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Contracts: Company Insurance For The Future
batobin writes: "This article gives a new perspective on how contracts work in the technology business. In the past, contracts and signed agreements have been used primarily to protect the individuals involved from legal action. They are now being used like a spider web. After they catch somebody, their purpose is to keep them subscribing/paying/buying their stuff, even if you don't want it anymore."
> you would write half of all contracts with the companies; you don't, and you aren't.
Sorry, but some of us DO write contracts that we sign. At my current job I wrote the full 100% contract. After I had been hired, I gave them my contract, the company then sent it off to their lawyer, made a few tweaks, I reviewed it, and we were set.
Reading and writing contracts isn't THAT difficult! Heck, the founding fathers were lawyers and they never went to law-school.
> It may be argued that you don't have to sign anything, and that is true;
Yes, that is why I refuse to sign a driver's license. I am not going to waive my rights* to freely travel. Know your rights! Excerise them!
Remember, If you don't READ _and_ UNDERSTAND what you are signing, then don't sign it.
Cheers
* Court cases for those interested: Right to Travel vs. Permission to Drive
So we paid out for two more years for useless upgrades and tech support which we couldn't use as we weren't at the latest version (another nice clause) :)
Should have been more creative. It IS the same box, it's just that we replaced the case, cpu, memory, drives, power supply, motherboard, and display card all at once. The keyboard, however, is original.
"In the past, contracts and signed agreements have been used primarily to protect the individuals involved from legal action. They are now being used like a spider web."
:)
Did I miss these 'good old days' when contracts were only used for everyones benefit ?
Contracts have always been written solely for the advantage of the company which created them.
The only difference is that 'Joe Public' is now being exposed to contracts (software, mobile phones, ISP's etc), in many cases for the first time - and people are getting burned more often.
Businesses have had this problem for years.
My personal favourite was a 4 year 'tech support / free upgrades' contract for some software we had. After year 2 the tool was upgraded significantly and our Unix box wasn't man enough to run the new version - but there was a clause preventing us from transferring the software to a new box.
So we paid out for two more years for useless upgrades and tech support which we couldn't use as we weren't at the latest version (another nice clause)
We were more careful after that.
May I have your attention please,
...........
may I have your attention please,
will the real bruce perens please stand up,
I repeat will the real bruce perens please stand up
.....we're gonna have a problem here.........
Ya'll act like you never seen a slash poster before
mouse all on the floor
like mom and daddy just burst in the door
and started whoopin yer ass worse than before
they first had endorsed
buyin' ya a crappy computer (aaaaaah)
It's the return of the...
"awww..wait, no wait, you're kidding,
he didn't just say what I think he did,
did he?"
and Mr. Cray said...
nothing you idiots, Mr Cray's dead
he's locked in my bassment
microsoft women love Sig '11
chicka chicka chicka bruce perens,
"I'm sick of him, lookit him
walkin around, grabbin his GNU know what
flippin' to GNU know who"
"yeah, but he's so smart though"
yeah, I probably got a couple of screws up in my head loose
but no worse than what's goin on in your sister's webcam (eheheheh)
sometimes, I wanna get on ZD and just let loose
but cant, but it's cool for RMS to hump a dead GNU
My mouse is on your link, My mouse is on your link
and if you're lucky, I might just give it a little click
and that's the message that we deliver to little kids
and expect them not to know what a free software is
of course they're gonna know what Microsoft is
by the time they hit 4th grade
they got MS-NBC, dont they?
we ain't nothing but omnivores
well, some of us carnivores
who read other people's mail like crackwhores
but if we can read your e-mail like it's available
then there's no reason that a man can't forge spam from your account
but if you feel like I feel, I got the antedote
trolls wave your penis birds, sing the chorus and it goes........
I'm Bruce Perens, yes, I'm the real Perens
all you other Bruce Perens' are just imitating
so won't the real Bruce Perens please stand up,
please stand up, please stand up
cause I'm Bruce Perens, yes, I'm the real Perens
all you other Bruce Perens' are just imitating
so wont the real Bruce Perens please stand up,
please stand up, please stand up
Sig 11 don't got to cuss in his posts to get Karma
well I do, so fuck him and fuck you too
you think I give a damn about my Karma
half of you trolls can't even stomach me, let alone stand me
"but bruce, what if you win, wouldn't it be weird"
why? so you guys can just lie to get me here
so you can sit me here next to Natalie here
shit,Enoch Root's momma better switch me chairs
so I can sit next to trollmastah and Post First
and hear em argue over who modded it down first
little troll, flamed me back on IRC
"yeah, he's fast, but I think he types one-handed, hee hee"
I should download some audio on MP3
and show the world how you released it BSD (aaaaaah)
I'm sick of you little troll and l33t groups
all you do is annoy me
so I have been sent here to destroy you
and there's a million of us just like me
who post like me, who just don't give a fuck like me
who code like me, walk, talk and act like me
and just might be the next best thing, but not quite me......
