Court Unravels Grand Theft Auto Sex Scene Settlement

from the go-get-some-hot-coffee-and-try-again dept

Fri, Aug 1st 2008 1:57pm — Mike Masnick

We still can't understand how someone who bought a game where the focus of game play includes stealing cars, killing people, prostitution and drugs could possibly be offended to later find out that if you applied a special mod to the software you could also experience some consensual adult sex. Yet, some folks (mainly lawyers and politicians) got all uptight about the so-called "Hot Coffee" mod, and a class action lawsuit quickly followed -- supposedly to help reimburse those poor souls traumatized by the discovery (actively, after applying the mod) that the carjacking game they were playing had consensual sex. And, of course, the lawyers won. They reached a settlement where the lawyers made over a million dollars, and those of you traumatized by the hot coffee mod got $5.

It turns out, though, that not too many people were actually traumatized by this. Very few people have actually bothered to file the forms to join the class... and it all might not matter any way. A federal judge has just realized (it took this long?) that the "class" in the class action suit doesn't actually qualify as a "class." You see, the whole thing was filed under the idea that the Hot Coffee mod violated consumer protection laws... which just so happen to be handled at the state level. So the idea of lumping everyone from across the country into the same class is problematic -- since different state laws cover the issue at hand.

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Filed Under: class action, grand theft auto, hot coffee

21 Comments

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Ron (profile), 1 Aug 2008 @ 2:10pm

Surprise
Some grubby-ass lawyers wanted to make a ton of bread for no real work where no real violation (as in, no one was really harmed) occurred. I presume that since the case was handled in the wrong jurisdiction, that the lawyer's fee award will also be withdrawn since they had no rights there either and maybe were even violating the law by filing a case that had no merit. Nah! Never gonna happen!
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DCX2, 1 Aug 2008 @ 2:29pm

For shame
This is a de-facto case of unnecessary litigation from trial lawyers. To think that some people compare these self-serving jerks to the non-profits suing the government over warrantless surveillance...
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Anonymous Coward, 1 Aug 2008 @ 2:29pm

That lawyer needs to get out of the cloud created by his branded community and do some real, constructive work for once.
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Anonymous Coward, 1 Aug 2008 @ 2:49pm

Sticky Tape Guru
Damn lawyers. Always emerging from those branded communities.
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- Anonymous Coward, 1 Aug 2008 @ 3:00pm
  
  Re: Sticky Tape Guru
  Lawyers laughing all the way to the bank, and game players pay. These guys should be the one's sued.
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- Anonymous Coward, 8 Jan 2009 @ 12:34pm
  
  Re: Sticky Tape Guru
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Angered, 1 Aug 2008 @ 2:59pm

I just thought of something
Suing Take2 for the Hot coffee mod is like suing me for indecently exposing my penis, that I had covered up, but someone ran by and ripped my pants off, exposing it, but still no one else could see it unless they too ran up and pulled my pants off.
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- Anonymous Coward, 1 Aug 2008 @ 3:39pm
  
  Re: I just thought of something
  you'll be hearing from our lawyers shortly
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BillDem, 1 Aug 2008 @ 3:08pm

murder vs sex
I'm an American, and even I don't understand why this country thinks that murder, gore, violence, and crime are better for people to view than sex or even nudity. Barring scientific intervention, every American has to learn to have sex in order to procreate and extend their bloodline. There is no reason any American has to learn how to murder, gore, or commit a crime in order to ensure the survival of our species. Between the two, I'd much rather see a couple having sex than watch somebody's head explode realistically when hit by a shotgun blast. *shrug* It just makes no sense to me.
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Sticky Tape Guru, 1 Aug 2008 @ 3:12pm

Re: Anonymous Coward
Agreed.

Or, alternatively, we could just take away lawyers' licenses to practice whenever they abuse the law like this. You know...a zero-tolerance policy?
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DarkShard, 1 Aug 2008 @ 3:14pm

Lawer Problem
All that needs to be done is to pass a law allowing for lawers to sue other lawers for frivilous lawsuits. Granted these suits would also be frivilous but over time all the lawyers would kill each other off and the risk of frivious lawsuits should be high enough to be an incentive for them not to be filed so commonly.
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Anonymous Coward, 1 Aug 2008 @ 3:18pm

Well, then you'd just get a pair of lawyers suing each other back and forth ad nauseum. And then someone else would join in. And another. Then all the overzealous lawyers would be contributing to a group project to see how many new cases can be raised in a month.

Looks like we're going to need more judges.
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- Darkshard, 1 Aug 2008 @ 3:32pm
  
  lawyers
  That's right, and each time it would cost them time and money. The premise would be that each would have to prove that the previous case was frivilous. Eventually they'd either run out of funds or they'd run out of courts to appeal to. Either way, they'd be busy fighting each other and out of the public's hair.
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Anonymous Coward, 1 Aug 2008 @ 3:32pm

"... lawyers made over a million dollars, and those of you traumatized by the hot coffee mod got $5 ..."

Just makes me sick

I am traumatized by this pattern in society. What a bunch of .....
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BigDogRMF (profile), 1 Aug 2008 @ 3:32pm

Viral Lawyers...
Please be kind to the lawyers. They'll be running for office some day, if they already haven't...
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M-Kwailo, 1 Aug 2008 @ 4:16pm

I tot your mother told you....
that "If it is too good to be ......." Pitty for a bunch of sucka's who filled out the forms. LMAO.
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Darksurf, 1 Aug 2008 @ 4:55pm

Next we'll sue for the gore!
OMG! the game is too bloody and gorey!
The Fu**ing game is rated M ! You should be happy that is was consensual sex! Anything rated M is rated that for a reason you knot head!! You knew what you were getting into, you were warned. Now its time to counter sue!

Sue them on the grounds of accusing the innocent and slander!
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Anonymous Coward, 1 Aug 2008 @ 5:49pm

Hmm
If I recall, the actual legal issue at hand was that the game was presented and rated without anyone being informed about the "hot coffee" sex scenes that were also in the game files.

While I fully agree that getting offended over it when you had to go out of your way to see it is absolutely ridiculous, there was, originally, some twisted real legal issue at hand here. The files should've either been in the game, or not on the DVD at all.

Of course, this extremely small and almost irrelevant point was lost amongst "omg protect the children" rhetoric.
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Lucretious, 2 Aug 2008 @ 6:16am

2 words

Tort Reform.
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Nolan Bushnell, 2 Aug 2008 @ 2:58pm

Now wait a minute, I can go out and purchase a game, marketed for kids, where a minority female gets raped by a member of the military ONSCREEN, and that's OK, yet if I purchase a game about murder, car theft, drug dealing, etc., and then download a special file, and modify the game to use the special file, I can then view a couple engaged in an R-Rated sex scene, and that's a problem? Where's the class action suit against "Custer's Revenge" for the Atari?
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دردشه, 11 Jul 2009 @ 9:18am

If I recall, the actual legal issue at hand was that the game was presented and rated without anyone being informed about the "hot coffee" sex scenes that were also in the game files
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