He has a legitimate point, and truthfully pointing out his reasons and the way he is acting is kind of nessicary to the overall point. If he just remained silent as to how he's going about it, it wouldn't mean as much. His points about where he sends the documents and similar things is important to understanding what he's saying about the companies in question and how ordinary people are hit with these EULAs and such. Likewise his comments about not putting anything in paper make pefect sense in context because the contracts that game companies have had defended exist ONLY within the software, they are not actual, physical, hardcopy documents either.
His point is pretty much that if a company like Microsoft can successfully win cases based on what amounts to text on a computer screen with no signed hardcopy, and no legal review or notarization to prove anything was ever acknowleged by the person on the other end other than the usage of service, then he should be able to win this case according to the precedents that have been established. In fact if he LOSES this case it represents a breakdown of the legal system and it's inherant logic because it would mean that the goverment is declaring that the same rules do not apply to Microsoft as to everyone else... and that puts everything in question.
Arguably while this guy is making a bit of a scene out of it... shades of Michael Moore's "TV Nation" (from back when I actually thought he was funny and had some respect for him), he's not wrong. In fact as I've pointed out before, one of the problems with most attempts to go after gaming/software/computer companies has been that the peopling doing so have not picked the proper avenues of attack. I suspect largely because all of the lawyers who are experts in this kind of thing wind up accepting payments from the big companies so they won't be able to represent an opponent due to "conflict of interests" even if they never wind up directly representing the company (big law firms making a lot of money through such payoffs, a fee to be there as a "potential advisor" or something).
One point about the EULAs and things that have never been pursued is the length of the contract and the complexity of the terms. Not to mention the referances made to various laws and statutes in many cases which are not presented as an attachment to the document for review. Contract law was never my thing when I was in school, but the subject was touched on. In general in the US things like "fine print" hold less sway than you would think in the movies, as a contract can be literally tossed out if it's deemed too complicated or intentionall misleading for the people involved. This is where things like notaries come into play, notaries being neutral parties who review a contract to achieve an understanding of it, but also sign off to verify that all parties involved understood it. That way in the case of a dispute the notaries can be brought on to give their understanding and verify that all parties understood the contract the way that they did. If questioned on these grounds I'm not sure if such contracts being reasonable to the average schmuck gameplayer would fly, especially seeing as they go on, and on, and on in many cases. Then of course there is the whole other issue of money being accepted before the contract, which has also not been accepted. You pay for yoru game box/game in many cases and only get the contract AFTER money has changed hands, which potentially means it's just text since agreeing to a contract was never part of the actual purchuse agreement. With digital distribution this can be less clear, but for boxed games and products it's a point that has never been properly pursued, technically they should make you sign the contract as part of the purchusing process when money (or credit) changes hands.
At any rate, I'm rambling. I doubt the guy will get 500 billion, but I'm kind of hoping the court system actually does it's job properly on these grounds, since tournabout is fair play, and awards the guy a couple of billion "in proportion to the damages". Enough to really hurt Microsoft, but not drive them entirely out of business. Then hopefully that will adjust some attitudes and make the industry a kinder, gentler, place for use end users, especially if the precedent works in such a way that the companies can't respond by trying to get even more ridiculous using some variation of the same policies.
Hey, if he wins maybe he'll kick a couple of million to me since I'm cheering for him.
From where I am sitting this whole situation is a thing of beauty, and it's really going to take some backhanded interpetations of the law to say that this guy isn't just as right as the company he's going after is, especially seeing as it's won on grounds that are just as dubious.
