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.

Comments

Prohibitions

[ZaMoose]

Don't a lot of EULA's have prohibitions against reprinting them in full in settings other than their original form?

Are you a bit worried about the legal ramifications of such a database?

Re:Prohibitions

[capt.Hij]

Don't a lot of EULA's have prohibitions against reprinting them in full in settings other than their original form?

If you don't agree to the terms then you should be able to print the EULA! The question is whether or not you can copyright a legal document such as the EULA.

As for the database itself. I can't stand to read the damn EULA's when I buy the software. Why would anybody want to go and read them off of a website? Yuk.

Re:Prohibitions

[FyRE666]

I suppose it would be very useful if a front-end app were built to parse "layman's questions" about a EULA. IE, "does EULA #49493 prohibit me from XXXX?". The web app could then work its magic and answer the question quickly and hopefully in understandable terms!

This is a great idea, much better to have a central resource than rely on heresay and FUD...

what europian law says about sales contract

[oliverthered]

The eu has just put up a huge (70,000 pages)
site about europian rights
here's the link relating to unfair contracts in the uk

basicly it says you can ignore any shit or non plain language in the contracts, anything thats in contrntion lends to the side of the consumer.

all good stuff

Way to get around copyrights

[EvanED]

If you really have time, you might want to try to make an English translation of the EULAs so you're not breaking the copyright on them.

It's a Trick! (and some questions too)

[Inexile2002]

Someone out there wants to market a random EULA generator and they're using /. to make up the data!

Seriously, an EULA DB sounds like an excellent idea, but I have an implementation question. Have you considered marking them up in XML (a huge task, I'm sure) so that they can be searched for certain provisions? Reasoning here being that without good internal markup, you pretty much need to read through the whole EULA to compare it to another. Being able to search through the archive for different examples of specific clauses, specific allowances or provisions would be much more useful than simple searches for IE v.4 vs v.5

Good luck though, this is an excellent idea, and I like the idea of seeing included in a software reviews lines like: "...and the EULA scores a 3.4 of 5 on the standardized EULA Draconian scale..."

EULA Creation

[vergil]

After you've read through a dozen EULAs and TOS (Terms of Service) Agreements, you'll realize that the vast majority of shrinkwrap/clickwrap adhesion contracts are substantially similar.

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

Re: Veeck v. SBCCI

[wendy]

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.