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Fight Woodworking Piracy: Add EULA Restrictions
An anonymous reader writes "Ed Foster's Gripelog discusses EULA restriction on a new woodworking tool.
A small woodworking tool manufacturer, Stots Corporation, includes a license agreement on its TemplateMaster jig tool. The tool is licensed, not sold, and customers cannot sell it or lend it to others. Nor can they sell or lend the jigs they make with it. "Shrinkwrap licenses are showing up everywhere," a reader recently wrote. "I just bought a jig for making dovetailing jigs -- this is woodworker talk if it's unfamiliar to you. The master jig contained a license that says I've licensed the master jig, not bought it. The license says I can't lend or sell the master, and furthermore I can't lend or sell the jigs I make with the master."
The reader was referring to Stots Corporation of Harrods Creek, KY, and the user agreement for its TemplateMaster product. Sure enough, the Stots license says TemplateMaster may be used "in only one shop by the original purchaser only" and that "you may not allow individuals that did not purchase the original Product (to) use the Product or any templates produced using the Product..."
A FAQ document on the Stots website explains that the license is necessary because "the purpose of the TemplateMaster is to clone itself. Therefore we are verifying your honesty that only you will use the tool and you will not be passing it around to others to use for free. It is exactly the same as the 'shrink wrap' agreement that comes with almost all computer software. Please help us fight 'tool piracy'."
Please help us fight 'tool piracy'.
The only tool piracy crime being perpetraed is that the lawyers in that company are able to procreate without supervision.
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Don't buy it if you don't like the conditions. Oh, and tell your friends not to as well.
So if you break your jig, or it gets stolen, you can phone up and ask for a replacement.
I once snapped a software CD and I got a new one. Can't be much different.
The sesame seeds contained in this package are inteded for consumption by the purchaser only. You hereby agree not to plant these seeds. Help us prevent plant piracy!
This is great! Pretty soon I can go through life without owning everything, and everything I use will essentially be rented. I will be relieved of the material need to own things. "Imagine a world with no posessions."
Not only that, if I get caught breaking the drug laws, the feds can't take anything that I own since I won't own anything. Best of all, when I get tired of my wife and daughter I just have to stop paying the license fees.
I'm free! Free! Free! This is better than living in New Hampshire!
Wife and daughter... Oh cr4p. I don't own anything anyway. This is bogus...
EULA
License Rights
We grant you a nonexclusive, nontransferable limited license to use the woodworking tool for purposes of developing your new tools and cutting trees only. You may
also give, lend, or sell this tool to the third party. If you want to use the tool for any purpose other than as expressly permitted under this agreement you must contact
us to obtain the appropriate license. We
may audit your use of the tool. Tool documentation is either shipped with the programs, or documentation may accessed online
at our website.
Ownership and Restrictions
We retain all ownership and intellectual property rights in the tool.
You may not:
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Error 500: Internal sig error
Consider Artificial Intelligence might never happen because if this kind of thing, bots could be unable to "clone themselves" due to End User License Agreement.
Poetry in motion
Except it isn't your jig, now is it? It's their jig that you just broke and you'll probably have to buy them a new one.
But how does this affect insurance? If it's their stuff and you only license it, they should cover the costs for keeping the jig insured against theft, right?
Money for nothing, pix for free
The difference with this and a software license is that one rivalous, and one non-rivalous. I cannot loan someone my dovetailing bit without giving up posession myself. Thus, the bit is a rivalous asset.
On the other hand, software can be copied and shared with others without me giving up posession. In this manner, software as a product is non-rivalous. When you "buy" software you only ever receive a copy - the software company keeps posession of the original - so you what you are buying is a license to use.
Why not just make a backup copy of it? If the whole point of it is to replicate itself then you can use it to make a backup of itself. Then if it breaks, just use the backup... or use the backup exclusively and store the original in a safe location. Or store your backup on Karpentryzaa (har har) for secure off-site backup.
That's "license" as in "tax", not "license" as in "purchase right to use".
Government != commercial entity.
