#consumer rights

[reasonsforhope]

"The California state government has passed a landmark law that obligates technology companies to provide parts and manuals for repairing smartphones for seven years after their market release.

Senate Bill 244 passed 65-0 in the Assembly, and 38-0 in the Senate, and made California, the seat of so much of American technological hardware and software, the third state in the union to pass this so-called “right to repair” legislation.

On a more granular level, the bill guarantees consumers’ rights to replacement parts for three years’ time in the case of devices costing between $50 and $99, and seven years in the case of devices costing more than $100, with the bill retroactively affecting devices made and sold in 2021.

Similar laws have been passed in Minnesota and New York, but none with such a long-term period as California.

“Accessible, affordable, widely available repair benefits everyone,” said Kyle Wiens, the CEO of advocacy group iFixit, in a statement. “We’re especially thrilled to see this bill pass in the state where iFixit is headquartered, which also happens to be Big Tech’s backyard. Since Right to Repair can pass here, expect it to be on its way to a backyard near you.” ...

One of the reasons Wiens is cheering this on is because large manufacturers, from John Deere to Apple, have previously lobbied heavily against right-to-repair legislation for two reasons. One, it allows them to corner the repair and maintenance markets, and two, it [allegedly] protects their intellectual property and trade secrets from knock-offs or competition.

However, a byproduct of the difficulty of repairing modern electronics is that most people just throw them away.

...Wien added in the statement that he believes the California bill is a watershed that will cause a landslide of this legislation to come in the near future."

-via Good News Network, October 16, 2023

#united states #us politics #right to repair #planned obsolescence #enshittification #big tech #iphone #sustainability #ewaste #consumer rights #electronics #good news #hope #california #silicon valley

[nea-dot-im]

So Ross Scott has been trying to build a strategy for how to combat the Games as a Service model where games you bought can be unceremoniously stolen from you by shutting down some servers. I feel this is somewhat important, and here's the video shared on Tumblr!

https://www.stopkillinggames.com/

#gaming #video games #ownership #consumer protection #consumer rights #Youtube

[tigerbears]

DO YOU... 1: CARE ABOUT VIDEO GAME PRESERVATION? 2: OWN A COPY OF "THE CREW"?

PLEASE WATCH THIS VIDEO!

You might now that The Crew's servers are going to be shut down in April, but this guy is planning to launch an international campaign to prevent the game's shutdown, thus preventing the shutdown of all video games that rely on a central server.

"Oh, but you can't expect the company to run the servers forever."

Your right, that's not what Ross is arguing for. He's arguing that Ubisoft (and any other company that cant run the servers forever) either patch the game so it can run offline/run servers locally, or release the server software.

Guess how much you can help depends on which country you live in

(For example, if you bought the game in the US your very likely f@#ked. Ross explains the only thing you can do is contact the FTC, but if that doesn't work the only other way to stop this practice is an act of congress because the law is f@#ked and the company can do almost anything as long as the EULA says it. If the EULA says you don't own the game, then legally you don't own the game.)

However, if you live anywhere else (like France, Australia, or the EU) you have a better chance because you have rights.

"But I don't care about The Crew."

This isn't about just The Crew. If this campaign is successful, then it could set a president to save all online only games in the future.

"But I don't own The Crew."

Then reblog this post so someone who does can read it.

#video game preservation #ubisoft #ross scott #accursed farms #fraud #games as a service #legal #youtube #consumer rights #the crew #anti-consumerism #posts from tigerbear's tumblr #Youtube

[sablegear0]

STOPKILLINGGAMES.COM

Ross Scott is on the warpath to keep publishers from killing online-only games and you guys can help!

Folks in Australia, Brazil, Canada, the US, France (especially), the UK, and the EU at large can help the most here. Especially if you purchased a copy of Ubisoft's The Crew. Using a multi-pronged initiative to take Ubisoft to task over killing a flagship game, Ross is hoping to get legislature passed to end the bad habit of publishers killing online games altogether.

Be aware that not all the petitions on the site are active right now, and this initiative will need some patient monitoring. But some of the government petitions (the legally binding kind of petitions, the good ones) signature requirements are really low! Australia only needs 50 sigs and Canada only 500! The UK needs 10k, and if we want to be really ambitious, the EU general petition needs 1 million, but the petition runs for a whole year.

PLEASE pass this along if you even remotely care about video games or consumer rights or media preservation. I'm not some big name blog and I don't have a lot of reach but I have faith in Ross's campaign if it gets the attention it deserves.

#sable talks about games #stop killing games #accursed farms #media preservation #gaming history #consumer rights #ubisoft #the crew #Youtube

[strixludica]

#stopkillinggames #dead games #the crew #ubisoft #consumer rights #game preservation #petition #collective action #france #gaming

[indiesellersguild]

Our Statement to the US Federal Trade Commission

Below the embedded link, you will find the preamble from the article in question and a small excerpt from the statement itself.

