Slashdot Mirror
May I Have Your EULA Please?
LionsFate asks: "Just like the subject says. I want End User Licence Agreements (EULAs). I'm starting a database of as many EULAs as I can get. I want to know the first EULA that said we can't reverse engineer their software. I want to know the first that said they can watch our activities. I want to know how the NES agreement differs from the GameCube. Did Nintendo lighten, or tighten restrictions? I'm looking to generate a time-line of EULAs and how they have changed. What permissions we have been given, and taken away over that period. What rights did we have in Windows 3.1, compared to Windows XP? How has the MPAA and RIAA changed our 'legal rights' on software as a result of their effort? Watched Napster or other P2P software and seen the changes in their EULAs? I'm starting my EULA database at here and I need as many EULAs as I can get to populate the database. If you can, please email me any/all that you can. I'm hoping within a few weeks to have the site online." Ask Slashdot last tackled the topic of EULAs in this piece. It would be interesting to grab a nice sample of EULAs across the last 2 decades to see what has changed, if anything.
Read your EULAs first. I've seen some (though I don't remember where) that forbid the publishing of the EULA.
C.M.Burns
Online Starcraft RPG? At
Dietary fiber is like asynchronous IO-- Non-blocking!
EULAs maybe copyrighted material after all.
GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
Version 2, June 1991
Copyright (C) 1989, 1991 Free Software Foundation, Inc.59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA
02111-1307, USA
Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this license document, but changing it is not allowed. Preamble
The licenses for most software are designed to take away your freedom to share and change it. By contrast, the GNU General Public License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change free software--to make sure the software is free for all its users. This General Public License applies to most of the Free Software Foundation's software and to any other program whose authors commit to using it. (Some other Free Software Foundation software is covered by the GNU Library General Public License instead.) You can apply it to your programs, too.
When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom, not price. Our General Public Licenses are designed to make sure that you have the freedom to distribute copies of free software (and charge for this service if you wish), that you receive source code or can get it if you want it, that you can change the software or use pieces of it in new free programs; and that you know you can do these things.
To protect your rights, we need to make restrictions that forbid anyone to deny you these rights or to ask you to surrender the rights. These restrictions translate to certain responsibilities for you if you distribute copies of the software, or if you modify it.
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TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION0. This License applies to any program or other work which contains a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it may be distributed under the terms of this General Public License. The "Program", below, refers to any such program or work, and a "work based on the Program" means either the Program or any derivative work under copyright law: that is to say, a work containing the Program or a portion of it, either verbatim or with modifications and/or translated into another language. (Hereinafter, translation is included without limitation in the term "modification".) Each licensee is addressed as "you".
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NO WARRANTY
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-- Ken Kinder ken@_nospam_kenkinder.com http://kenkinder.com/
Most tech journalists fail to understand this -- evidenced by the ever-popular "New EULA Disclaims Implied Warranty of Merchantability!" articles.
Most EULAs do not contain new, inventive or clever language. After all, they're essentially standard form contracts -- otherwise known as boilerplate -- meaning that one choice of forum/ anti-reverse engineering clause looks pretty much like another.
I spent around a year (while at the Consumer Project on Technology) sifting through EULAs and contract related law, such as UCITA. Occaisionally, I would find an odd clause that appeared particularly draconian. I archived a few of those here.
The EULA clauses I found most fascinating were the ones that: 1. purported to limit benchmarks/criticism of a software title (McAfee), 2. Specified favorable choice of law/forum jurisdictions, 3. attempted to squelch parodies of a software publisher's title (Microsoft).
(yeah, I was the guy that submitted the previous, EULA harvesting Slashdot article). If you want any help dealing w/ EULAs, drop me a line.
Sincerely,
Vergil
Insects and Grafitti Photos
The Fifth Circuit recently overruled that panel opinion, holding that people could not be barred by copyright from reading or copying "the law". See here for more.
-- Openlaw: Fighting for fair use and the public domain
You have it sort of right. If the contract itself is illegal (e.g., I will sell you illegal X for your $), then the whole contract is illegal, regardless of what other clauses might say. "Severability" clauses only come into play where the contract is generally fine, but one or more particular clause in the contract is not (for whatever reason). The *offending* clause(s) may then be "severed" from the rest of the otherwise valid contract, leaving the contract intact and valid on its other terms.
I don't remember NES games having an agreement.. Basically it said you may not copy this illegaly.
Heh. One of the first things printed on the console by many early unices in the PDP-11 era was "RESTRICTED RIGHTS". This goes back a lot further than one thinks.
Washington, DC: It's like Hollywood for ugly people.
Could you post a link to the source of that information?
Here is a link to Chapter 2 in the Danish law on copyright. Paragraph 36 and 37 are interesting. Obviously this is written in Danish, it would be interesting with links to similar laws in other European countries.
I'll try to explain to the best of my abilities what this law says:
Paragraph 36 says that if you have the right to use a program, you may also fix bugs, make backupcopies, and run the program to see how it works. Stk 4 says you cannot give up these rights by agreement.
Paragraph 37 says you may make copies and translations of a program if this is necesarry to get the information needed to achieve interoprability between software you develop and other software. Point 1 says it may be done by the licensee or people working for the licensee. Point 2 says it may only be done if the necesary information is not easily available in other ways. Point 3 says you may only translate parts necesarry to achieve the needed information. Stk 2 says the information may not be used for other pusposes than achieving interoprability. Stk 3 says the rights cannot be given up by agreement.
Do you care about the security of your wireless mouse?
I tried this 2 to 3 weeks ago. I bought a copy of MS Money from Staples, took it home, started the installation since there was no paper copy of the EULA till I got to the EULA, printed out the EULA, and took it back for a refund.
I fully expected to get the runaround. The store saying they don't give refunds while MS tells me to take it back to the store. To my surprise, I managed to talk the manager into giving me a refund. (That makes me 3 for 3 on obtaining refunds on opened software. The first two had nothing to do with EULA issues.)
The turning point was the printed EULA. The text on the box said "return for a refund" without specifing where or how to do the return. However, the EULA said "return to the place of purchase for a refund".
I had highlighted the "magic phrase" and pointed out that they were authorized resellers of MS software and asked why they weren't honoring the EULA. At that point, the manager made a copy of that page of the EULA and gave me a cash refund.
An interesting sidenote. Money actually installed all the software before showing the EULA. I had to finesse the question: "Did you install the software?" I answered: "I went as far as I had to until I was able to read the EULA".
I am convinced, although I have no proof, based on my conversations with managers when obtaining refunds on software, that MS not only knows, but requires, stores to have the "no refund" policy.
I feel like picking a fight with everyone who thinks they are right. - Rainmakers