Yet.
Posted with Mozilla
Isn't it a violation of digital protection mechanisms when you hit your thumb with a hammer?
My tool has been used by way too many women far too long to make duplicates of me. In addition to charging women for the use of my instrument, I will require that they only use my hardware for personal use and not for creating pirated copies of myself.
OK, let's treat this jig not as a tool, but as a pattern. What would seem reasonable with a pattern?
Would it be reasonable to make copies of the pattern and give them to one's friends to use in their own workshops? I would suggest not.
If I lent the pattern to my friend for him to make end products, that would seem reasonable.
If I lent the pattern to my friend, he made a copy, and then he used that copy to make end product while I used the original pattern to make end product, that would seem unreasonable.
But clearly these guys are taking the view that, while the jig itself can be considered goods which have been purchased, its use constitutes making copies - in the same way that when you buy a software CD, actually using it in your computer is considered copying (from the CD into memory). By using this logic, the maker has chosen to treat the use of the jig as copying, and *in* *law* he may well have a case.
This takes me back to the 1980s when the old Sun 3 machines came with an operating system "right to use" licence, and if used hardware was sold, then the puchaser had to purchase another "right to use" OS licence because he wasn't covered by the original licence. They stopped that years ago. More recently we've seem Microsoft suggesting to schools and charities that PC hardware donated to them by businesses probably has an OS licence which is non-transferable.
Anyways, rather than complaining about this EULA on a jig/pattern, if they really can be used to make replicas then there is clearly a need for a Free Jigs Foundation so that these silly people go out of business.
Dunstan
The last scintilla of doubt just rode out of town
"But how does this affect insurance? If it's their stuff and you only license it, they should cover the costs for keeping the jig insured against theft, right?"
Right. And the bank I financed my car through should be responsible for my auto insurance.
License-mania is a phase. It's happened before, and it will happen again. Western Union used to lease their telegraph machines, AT&T leased it's phone equipment, IBM leased it's computers, and so on. It will change, because in the end, it's a business model that antagonizes customers.
I just lent my son a hammer for his school woodworking project.
If anyone asks for me, I'm in Mexico.
Find funky gifts
Screw the 20 story window. Throw the lawyer out of a 2nd story window, repeatedly. No use letting him die quick.
How many joiners or carpenters are going to pay attention to these restrictions? They'll probably not even know about 'em. If they do, they'll think it couldn't possibly be meant to apply to their legitimate lending to their co-workers.
After a while, when almost every carpenter has tools under such a license, however, it gives company lawyers the opportunity to claim that the license is an accepted industry standard. At that point, they can start ENFORCING such rules, and building even more restrictive regimes on top of them.
This is a perfect example of why immoral licensing should be nipped in the bud by a rights watchdog organisation, regardless of what the consumers accept at the time.
Where's the "I'm not supposed to get jigs in it!" troll when you need him?
Use ISO 8601 dates [YYYY-MM-DD]
I might point out that the technical term for a soybean seed is. . . "soybean."
KFG
So we don't have to worry about this leasing/licensing everything, over the next 600 years it will probably drift back to actual ownership by people. As the feudal lords lose their grip.
From the poor-quality pictures on the website, this appears to be a shaped metal template which you copy onto a piece of wood with a router (a kind of jigsaw?).
Am I missing something? That seems a pretty simple thing - not the kind of thing you'd expect to make millions selling, or be able to force people to agree to such a licence to use. Does it have some magical properties not apparent to a guy who failed woodwork?
The only tool piracy crime being perpetraed is that the lawyers in that company are able to procreate without supervision.
They aren't very smart either (or, alternatively, they are very smart).
From the article:
The master jig contained a license that says I've licensed the master jig, not bought it.
(...)
the Stots license says TemplateMaster may be used "in only one shop by the original purchaser only" and that "you may not allow individuals that did not purchase the original Product (to) use the Product (...)
(emphasis mine)
So you're not buying the product, and are not allowed to let anyone who didn't buy the product use it.
