but was later discovered and was made available for others to see. Some people found that offensive and made a law suit on Take-Two (the company that made it).

Take two said that they were not liable because in order for people to see the scene they had to use third party hardware and software.

To avoid spending more on lawyers and other costs, they settled with paying $2.75million dollars. From that amount, they would give from $5 to $35 dollars to anyone who claimed that they were offended by the fact that people were able to unlock and see the sexual scene between the main character and his girlfriend. The five dollars were given to anyone that claimed that they were offended by it even if they had not bought the game. The rest of the money up to 35 was given according to how much proof they had that they were affected. From the 21.5 million people that bout the game, only 2676 of them filed a claim saying that they were offended.

I think that it is ridiculous that they were offended with a sex scene on a game that gives its users to commit many crimes. I think that by buying the 14 year old kid a game that was intended for 17 and older, the lady should have know that the game would have parts that were not suitable for her 14 year old grandson. I think that Take-Two were smart by just settling with giving the refunds that not many people claimed instead of spending more money on taking the case higher.

Blog Comment

After reading RoVegas Design's Blog I commented this:
I also think that sometimes lawyers getting favors from the judge is something that can help us but it could also go against us. It is sometimes helpful but it could also hurt us. Let’s say someone is in jail for something they were falsely accused of. They get a good lawyer to get them out of jail but the plaintiff gets one of those “great lawyers”, the defendant would be sentenced unfairly. Their life could be ruined because our law system was not fair. You can see the “fairness of our law system in the movie Justice For All.

Week two

The case was about a lady who created a fake profile on MySpace to check if a girl was saying things about her daughter. The lady and other people that helped her create the profile about a sixteen year old boy flirted with the girl that was suffering from attention deficit disorder, depression and a weight problem for a few months. On October 15 2006 he sent her a message saying that he didn’t want to be her friend anymore because he had heard that she did not treat her friends well. She also got a message saying that the world would be better without her and saw posts that said many defamatory things about her. “A defamatory statement usually holds a person up to hatred, ridicule, or concept; or cause a person’s esteem, respect or social position to be diminished” Essentials of Business Law, Liuzzo-Bonnice pg 45. The girl was found dead in her bedroom the next day.

The lady that created the profile was being sued for breaking MySpace’s user policy saying that a profile should not be created to cause harm or damage. “The development of technology has introduced a burgeoning array of ethical questions” Essential of business law, Liuzzo-Bonnice pg 19.

The defendant attorney said during the court that it sounded like they were trying the lady for murder instead of breaking the policies. The court said that they could not prosecute the lady because there were no laws that covered that. They were trying to convict her on high charges of cyber bullying but was convicted on three misdemeanors of breaking the policy.

Week one

I think that Lawyers, even though they are sometimes viewed as cheaters, are there to help. They learn the laws to know how to interpret them.
Some lawyers have the reputation for not helping their customers or for cheating over certain cases, but I think that not all of them are like that. They are also humans that make mistakes. I think that lawyers deserve more respect for who they are and for what they do than what they are given. They are very knowledgeable people that have gone through a lot of school to be able to help people understand the law. People sometimes don’t understand how certain things about the law work and can sometimes think that their lawyer did not work hard enough to get them compensated for their case. Sometimes things are more complicated that what they seem.
Lawyers sometimes do things that makes them seem like cheaters but are doing this to help the public. Throughout history, many important cases have been able to win and change the way our country is shaped because the lawyer knew how to convince the judge or the people that the other way was better.
Over all I think that without lawyers, many things would be different because people would not know how to interpret certain laws to defend themselves or their cases.