You are encouraged to go here and share your own comment with the FTC regarding restrictions on unfair and deceptive fees. The deadline to do so is January 8th.

To everyone who joined our discussion on the FTC’s proposed “Junk Fee” rule, thank you! We drafted a statement summarizing the experiences of our members, and submitted it to the FTC this morning. Continue scrolling to read it. We also encourage each and every one of our members to submit your own comment. The FTC would appreciate comments with specific examples on how unfair or deceptive fees affect specific types of creative businesses. Deadline for public comments is next Monday – January 8th, 2024.

#Etsy #Amazon #junk fees #etsy fees #Shipping fees #consumer rights #workers rights #Scams #FTC

[randomisedgaming]

Randomised Gaming takes an in depth look at the many problems, issues and errors, Xbox 360, One & Series S/X users can face when buying Xbox 360 games. This is a must watch as our editor looks at the mounting number of issues Xbox 360 owners can face, is it time Microsoft rethink the shutting down of the store? On the 29th of July not only will key free patch DLC no longer be available, but as it stands some content downloads are disappearing from users download list while others refuse to download or work at all. Not to mention the fact games are being delisted from the store even before the shutdown.

We are raising a number of consumer issues in this video to help raise awareness of the issue and that this in turn help people become aware of the problems and start asking Microsoft some tough questions. Many of these issues need to be fixed.

Follow Randomised Gaming on Tumblr, YouTube, Twitch & Twitter for video gaming & video content! Buy us a tea on Ko-fi

#Xbox 360 #Xbox 360 store #delisting #consumer rights #Xbox One #Xbox Series #Microsoft #won't download #de Blob 2 #Red Alert 3 #Red Alert 3 DLC #Youtube

[thegothgainer]

Hey, I don't have a big following, but I am really passionate about media preservation and ask for people to reblog this to spread this info around.

This may be our chance to help fight against companies killing off games.

I highly recommend watching the video, but the short of it is, Ubisoft is going to be shutting down The Crew soon, which was purchased with a perpetual license rather than a subscription license.

Currently, Ross is looking for lawyers and people who have purchased the game. The plan seems to be to find what is needed to start a class-action lawsuit against Ubisoft for destroying the game after the game had been purchased under a perpetual agreement.

If you're like me and are tired of game developers' hard work being destroyed by their publishers, then this may be the best hope we have. It should be more expensive to kill a game than it is to take the few extra steps to make sure it's still playable after its end of life. At the very least, companies like Ubisoft should be up front with their customers and make the game a subscription service. Not ideal, but it would at least be better than having the thing you, the consumer, have purchased and then destroyed without warning by the company who sold it to you. This applies to more games than just The Crew, and the hope is that it will set a precedent in the games industry.

Please reblog to spread the word around. I don't know any lawyers, but someone who follows someone who follows someone who follows me might. And if you are a lawyer who you think can assist, contact Ross Scott at

[email protected]

And if you have purchased The Crew for money, contact him at

[email protected]

#law #lawyer #video game #media #preservation #media preservation #consumer rights #video game preservation #dead game news #Ubisoft #The Crew #Destiny #Youtube

[softservewidow]

the emmy winning delta work in: very delta (2022)

#delta work #very delta #RuPaul's Drag Race #icon #gay icon #consumer rights #drag #fighting for gay rights #shit girl please

[majormisunderstanding]

From the Westralian Worker, 28th September 1917.

#worker rights #consumer rights #anti capitalist #capitalism #inequity #cartoon art #1910s #australia #labor #profit #monopoly #protest #protest art

[nando161mando]

End User License Agreements are not consent. Burying how you are going to fuck someone over in pages and pages of hard to read legalese that you damn well know the person will not read and might not even be able to understand is a scummy practice we should abolish.

#end user license agreements #consent #law #consumer law #legal #humanrights #workers rights #worker rights #consumerism #consumers #consumer rights #ausgov #politas #auspol #tasgov #taspol #australia #fuck neoliberals #neoliberal capitalism #anthony albanese #albanese government #venture capital #capitalism #anti capitalist #washington capitals #capitalist hell #capitalist dystopia #capitalist bullshit #eat the rich #eat the fucking rich

[tigerbears]

You may have seen a post about this a month or two ago, but if your new I have a question.

Do you care about video preservation?

WATCH THIS VIDEO PLEASE!

Basically, this dude (Ross) is launching a campaign to try and shut down the destruction of always online games by targeting the shutdown of "The Crew".

I think the video explains it well enough, but most of it is to direct you to this website that shows you what to do.

Decisions are limited depending where you live/if you own The Crew, but the least you can do is spread the word to people who do own The Crew.

