Magazine Resources

FC NOW: The Fast Company Weblog

March 30, 2005

Lawful Entry

There has been a plethora of companies involved in lawsuits. Just this morning, it was announced that Blockbuster was settling over their confusing 'No Late Fees' advertising. Of course, it is only $600k and will barely dent their bottom line.

Earlier this week the company Immersion won a settlement against Sony. Microsoft settled out of court with Immersion in 2003 and paid $26 million (and bought a piece of Immersion) to use vibration in their game controllers. Sony decided they would take it to court and roll the dice. It now seems like a bad bet, to the tune of $90 million.

These two suits are quite a contrast. The Blockbuster suit involves the public directly, and settled for so little. The Sony suit is with another company, and reaches $90 mil. Part of the reason for the disparity is that Sony has been selling their DualShock controllers for years and the Blockbuster snafu is recent. But I wonder how much of it is because corporations can afford to drag such lawsuits out. Shouldn't the public get their due process as well? Maybe if the public made more of a stink such consumer settlements would be more than crumbs.