Perhaps if done in mauve the warning label can be stylish.
Excite News — Maybe if kids went to school and had a health class they would know that loud sound injected directly into the ear might not be good for you. Or perhaps kids need to understand how a volume control works.
The iPod players are “inherently defective in design and are not sufficiently adorned with adequate warnings regarding the likelihood of hearing loss,” according to the complaint, filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in San Jose, Calif., on behalf of John Kiel Patterson of Louisiana.
The suit, which Patterson wants certified as a class-action, seeks compensation for unspecified damages and upgrades that will make iPods safer. Patterson’s suit said he bought an iPod last year, but does not specify whether he suffered hearing loss from the device.
I can assure you that the outcome of this will be another ludicrous label stating the obvious. How dumb is the American public anyway? It’s humiliating.
found by Peter iNova who says he is suing hammer makers for blunt force trauma. There is no warning label on hammers saying you should not hit yourself with them.
I like that the volume can go so high, some of the PodCasts I get the volume so low that I can not hear it at normal level, even at the high level it still is low. Infact some are so low, that when I turn up the volume at home on the speakers (that have built in amps) I can hear the hum before the sound from the iPod becomes comfortable to listen to.
I know that if I got better ear phones (ones that do better jobs of blocking outside noice) I could listen to it lower volume, but what ever the outcome I am not trading in my 2 year old 40Gb iPod.
Maybe they should list “Functioning Human Brain” and “Common Sense” on the System Requirements listed on the box.
p.s. Thank you for the BoothBabe pix.
And for the iPod Video:
Warning: This device is capable of downloading and viewing porn, which may result in carpal tunnel syndrome or (according to our mothers) blindness.
This is just some schmuck trying to make a buck. Here is a law to consider. If you sue a major corporation and the judge calls the plantif a greedy and whinny wuss, then that judge can award the corporation the amount of money the plantif was suing for. I bet you will see a significant drop in this type of BS lawsuits.
I hope Apple holds its ground and fights this stupidity.
Nik… All we have to do is pass the law that says “if you lose the suit, you pay all court costs, including the other parties lawer fees.”
An excellent review of all this crap appears at http://www.mlaw.org/
Click through to their wacky warning labels and check out winners like the cocktail napkin from Hilton Head that has a simplified map of the area — and a warning “Not to be Used for Navigation”.
Society is crumbling under the weight of lawyers and judges.
That moron and his lawyer should both be shot to clean up the human genes pool…
If the Judge decides that there is no case then he may dismiss the case. He may also award costs to Apple. Been there, won, got lawyer costs.
I think that a lot of these commentators would have us do away with any recourse to the consumer against shoddy products. That would be much much worse then having trivial suits dismissed by the Judge.
That the growing problem in this country with lawsuits. Apparently is was determined in the law profession that most Americans are too stupid to be responsible for themselves and that companies must treat everyone as if they were babies. If they don’t, then we’ll sue.
If this suit tracks other tech-related class-actions, the “harmed” plaintiffs will get coupon codes for a couple of free iTunes downloads (which they can then crank up), while “their” attorneys get the cash.
I am not a big tort-reform believer, but these class-actions are just scams to enrich lawyers.
case in point: I was a supposedly-aggrieved class-action plaintiff against Philips because one of their products allegedly did not live up to the advertised claims. my “justice”? a discount on future purchases from Philips. so let me get this straight – in order to be compensated for some imaginary wrong, I have to buy ANOTHER product from the company that “wronged” me.
something tells me that the law firm did not get compensated in coupons …
In Canada, we don’t have lawyers on full judgement fees… and accordingly, we don’t have ambulance chasers and lawyers for when you stub your toe at the hotel… Unforutnately, because you have to pay for every minute of the lawyers time upfront, it can be very difficult to acutally sue rightously if you are poor…
Americans can sue without a single cent, but us Cannucks need some serious coin backing… Unless you’re destitute. THen you get some lawyer student wannabe from the gubmint backing your case. THey ain’t so good though.
What I found interesting was that the lawyer involved in this lawsuit is the same one that in involved in the suit against Apple over the scratches on the nano.
Another interesting fact is that the same lawyer is on retainer by none other than Microsoft.
Guess if you can’t beat them…. sue them.
Apple just needs a software AVLS like Sony has. They can bury it deep in the menus with Sound Check.
I really don’t want any lables, or buttons other than the click-wheel on the iPod…
Just when I thought I’d been annoyed every possible way with these gizmos, I had a new one happen… I really hope this isn’t a trend.
The guy next to me on the airplane hung his headphones around his neck and then played them at full volume l like they speakers.
It was just loud enough to be distracting but quiet enough to make me feel like an over-sensitive jerk for complaining.
This reminds me of that stupid case where this guy sued several fast food chains for making him fat. Even after his doctors told him to stop it as it was hazardous to his health
GregAllen – I had a woman across the aisle from me on the rather loud commuter train tell me to turn down the i-Pod and I had the phones in my ears. In my own defense, I can only say that it was a James Brown tune, so it had to be cranked.
I can agree with both GregAllen and doug, sometimes it is a pain in the ass to have someone blaring their music at you, but it also is good to block out everything around you.
Generally, what I do, is turn on my ipod and check the volume, if I can hear it with the headphones more than about 2-3 inches away from my head, I turn it down, if I can’t, I listen to my music at a decent level.
However, if, like the other weekend there, I was heading back from a nice and pleasant night out with a friend in Glasgow, we sat down on the train and it also happened that Celtic, one of the Glasgow Football (or soccer for you Americans) teams were playing and I was lucky enough to hear about half an hour of bigoted songs (stereotypically, the fans of that team are Catholic, the other Glasgow team is Prodestant) and rather offensive yelling, so, I put the ipod up full blast and even still, that couldn’t block the guys out.
Sorry but this lawsuit is long overdue. Mp3 players will be responsible for severe hearling loss in millions of people, however those who think this is a waste of time can take comfort in the fact that this suit will go nowhere, Republican concern for profits will overule public safety every time.
#21-Bob, If it is long overdue isn’t it more than just MP3 players there are plenty of other portable audio devices that play at loud volumes before mp3 players, AM/FM walkmans, Cassete players, CD players, Minidisc players, as well as some Non-MP3 digital audio players. In fact if you want to go further, then the lawsuit should include Speaker manufactures that manufacture speakers for cars, Houses, PA systems, Because they all can be turned up so loud that they are damaging to the eardrums. Needless to say I agree with number 3 that people need to use common sense in using the volume Knob. Some people don’t have any so let them go ahead and loose thier hearing, most people loose it anyway as they age, for them it will just be thier stupidity that causes it.