Will Toshiba be sued?

[radagast]

Originally Posted by Paden

You know, when the whole Betamax/VHS thing was going on, our society was much less litigious. I wonder if some lawyer somewhere will file a class action lawsuit against Toshiba once this house of cards collapses.

And frankly, I see a legitimate claim here. One could argue that Toshiba knowingly sold an inferior product with the express intent of maintaining their old line royalties associated with DVD. For that matter, I could see M$ brought in as co-defendant on this as they've been complicit in every phase, trying to deny Blu-ray from becoming the new standard such that their business line, digital downloads, could take hold.

The fact that they did so with bribes and other nefarious means (paid shills on the internet, buying web sites like AVS, etc.) will all be points in the lawsuit. I think it's possible. The truth is consumers have wasted billions of dollars on a product that had a lifespan of less than 3 years. Some were tricked into a purchase only a few months ago so Toshiba could unload inventory. At least that's how I'd play it if I were leading the case against them.

I think the studios are really off the hook on this as they've simply played the game from the software side. They can make the claim that they did nothing but provide a license to view their films on a then viable piece of hardware. Then again, if I were really looking for deep pockets, the lawsuit could look at things like the bribe paid to Para*****. If I were on a jury I think I could be convinced that they ought to be required to use those funds to provide relief to the customers they harmed.

In order to avoid this, one thing Toshiba may announce along with their concession next week, would be some sort of buyback or trade-in program for those customers who purchased a DUD in the last 3 months. The writing was clearly on the wall by then. That said, I doubt even this would prevent some hungry lawyer out there from filing.

Thoughts?

While I would like to see the sh*t sued out of Toshiba, the reality is that Sony is more likely to be sued by the other side. Look at what happened with the lawsuit the makers of Nutrasweet had against Splenda. Splenda is a safer product that is also superior in other respects to Nutrasweet, but Splenda ended up losing.