Well maybe not your home, but the new PSN ToS (Terms of Service) certainly grants the Big S some extra power. If you come over all anxious when people listen in on your conversations, quiver at the fact that your LittleBigPlanet levels might be property of someone else, or tremble like a big wobbly jelly if Customer Service departments refuse to help you over a non-working downloaded video, then you’re going to be positively terrified at the new ToS.

Now, before you go and gather a tumultuous rabble of fellow angered PSN-ers to lead a violent riot in the Home Beta, you might want to have a look at the new agreement in a bit more detail, which, as you’ve probably guessed by now, can be found efter springet.

Ok, first things first, second things second, and third things third. That’s the structure I’m going to be using for this article and, to be honest, it does make a lot of sense. Why would you do it any other way? Third things first and first things second just doesn’t make logical sense.

Anyway, on Friday you should have received a freshly written, wax sealed, email, written on parchment, which starts with the line,

“If you do not agree with the revised Terms of Service and User Agreement, please contact Customer Service to terminate your account(s). Otherwise, your or your Sub Account’s continued use of your PLAYSTATION(R)Network accounts means you agree to the changes”

Actually, that’s quite a good chat up line, I must write that in my book.

Relationship issues aside, this is fairly standard stuff. ‘If you don’t agree, then leave’, which seems reasonable to me. However, things start getting a bit legal, if you know what I mean. If you don’t know what I mean, then read on.

“SCEA reserves the right to monitor and record any online activity and communication throughout PSN and you give SCEA your express consent to monitor and record your activities. Any data collected in this way, including the content of your communications, the time and location of your activities, your Online ID and IP address and other related information may be used by us to enforce this Agreement or protect the interests of SCEA, its users, or licensors.”

This means that Sony can listen in to and record anything you say on PSN, though luckily that shouldn’t be a problem, since no one on PSN actually owns a mic. Still, I may be recorded, but at least I can download my video an unlimited number of time with a full Customer Service guarantee if anything goes wrong. Good ol’ Sony, always got my back.

“You bear all risk of loss for completing the download of any content and for any loss of content you have downloaded, including any loss due to a file corruption or hard drive crash. You are solely responsible for the storage and safekeeping of your content. SCEA is not responsible for providing you with replacement copies for any reason.”

Hang on, what? This isn’t good ol’ trusty Sony, this is bad ol’ untrustworthy Sony. So, if my hard drive crashes, something that is made by Sony and covered in their warranty, they have no obligation to help me. Also, if I download a film and it doesn’t work, due to corruption or whatever, then Sony, again, have no obligation to help you. Oh hell no!

And there’s more! You can only download a film once so, if your film is corrupted for whatever reason, then you can’t re-download it.

Well, that’s not quite true.

“Consumer service can issue a re-download as a one-time courtesy, as provided by our guidelines, for the title to allow the consumer to go back and download the movie from their PSN download list.”

A ‘courtesy’? More like a necessity.

In fact, it’s not just video.

“SCEA assumes no liability for any inability to purchase access to or use any content [On PSN]“

So if anything you buy on the PlayStation Store doesn’t work, then tough.

Right, now onto the next, and last, interesting part.

“To the extent permitted by law, You authorize and license SCEA a royalty free and perpetual right to use, distribute, copy, modify, display, and publish your User Material for any reason without any restrictions or payments to you or any third parties”

So anything you make in any game, be it Guitar Hero: World Tour or LittleBigPlanet, Sony own. In fact, they can sell it to anyone they want:

“You further agree that SCEA may sublicense its rights to any third party, including its affiliates and subsidiaries. You hereby waive all claims, including any moral rights, against SCEA, its affiliates and subsidiaries for SCEA or any other third party’s use of User Material to the extent permitted by applicable law.”

While it’s unlikely that Sony will be selling my rocket powered penis from LittleBigPlanet any time soon, the User Agreement is there just in case they do.

Let us know what you think through use of the comments box.

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