Shrinkwrapped Books

NortWind writes "I just saw this in the InfoWorld paper, in the "The Gripe Line" by Ed Foster. It describes how a "...book arrived wrapped in plastic with a shrinkwrap license on the front". Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse..." I wrote an essay about this a year or two ago.

Comments

Of course it was shrink-wrapped

[wackybrit]

"...book arrived wrapped in plastic with a shrinkwrap license on the front"

That's how most mail-order porn mags arrive. It means the seller can accept returns that are still wrapped and be confident the pages aren't stained with jizz. Retailers of regular fiction don't suffer from this problem.

Without reading the actual article....

[elhondo]

You mean Harlan Ellison has a new book out?

Terms

[ThereIsNoSporkNeo]

By opening this shrink-wrap you agree to the terms and conditions of the agreement.

To see the agreement, open the book to page 1.

For technical assistance call 724-987-1192, however, by calling this number you release us from any obligation of helping you.

Thank you and have a good day.

Something kind of like this happened to me...

[wowbagger]

I started receiving an unsolicted magazine, "Home Mechanix". Ninty or more percent of the magazine was junk, so I'd just toss them.

One day, I get a bill in the mail, saying I owed them for the subscription, and that if I didn't pay they'd forward it to Collections.

I wrote back, informing them that

1. I'd never subscribed for the magazine
2. They were in violation of the US postal code
3. If this ever showed up on any credit report of mine, I'd bring criminal charges of mail fraud against them as well as civil charges.

<voice font="Jim Nabors">Sur-Prize Sur-Prize Sur-Prize!</voice> I got a mail back from them saying "Uhhh, we checked our records, and we can find no evidence you ever signed up for this. Our collections is purely internal, and never would have shown up on your report. We're sorry, please don't kill us!". I figure it was the old "send them crap and bill them" scam, and when they found out that I wasn't going to play, they backpedaled faster than BillG on Palladium being DRM....