Now I'm going to copy and paste the expected counter arguments from my last post.

"Oh, but you can't expect the company to run the servers forever."

Your right, that's not what Ross is arguing for. He's arguing that Ubisoft (and any other company that cant run the servers forever) either patch the game so it can run offline/run servers locally, or release the server software.

"But I don't care about The Crew."

This isn't about just The Crew. If this campaign is successful, then it could set a president to save all online only games in the future.

"But I don't own The Crew."

Then reblog this post so someone who does can read it.

#video game preservation #ubisoft #ross scott #accursed farms #fraud #games as a service #legal #youtube #consumer rights #the crew #anti-consumerism #posts from tigerbear's tumblr #Youtube

[fireheartwraith]

I just want you guys to know that brazilians decided to sue Netflix

Well, we complained about Netflix to the consumer rights organization, who will now investigate Netflix's new one account per household policy. If they find that it (or the methods with which Netflix is enforcing it) go against brazilian law, netflix will have to go back on it and pay a fine. Yay!

#netflix #anti netflix #piracy #brazil #consumer rights #procon

[sablegear0]

For people with an interest in media preservation, I recommend you give a follow to Ross Scott of Accursed Farms. He's extremely passionate about preserving old games and his most recent video is a call to action/for advice on potentially taking Ubisoft to court over their plans to shut down The Crew (2014) at the end of March of this year (2024).

Anyone who has purchased and played The Crew, OR with a background in consumer rights, especially in the USA and EU, consider contacting him via the emails in this video. Ross is sending out feelers for the best way to take Ubisoft to task over this. The scale and details of The Crew make it an ideal case to hold up as a point against the current trend of killing games that have not explicitly been sold as a service/subscription, and "games as a service" as a whole.

I unfortunately do not fit into either of these categories but I suspect with a little more reach we can get this to people who do, and might know some way to help.

#sable talks about games #the crew #games as a service #media preservation #dead games #accursed farms #consumer law #consumer rights #legal side of tumblr you know what to do #i know i have some media preservation moots out there so please boost if you're inclined #this has nothing to do with me personally btw i just want to help ross's reach bc i really respect the guy #Youtube

[consumercomplaintsonline]

False and Misleading Advertisements in India

What is a false or misleading advertisement?

False advertisement is untrue misleading information given to Consumers to get Consumers to buy something, or to come to visit their store.

What is an example of a false or misleading representation?

Courts have found false and misleading representations in these cases - a: manufacturer sold socks, which were not pure cotton, labeled as pure cotton.

Why do they mislead people?

* To convince people to buy their product.

* Get rid of defective products without any hassles.

* Take advantage of customers’ lack of knowledge and trust.  

What is the solution to Misleading Advertisements?

a. One can report the misleading advertisement to the Advertising Standard Council of India (ASCI). Committed to the cause of self-regulation in the advertisement, ensuring the protection of the interests of consumers. ASCI was formed with the support of all four sectors connected with advertisement

* Advertisers

* Advertising Agencies

* Media    

What are Penalties for Misleading Advertisement?

 The New Act introduces, for the first time, a definition of misleading advertisement. It covers false descriptions and guarantees of a product or service. It also covers information that was deliberately concealed from the consumer. If a misleading advertisement is found to be prejudicial to the interest of consumers, then the Central Authority may impose a penalty of up to INR 1,000,000 (One Lake) on a manufacturer. Separately, the New Act has made it a criminal offense to publish false or misleading advertisements for manufacturers and service providers. If found guilty, they could be sentenced to imprisonment for up to 2 (two) years.

Punishment for false or misleading advertisements on celebrities/ brand ambassadors? The New Act fixes liability on celebrities considering that there have been numerous instances in the recent past where consumers have fallen prey to unfair trade practices under the influence of celebrities acting as brand ambassadors. In such cases, it becomes important for the brand ambassadors to take the onus and exercise due diligence to verify the veracity of the claims made in the advertisement to refute liability claims. If a misleading advertisement is found to be prejudicial to the interest of consumers, then the Central Authority may impose a penalty of up to INR 1,000,000 (One Lakh) on the Celebrities/brand ambassador as well.

If you have problems with an item or service you purchased, you have the right to complain. If they don't help, visit consumer complaints online raise your complaints.

#consumer complaints india #misleading advertisement #advertising #legal #legal advisors #consumer complaints #legal consultation #consumer rights #online consumer complaints #law and legal system

[indiesellersguild]

Today we're sharing another excerpt from our statement to the FTC (US Federal Trade Commission) - about how Etsy's forced Offsite Ad fees can trap independent sellers on the platform.

You can (and should!) submit your own comment here. The deadline to do so is January 8th.

#etsy #capitalism #workers rights #consumer rights #junk fees #small business