Ladies and gentlemen of the supposed jury, that does not make sense.!
I worked as a cabinet maker to put myself through college. Now I am a software engineer. Sadly, I totally get this... I do not think it is an attempt to be funny, I think they may be serious.
This is a very unusual situation -- a jig making jig. I've worked with dovetail jigs before, and they are complicated enough. I would think the reproduction and resale of the jigjig would be protected by patent.
Protection of the items made with the jig (jigs) is strange. It is similar to charging a royalty for the use of a simple dovetail jig. That is, if one licenses use of the ACME dovetail jig, they must pay royalties of x$ for each corner of each drawer made with the jig and sold commercially. Of course any cabinet maker would then simply make their own jig. One only buys a jig because it is convenient. Even if an item is patented, one may make a copy of that thing for ones own use.
The real issue is commercial viability. Microsoft licenses me to use Excel. GNU licenses me to use gnumeric. I also have some spreadsheet like widgets that I wrote. In general, because of licensing, I will use my own jig, I will not use either Excel or gnumeric -- the terms of both are bad for me. It is similar for the shopowner. A single shop needs a bunch of dovetail jigs. They can buy a bunch of jigs, make a bunch of jigs, or license the jig-jig and make a bunch of jigs. Or they can look at the jig-jig and make their own. There is only one question - "which solution is most cost effective?"
I think this company will find that there is a big difference between coding Autocad or Microsoft Excel from scratch and making a jigjig. A huge difference in basic old fashioned man-hours.
A EULA restriction on a metal lathe because it can be used to make another lathe?
A license agreement on a ruler?
Why should this surprise anyone? But it's illegal anyway. You buy something, you own it and you have the right to use it, abuse it, enjoy it and destroy it. It is yours, the receipt says so, and the person who sold it to you has given up all their rights in respect of it. A licence like that will never stand up in court. It would be a total and utter violation of the Sale of Goods Act. Just report these people to the police and Trading Standards - having someone else prosecuted for a criminal offence is cheaper than defending a civil case which will likely get put on hold anyway once it comes to light that the plaintiff has committed a criminal offence.
The reason you need a licence to operate a television or radio set, for example, is that the "airwaves" do not belong to you - you need permission to receive or transmit a signal. Transmitting equipment usually requires you also to submit to inspection to ensure that it is not causing interference to other people. {If you can prove the equipment is not being used - strictly, if they can't prove that it is being used, but They Are Bigger Than You - you don't need the licence; the authorities might insist that you do something a bit more than unplug it, but any modification that can't be undone without the use of a tool should be fine.}
Whether or not the purpose of the jig is to clone itself is irrelevant. I'm guessing it's a slab of some MDF-like material that you clamp hard against another piece of MDF, and follow the groove using a router*, with a special cutter that has a ball-bearing on the end, the same diameter as the cutting width. This way it produces an exact copy. Chippies have been making things like this ever since routers were invented, so I seriously doubt that a router jig would even be patentable with all that prior art. If you want to cut out kitchen worktops for hobs, sinks &c., you just make a template for each fixture {they are mostly standardised nowadays anyway}. Likewise for stair sides, radiator covers and so forth {if you have to make several identical pieces for one job but you know you'll never need that exact pattern again, you just leave the original on site}.
* router: in this context, not a device for sending ethernet packets to the correct recipient {which would be pronounced "router" rather than "router" anyway}, but a power tool consisting of a powerful series-wound electric motor spinning a sharp-bladed cutter at up to 30000 rpm, and mainly used for creating large quantities of sawdust.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Actually I went and looked at the manufacturer's " User Manual " and at the back there is a form to get a replacement jig if you do break it. It uses a hilarious mixure of boy scout honour system and legalise to ensure that the woodworker isn't breaking the EULA and has actually broken the jig. I don't know if this is an attempt to satisfy the oxymoronic (or should that just be moronic?) licencing agreement or is indicative of Mr. Stots' largesse.
