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There’s a major conundrum here. If the courts let Disney be called guilty it renders all fine print not legally binding. This changes society itself. Disney

There’s a major conundrum here. If the courts let Disney be called guilty it renders all fine print not legally binding. This changes society itself. Disney is technically right. Being technically right is well defined. At the same time here the technicality they are using here sounds completely absurd. How do we maintain technical integrity of the law while taking into account exceptional cases such as this?

makeitdouble 2y ago
It would mean fine prints need to be reasonable, and what does "reasonable" mean will be decided by a judge when needed.
- ninetyninenine 2y ago
  Being reasonable is ill defined in itself. People can willy nilly interpret things how they want. This goes both for the writer of fine print and for the reader. There is merit in following wording to the exact meaning and intent. How do I get a user to explicitly agree to something that is unreasonable then? There are times where this is the case, for example sky diving, I need the user to consent that he might die.
  - makeitdouble 2y ago
    A sky diving user consenting to die from unforseen problems or inherent risk of the activity is reasonable. Consenting to die from gross incompetence or straight malice is unreasonable. We need a line between the two, otherwise the common law also becomes meaningless.
    - ninetyninenine 2y ago
      Jumping off a plane is highly unreasonable from my point of view. No one should be jumping off a plane for fun because the risk is too high. This is my POV against yours. Who's POV is correct? One way to resolve this is to use Exact wording to establish this "line between the two" you are talking about. But of course therein lies the problem. You can use this "wording" to uncover loopholes. To get rid of the loopholes you can allow "reasoning" to override these loopholes. But then it becomes your POV against mine. Of course my POV is right and you're obviously wrong. Would that be the more correct way to handle things? No.
      - makeitdouble 2y ago
        > One way to resolve this is to use Exact wording to establish this "line between the two" you are talking about. That doesn't touch the core issue: what if your exact wording goes against the law, the constitution or what the justice system is willing to allow ? That's part of what we call "reasonable". It's not just personal judgement, it can include for instance punishment for willingly killing someone, to go an extreme. You can't put in exact word in a contract "However way I die from the moment I jump off the plane until two hours after the I touch the ground, Company X should not be faulted in any way, shape or form". That can't be upheld if the instructor cuts your parachute with a knife during the descent, even if you meant it that way in the contract. It's still an homicide.
        ninetyninenine 2y ago
        No. We are not talking about your newly introduced topic here. What I described can still happen without violation of the law. What Disney is doing is completely within the law. This is a real issue I’m talking about here talked about among law experts. It’s not an issue I’m making up. Right now if you’re getting stabbed to death by a murderer and there’s a police man 3 meters away from you. That cop by law has no obligation to assist you. It is legally valid for him to watch you get stabbed to death and do nothing. This actual event happened a lawsuit was conducted and the cop was not guilty. This is legal because if such obligation were enforced there’s no way to word it without making a cop legally obligated to investigate every single crime. There’s just too many and in order for any police station to function they have to be able to choose cases at their own discretion.
projektfu 2y ago
There are a lot of reasons as to why this use of the fine print is unconscionable. 1. There was no consideration in exchange for signing the document. Disney offered a gift and Piccolo effectively chose to return it at the end. 2. The period over which the contract applies would implicitly apply to the period of availability and use of the services. The following were mentioned in the case: 3. The terms of service were not directly included in the contract 4. The contract was not explicitly signed 5. The terms of use related to the Disney Springs area conflict with and supersede the terms in the Disney+ contract However, I think the fine print has gotten out of hand generally. We need to have basically standard-form contracts for these things and explicit, aware, negotiated signature required for opting out of the standard terms. The problem is the scale. When a thing costs a nominal amount but requires a contract, and the negotiation of the contract is not worth the time or money for either seller or buyer, then it ought to be agreeable to both in the general case and not have any surprises. Reading through terms of service for just about anything these days makes you really wonder what you might be agreeing to. If you sign up for your smart dryer's service, are you losing the right to seek damages in court if your house burns down? The contract is unlikely to be more than a link with a button above it, or a tiny window in which you can scroll through hundreds of lines of text. What if there's an "agree to defend" clause in there and your smart dryer becomes part of a botnet that steals a bunch of money? Many of these uses would be thrown out for being unconscionable, but it just takes one judge to agree.
- ninetyninenine 2y ago
  >There are a lot of reasons as to why this use of the fine print is unconscionable. >However, I think the fine print has gotten out of hand generally. This is completely obvious. The problem I'm addressing here is more complicated. If we allow justified but the vague word of "reasonable" to override exact and written wording what does it say about the law itself? It says that laws and binding contracts are all easily stepped on and completely thrown into the trash by someones opinion of whats reasonable and unreasonable. That is the fundamental problem here. We don't want people to use fine print to enforce things unreasonably. But we also don't want people simply discard written rules just off some opinion of unreasonableness because this opinion could both in itself be absurd and deliberately deceptive. Take for instance that prenupts can be thrown into the trash if the bride signed it under distress. The bride can fake distress and completely invalidate something she signed. It's crazy.

