Received Email About EA Sports Litigation?

[giulio]

Today I received an Email from "EA Sports Litigation" Here are some parts of it...

If You Purchased Certain Electronic Arts Brand Football Video Games
Between January 1, 2005 to the Present
You May Be a Class Member.

Membership as a class member in the Electronic Arts Litigation is the result of a lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, Oakland Division (Case No. 08-cv-02820 CW).

What Is This Class Action About?
The class action lawsuit alleges violations of California's antitrust and consumer protection laws in connection with the sale of certain football video games. Plaintiffs, purchasers of Electronic Arts' football video games, claim that Defendant Electronic Arts entered into a series of exclusive licenses with the National Football League (NFL), National Football League Players' Association (NFLPA), National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA), and Arena Football League (AFL), which Plaintiffs claim foreclosed competition in an alleged football video game market. Plaintiffs allege that this series of exclusive licenses caused customers who purchased certain football video games to be overcharged.
Defendant Electronic Arts has denied any liability and all allegations of misconduct. The Court has not decided whether the Defendants did anything wrong, and this Notice is not an expression of any opinion by the Court about the merits of any of the claims or defenses asserted by any party to this litigation.


What the hell is this? I feel like it might be a virus if I click any links because this sounds kind of phony. Please explain if you know what this is.

[christie42]

I am wondering the same thing. I received one and have spoken to about fifteen other people who got one as well.

[darvell]

It could be a virus, but such a thing is a legitamate issue that was published recently, and would need to be sent to anyone connected to the case (which could include you).

You know how there was an uproar when EA bought exclisive rights to the NFL and NFLPA (as well as college football and Arena Football, though those did not get much attention) licencing for video games a few years ago? Someone filed a lawsuit over this a few years ago, claiming it violated monopoly laws. Well, that lawsuit became a class-action suit, and is about to actually begin in court.

What does this mean to you? Well, if EA loses the lawsuit, damages will be determined, and after legal fees for the lawyers bringing the case against EA are subtracted from that, the remainder will be split evenly among all persons who part of the class (which has been defined as anyone who bought an EA football game after January 1, 2005). However, by not declining to be part of the class before the case begins, you accept the amount that you could get from this case if EA loses, and agree to not sue EA separately on this matter.

This email is notifying you of this. Assuming you have no intentions of trying to sue EA separately over their deals that prevented other companies from basically making any video game based on a real football league, there's no benefit to backing out, and you might get a small check at the end. But if you want to sue them separately, in the hopes of getting a bigger payday by yourself, you have to opt out of this class-action suit before the case begins, and so they sent out a notification of this.