EULA restriction on a new woodworking tool
If there had been a patent for this type of tool, it would have been enough (and ok) to say, in a notice that the customer could see before purchase, that 'purchase of this tool does not carry with it any licence to make tools according to the patent'.
But if there is no patent, then there is no right to restrict public use of the unpatented but pubicly-known technology.
Copyright law doesn't restrict use of technology, e.g. reproducing a 3-d object which is a physical tool. The original tool (presumably no artistic work involved in the tool itself) was not one of the statutory 'works of authorship' in US copyright law.
I don't know anything about woodworking, but there has always been an issue with rubber stamping where you could not sell items that you made with certain rubber stamps.
For example, there are some companies that would not allow you to buy or sell used rubber stamps because it would violate their copyright. In addition, they would not allow you to sell anything that you made with their rubber stamps.
Because of the backlash, some companies became known as "Angel Companies" where they would allow free and open use of their rubber stamps with no limitation. Hmmmm, this sounds kind of familiar, huh?
Other companies are hella harsh with their restrictions, but most small-timers don't care and don't heed to the rules anyway.
So if this company is licensing their designs for woodworking, then maybe there is a case for it. However, it will be almost impossible to enforce, and will just lead to alienating their customers. Overall, it's a stupid, stupid decision on their part, and the best way to combat this is to spread the word to avoid greedy ass, stupid companies like the one in the story.
We are living in a genuinely historic time, the age of legal technology. Now that I've said that, I better do some really fancy footwork.
The law and the individual's rights and privileges under it are among the most ancient artifacts of civilization. It is also something which evolves as a society evolves with tending towards egalitarianism in properous western democracies (the heavenly light shines from above on America...), that is, laws that take away freedom of action or that provide one person or group with advantages over others tend to be struck down or superceded by laws that create balance and that protect rights.
In a sense, you could say that some of the most far-reaching and most beautiful laws are the solutions to arguments that arise from logical problems. For example, once we had slavery, the preamble to the constitution cannot have meaning in a country that practices slavery. The argument arose and it was solved by an amendment to the constitution which clarified the argument completely: if all men are created equal, no man can be another's property. Human rights trump property rights. Slavery is illegal and slave-owners are S.O.L with regard to their property rights pertaining to their slaves. That makes sense.
At least that is how it worked in the old days.
Now, in the post-industrial age of television and the megacorporation, lobbying money and a just a smidgen of public stupidity create an opportunity for organizations to create agreements which function as devices to generate a planned result in much the same way that the parts of a transistor radio work together to produce access to the airwaves.
Laws like the ones that make the EULA possible are a technology--not one for establishing socially useful principles, but for circumventing and mutating contract law so that instead of providing a level playing field between buyer and producer, the law provides for the end-user signing away all his rights to legal rememdies by buying a thing and using it.
EULAs do nothing to protect the consumer. Nothing whatsoever. They are the legal equivalent of a booby-trap: you open the box, you open the envelope, you install the software, click on the box and BANG! according to the law, you've agreed to conditions that would have to be insane to agree to under any other circumstances.
If you don't believe this, consider the enormous tire recall of the last year or two and imagine what things would be like if the tire companies involved had had a EULA at their disposal:
'by breaking or cutting the ribbon on these tires, you agree that their purpose is purely decorative and that they have no function and no warranty, explicit or implied for any use but decoration of your vehicle...'
You can't sign away your personal freedom. You can't read a document, sign it, and become an indentured servant with no rights, but you can sign a EULA and let a company do whatever it likes to you with its neglicence.
The EULA is a device to give software makers the ability to treat software buyers like cattle. It is a prime example of how people make laws when they don't give a damn about the society that rises from them.
To mail me, remove the 'mailno' from my email addy.
"Yeah. It smells, too..."
"These condoms may only be used for hetersexual sex in the Classic Missionary position. We reserve the right to monitor and record any and all incidences of use for compliance. For more information on our privacy policy..."
"These fertility drugs may only be used to produce intelligent children. Producing stupid children violates the terms of this agreement. This agreement can be terminated by either party without notice. Upon termination, all children and remaining medicinal doses must be immediately destroyed or returned to the manufacturer..."