makeitdouble 2y ago

It would mean fine prints need to be reasonable, and what does "reasonable" mean will be decided by a judge when needed.

ninetyninenine 2y ago
Being reasonable is ill defined in itself. People can willy nilly interpret things how they want. This goes both for the writer of fine print and for the reader. There is merit in following wording to the exact meaning and intent. How do I get a user to explicitly agree to something that is unreasonable then? There are times where this is the case, for example sky diving, I need the user to consent that he might die.
- makeitdouble 2y ago
  A sky diving user consenting to die from unforseen problems or inherent risk of the activity is reasonable. Consenting to die from gross incompetence or straight malice is unreasonable. We need a line between the two, otherwise the common law also becomes meaningless.
  - ninetyninenine 2y ago
    Jumping off a plane is highly unreasonable from my point of view. No one should be jumping off a plane for fun because the risk is too high. This is my POV against yours. Who's POV is correct? One way to resolve this is to use Exact wording to establish this "line between the two" you are talking about. But of course therein lies the problem. You can use this "wording" to uncover loopholes. To get rid of the loopholes you can allow "reasoning" to override these loopholes. But then it becomes your POV against mine. Of course my POV is right and you're obviously wrong. Would that be the more correct way to handle things? No.
    - makeitdouble 2y ago
      > One way to resolve this is to use Exact wording to establish this "line between the two" you are talking about. That doesn't touch the core issue: what if your exact wording goes against the law, the constitution or what the justice system is willing to allow ? That's part of what we call "reasonable". It's not just personal judgement, it can include for instance punishment for willingly killing someone, to go an extreme. You can't put in exact word in a contract "However way I die from the moment I jump off the plane until two hours after the I touch the ground, Company X should not be faulted in any way, shape or form". That can't be upheld if the instructor cuts your parachute with a knife during the descent, even if you meant it that way in the contract. It's still an homicide.
      - ninetyninenine 2y ago
        No. We are not talking about your newly introduced topic here. What I described can still happen without violation of the law. What Disney is doing is completely within the law. This is a real issue I’m talking about here talked about among law experts. It’s not an issue I’m making up. Right now if you’re getting stabbed to death by a murderer and there’s a police man 3 meters away from you. That cop by law has no obligation to assist you. It is legally valid for him to watch you get stabbed to death and do nothing. This actual event happened a lawsuit was conducted and the cop was not guilty. This is legal because if such obligation were enforced there’s no way to word it without making a cop legally obligated to investigate every single crime. There’s just too many and in order for any police station to function they have to be able to choose cases at their own discretion.

projektfu 2y ago

There are a lot of reasons as to why this use of the fine print is unconscionable. 1. There was no consideration in exchange for signing the document. Disney offered a gift and Piccolo effectively chose to return it at the end. 2. The period over which the contract applies would implicitly apply to the period of availability and use of the services. The following were mentioned in the case: 3. The terms of service were not directly included in the contract 4. The contract was not explicitly signed 5. The terms of use related to the Disney Springs area conflict with and supersede the terms in the Disney+ contract However, I think the fine print has gotten out of hand generally. We need to have basically standard-form contracts for these things and explicit, aware, negotiated signature required for opting out of the standard terms. The problem is the scale. When a thing costs a nominal amount but requires a contract, and the negotiation of the contract is not worth the time or money for either seller or buyer, then it ought to be agreeable to both in the general case and not have any surprises. Reading through terms of service for just about anything these days makes you really wonder what you might be agreeing to. If you sign up for your smart dryer's service, are you losing the right to seek damages in court if your house burns down? The contract is unlikely to be more than a link with a button above it, or a tiny window in which you can scroll through hundreds of lines of text. What if there's an "agree to defend" clause in there and your smart dryer becomes part of a botnet that steals a bunch of money? Many of these uses would be thrown out for being unconscionable, but it just takes one judge to agree.

ninetyninenine 2y ago
>There are a lot of reasons as to why this use of the fine print is unconscionable. >However, I think the fine print has gotten out of hand generally. This is completely obvious. The problem I'm addressing here is more complicated. If we allow justified but the vague word of "reasonable" to override exact and written wording what does it say about the law itself? It says that laws and binding contracts are all easily stepped on and completely thrown into the trash by someones opinion of whats reasonable and unreasonable. That is the fundamental problem here. We don't want people to use fine print to enforce things unreasonably. But we also don't want people simply discard written rules just off some opinion of unreasonableness because this opinion could both in itself be absurd and deliberately deceptive. Take for instance that prenupts can be thrown into the trash if the bride signed it under distress. The bride can fake distress and completely invalidate something she signed. It's crazy.