Getting rid of health and safety warning

I'd like to offer some other vantage point to the whole discussion: 3rd party VR libraries and SDKs. Those already exist. Of course Oculus keeps telling us "don't roll your own". But eventually those 3rd party implementations will find widespread use. And some of those 3rd party libraries might opt not to show a HSW at all.

So what's the legal perspective on that? Personally as a European Citizen I consider the US kind of approach on the problem rather quaint (showing warnings I mean).

"datenwolf" wrote:
And some of those 3rd party libraries might opt not to show a HSW at all.

It's not their job to. Any warning should be shown by the application. A "one size fits all" solution forced by a framework doesn't work that well. Different input devices could be used, maybe the warning needs customising per application (I imagine a calm beach scene could use the standard warning, but a horror game would need a more extreme one that isn't just a long way of saying RTFM like the current one, but warns about shocking content).

What I really want is a way to delay the warning.

I am working on the Sixense SDK which has you pick up the motion controllers by sight inside VR, and the HSW presents a catch 22 where you can't see the controllers very well past the warning, and can't dismiss the warning until you pick up the controllers to press a button.

We should at least be allowed to control where the warning fits within our UX design, inside some reasonable timeframe. Like the HSW must be shown within one minute or something similar.

"HartLabs" wrote:
At some point, forget property damage/injury, someone will die wearing an Oculus. Maybe they smash their face into a window. Maybe they tip a bookshelf onto themselves. Maybe they have a heart attack. Maybe it is just pure coincidence. But at some point it will happen.

When it does, there will be a lawsuit.

This depends on where it happens. In the majority of all countries such a lawsuit has no chance of success. In fact, the US is probably the only country where this is possible. In countries where English is not a national language the HSW does not even have a legal significance. What's the point of showing an annoying HSW in these cases?

"bluenote" wrote:
What's the point of showing an annoying HSW in these cases?

I for example live in Germany. We here in the EU have extremely strict product safety laws. One of the basic foundations of these laws is, that a products manufacturer can not release himself out of product safety liabilities by merely showing the end user some warning sometimes after the consumber bought the product (that's also the reason why EULAs shown only in the install process of some software are not binding here).

Of course some products are not fit for certain parts of the populaion. It would be crazy to prohibit the selling of, say peanuts, just because a certain part of the population has severe allergical reactions to them. In the same way this applies to things like HMDs: Some persons are simply not fit to use them and this has to be highlighted in the advertising and be put outside the box to be legally useful.

"datenwolf" wrote:

I for example live in Germany. We here in the EU have extremely strict product safety laws. One of the basic foundations of these laws is, that a products manufacturer can not release himself out of product safety liabilities by merely showing the end user some warning sometimes after the consumber bought the product (that's also the reason why EULAs shown only in the install process of some software are not binding here).

... and that is why when we start our cars in the EU, the dashboard always displays a security warning ;).

I think German law is a perfect example where the HSW is null and void. As a result of the EU guidelines, Germany now has the "Produktsicherheitsgesetz". It basically comes down to §6:

Der Hersteller [hat] sicherzustellen, dass der Verwender die Informationen erhält, die er benötigt, um die Risiken, die mit
dem Verbraucherprodukt während der üblichen oder vernünftigerweise vorhersehbaren Gebrauchsdauer
verbunden sind und die ohne entsprechende Hinweise nicht unmittelbar erkennbar sind, beurteilen und sich
gegen sie schützen zu können,

Loose translation: A products manufacturer has to inform about risks, unless the risk is apparent. And a German court almost certainly will come to the conclusion: The risks of restricting your vision are apparent! It's like the infamous hot coffee lawsuit: In the US the lawsuit was successful but in a similar case (Landgericht Munic 2011) it was not -- pretty much because coffee is supposed to be a hot liquid, and there is no need to tell a customer every time that spilling coffee may -- surprise -- cause injury.

While we are at it: Skimming the Produktsicherheitsgesetz does not indicate any necessity of excessive repeating of security warnings. What is more important though:

Sind bei der Verwendung, Ergänzung oder Instandhaltung eines Produkts bestimmte Regeln zu beachten,
um den Schutz von Sicherheit und Gesundheit zu gewährleisten, ist bei der Bereitstellung auf dem Markt hierfür
eine Gebrauchsanleitung in deutscher Sprache mitzuliefern, sofern in den Rechtsverordnungen nach § 8 keine
anderen Regelungen vorgesehen sind.

Loose translation: If using a product requires to follow certain (security relevant) rules, they must be included in an instruction manual (shipped with the product), and the manual must be in German. So the ProdSG is actually pretty clear that the warning does not have to be "per use" but rather "per package", and an English HSW has no legal significance in the first place. According to German law, the lack of a German manual on paper is probably the bigger formal issue compared to the question of displaying the HSW once vs always.

"bluenote" wrote:

It's like the infamous hot coffee lawsuit: In the US the lawsuit was successful -- pretty much because coffee is supposed to be a hot liquid, and there is no need to tell a customer every time that spilling coffee may -- surprise -- cause injury.

Erm, no. The "famous coffee lawsuit" was not successful in the woman's favor because of anything related to the display or lackthereof of warnings.

It has to do with the fact that the coffee was so hot it gave her 3rd degree burns. If a liquid is hot enough to cause 3rd degree burns, it's too hot to sell.

I make my own coffee and it's not even that hot when it comes off the stove literally boiling.

There are tons of frivolous lawsuits in the US - the coffee thing wasn't one of them, and the similar lawsuit probably failed because the coffee in that instance was not hot enough to cause permanently disfiguring burns.

"HartLabs" wrote:
At some point, forget property damage/injury, someone will die wearing an Oculus. Maybe they smash their face into a window. Maybe they tip a bookshelf onto themselves. Maybe they have a heart attack. Maybe it is just pure coincidence. But at some point it will happen.

just imagine, this already happened to people while they had their eyes covered with a bandana. did they sue the maker of these cloths? i think this is ridiculous, and i fully support what 8igby a few posts above. get rid if it, it will only annoy customers.

I think we can all agree it's ridiculous, but that doesn't stop it from happening. People love to push blame onto others for anything they can and see dollar signs with any possible lawsuit. Media jumps on fear mongering stories with any emerging technology.

"HartLabs" wrote:
I think we can all agree it's ridiculous, but that doesn't stop it from happening. People love to push blame onto others for anything they can and see dollar signs with any possible lawsuit. Media jumps on fear mongering stories with any emerging technology.

But not in all countries litigation on that premise will yield results. The USA are quite extreme in that regard, also because of the lack of an established universal healthcare system. So if people get injured the reasoning behind the laws allowing such litigation is, that the compensation should cover all the following medical costs.

In countries where there is universal healthcare of certain standard of lawfully enfored ensurance the financial impace on victims of injury are not nearly as bad which softens up any legal repercussions a lot.