I'm Bruce Perens, yes, I'm the real Perens
all you other Bruce Perens' are just imitating
so won't the real Bruce Perens please stand up,
please stand up, please stand up
cause I'm Bruce Perens, yes, I'm the real Perens
all you other Bruce Perens' are just imitating
so wont the real Bruce Perens please stand up,
please stand up, please stand up
I'm like a head trip to listen to
cause I'm only givin you things
you troll about with your friends inside you rabbit hole
the only difference is I got the balls to say it
in front of ya'll and I aint gotta be false or sugar coated at all
I just get on the web and spit it
and whether you like to admit it (riiip)
I just shit it better than 90% you trollers out can
then you wonder how can
kids eat up these posts like gospel verse
it's funny,cause at the rate I'm going when I'm thirty
I'll be the only person in the chat rooms flirting
cyberin with nurses when I'm jackin off to porno's
and I'm jerkin' but this whole bag of viagra isn't working
in every single person there's a bruce perens lurkin
he could be workin at Micron Inc., spittin on your SDRAM
or in the printer queue, flooding, writin I dont give a fuck
with his windows down and his system up
so will the real perens please stand up
and click 1 of those fingers till you drag up
and be proud to be outta your mind and outta control
and 1 more time, loud as you can, how does it go?
I'm Bruce Perens, yes, I'm the real Perens
all you other Bruce Perens' are just imitating
so wont the real Bruce Perens please stand up,
please stand up, please stand up
cause I'm Bruce Perens, yes, I'm the real Perens
all you other Bruce Perens' are just imitating
so wont the real Bruce Perens please stand up,
please stand up, please stand up
I'm Bruce Perens, yes, I'm the real Perens
all you other Bruce Perens' are just imitating
so wont the real Bruce Perens please stand up,
please stand up, please stand up
cause I'm Bruce Perens, yes, I'm the real Perens
all you other Bruce Perens' are just imitating
so wont the real Bruce Perens please stand up,
please stand up, please stand up
haha guess it's a bruce perens in all of us........
fuck it let's all stand up
Will the real Bruce Perens Please Stand Up
Anytime someone wants your signature be aware of that fact. People may tell you "Oh this is just a formality" but don't be fooled. All you are doing by signing any document is giving someone legal ammunition to use against you. If you want someone to sign something, it is to bind them legally to do what you want isn't it?
This becomes very important as UCITA becomes the law of the land - as pushing a button on a computer screen - or even tearing open a shrink wrap becomes the legal equivalent of signing a document.
The libertarian myth is that contracts are freely arrived at deals between parties in equal bargaining positions. Anyone who thinks that they are in an equal bargaining position with Microsoft and their cadre of Wolfram and Hart style lawyers has got serious delusions of grandeur. If you were in an equal bargaining position with companies - you would write half of all contracts with the companies; you don't, and you aren't.
It may be argued that you don't have to sign anything, and that is true; of course you also don't have to eat, drink water, or continue breathing - you are also under no legal obligation to do those things either.
When the choice is "Sign the employment contract or don't work" most people choose to sign the employment contract - for all the same reasons that they would sign over their house if 'Big Tony' had a nine millimeter pointed at their head. When every company you try to work for has similar employment contracts - you have no choice; you either sign, or you die of starvation.
Ring! Ring!
....Paul
JQP: Hello?!?
MS: Hello, this is Microsoft, is this John Q. Public?
JQP: Yes. But...
MS: Well, we have determined that you are in violation of your license agreement as we do not approve of the way you are currently using your Microsoft software.
JQP: But, I'm not using your software anymore. I've uninstalled it from my computer and disposed of the distribution media and materials.
MS: That is the problem. According to our latest license agreement, which was released 2 hours ago, you are no longer allowed to not use our software.
Well, a software license agreement isn't a contract per se, but that wouldn't stop most companies like MS from trying...
F U NE X N M? Son: "Dad... How do you spell 'hourly'?" Dad: "0 * * * *"
Please, half the world works like this. I was watching something a few months back where hairdressers were getting to the point where they wanted to force customers to sign something or hand over a credit card number in case they cancelled the appointment with no time for the slot to be filled. This sort of stuff is everywhere. Just read everything you sign! You're allowed to refuse to sign things.
Yawn.
Admittedly I have always tried very hard (and reasonably sucessfully) to avoid getting to involved in this side of the business, so I may be way off base here, but it doesn't seem to me that this sort of use of contracts is at all new. In fact, this is the only use of contracts I've really been exposed to over the last five years.
From what I have seen the contracts have never really been about protection from legal action, but rather as a specific assingment of duties which enable legal (or other, prenegotiated) remedies when the customer stops buying the service/product/scam in question. I just assumed this was an old, standard way of doing things (dirty pool though it may be).
What other uses has anyone seen for contracts? I'm interested, as I've aparently completely missed them.
--
Behold the Power of Cheese!