Posts Tagged ‘ADA’

Access Denied

While Ubisoft is busy showing us their middle finger these days, it seems that the collector’s edition of Silent Hunter 5 is being shown the door in Germany.  It seems that someone at Ubisoft forgot to account for the German constitution and left in images that violate the same – that’s one heck of an “oops”.  This, of course, comes on the heels of a denial of service attack on those same Ubisoft servers that Assassins Creed 2 customers are required to keep in contact with for every minute that the software is in use.

Meanwhile Gabe Newell, who founded Valve along with Mike Harrington, was busy accepting his Pioneer Award at the Gamers Choice Awards…where he took a few moments to sound out about, amongst other issues, digital rights management.  In an article over at Arstechnicayou can take a look at the picture of Mr. Newell with the screen behind him sporting foot high letters that spell out “DRM is entertainment as dis-service”.  Here is a quote garnered by Ben Kuchera:

“One thing that you hear [Valve] talk a lot about is entertainment as a service, it’s an attitude that says ‘what have I done for my customers today?’” he said. “It informs all the decisions we make, and once you get into that mindset it helps you avoid things like some of the Digital Rights Management problems that actually make your entertainment products worth less by wrapping those negatives around them.” – Gabe Newell, via Arstechnica.com

A bit closer to home, because it is closer to our hearts, is a whole different set of initials: ADA.  It appears that Sony was forced to dip its toe in the waters of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in Stern vs. Sony. If you haven’t read the article about it over at Terra Novayou should (that’s an order from the nuns at No Prisoners, No Mercy).  The article is by “Greglas” and is entitled is Everquest II a place of public accommodation.  In short the answer, at least in California is “no”.  But it appears that the answer is not a final no but more like our mothers “I will think about it” no.  As the article reports, in other states like our home state of Illinois, the ADA is not limited to physical structures.  In Stern vs. Sony, Judge Percy Anderson relied “on past decisions in California courts interpreting the ADA”. Judge Anderson concluded that the ADA did not apply in this case because “SOE games are not physical places or services connected to physical places”.

Mind you no one here is a lawyer, but our own Julie has had to deal with ADA on a professional basis on prior occasions (and was raised by a mother with cerebral palsy).  One operative phrase that might end up being applied, even if the “is cyberspace a public place” hurdle can be passed is reasonable accommodation. Even if courts do eventually find that the ADA applies to Cyberspace as well as physical space will the “reasonable accommodation test” be applied? In other words if it were applied (and we have no idea if it would be) what could Sony be reasonably expected to do to accommodate needs which were the subject of the lawsuit? Interesting changes may be “afoot”.

See you online,

The No Prisoners, No Mercy Team