=====
"Common sense will be the death of us all"
What they are doing differently, is to try to protect or enlarge their niche market by using EULA to prevent you from becoming one of their competitors, i.e. somebody who'd give away a free copy, or sell it even.
IANAL but I have my doubts about the enforcebility of such licenses, especially if there's no "click" on install to prove you alledgedly even knew there *was* a license. Also, they'd have a hell of an enforcement issue proving a copy of a public domain template came from their product.
A Dutch judge has already ruled that 'shrink wrap licenses' have no legal value whatsoever. So in The Netherlands we can just happily click the "Agree" button without suffering the consequences.
Thus, breaking the seal of a software package does NOT imply that you agree with the license agreement printed on it. That goes for any product, not just sofware.
Maybe we ought to export these tools to the Netherlands (or China...), unwrap them an re-sell them to the US. They'll be more expensive, but totally license free.
Musicians don't die. They just decompose.
Have you ever had a birthday at a restaurant where they gather around and sing to you during your meal (i.e., premeditated by a friend calling the restaurant ahead of time and telling them it is your birthday)?
A while back, I couldn't figure out why they often sing a proprietary, stoooooopid-sounding song that usually features clapping hands and minimum wage workers sounding less-than-enthusiastic. Plus, no one else knows the song and they can't participate. Why not just sing "Happy Birthday"? Everyone knows it and can participate in it.
That's the reason. You have to license it and it costs money for each performance.
I am actually a seed producer here in the US. On Monsanto's Roundup-Ready Soybeans, we, as a producer, must pay royalties to get into RR's in the first place. Then prices are higher for them to the seed customer (around $20/50 lb.) due to about $10 in tech fees (about $7 goes to Monsanto per 50/lb.) which we send to them. Every customer must sign an agreement (essentially EULA) which establishes that they will not reclaim GMO seeds for planting, farmers must instead go through a seed company, like us, so they pay the royalties. For signing the agreement, every farmer gets a Monsanto #, which keeps track of purchases year to year. We, as a seed processing company (a small one at that), get audited by Monsanto every so often. They check our farm records, and make sure RR seed we sold to farmers was in fact sprayed with Round-up and not a generic brand. They will also take samples of our seed to determine its generation in its genetics, so they check that we are not pirating their seed. If we were, they threaten fines of over $500/acre of produced soybeans (which is enough to bankrupt most farms).
Eat a Chicken, You know you want to.
Percy Schmeiser's web site. Percy Schmeiser is a farmer from Bruno, Saskatchewan Canada whose Canola fields were contaminated with Monsanto's Round-Up Ready Canola. Since he uses his own crops for seeds, and Monsanto's GM seeds are patented, Monsanto's position is that it doesn't matter whether Schmeiser knew or not that his canola field was contaminated with the Roundup Ready gene and that he must pay their Technology Fee.
You are surrounded by lawyers. Resistance is futile.
In Soviet Russia, our new overlords are belong to all your base.
This seems to be more of a gray area than, say, a car, and yet not quite like the "content" of a CD or DVD.
It's a device meant to produce jigs, apparently. So it's a tool designed for creating items. Now, the way I look at it, these absolutely stupid licensing restrictions have a solution, much like the stupid licensing of compilers way back when. Some of you older folks out there might remember a time when you'd buy a C compiler (for example). You'd have to give the company that wrote the compiler royalties on every product sold that was created with that compiler. It's true. Screw open source, man.
Then along came GCC. Sure, you needed the commercial compiler to compile GCC, so that version of GCC you created was restricted (legally). Then we point out the stupidity of the licensing scheme - recompile GCC with the GCC you just created, and the new GCC is not restricted. Most software companies then saw the stupidity of this kind of licensing and licensed their products with a new kind of less restrictive license. Now I can't think of any, offhand, that don't simply allow you to compile and sell your program.
Having dabbled in wood working myself (although not having made any dovedail joints), it seems to me if you have a jig to make dovedail joints you can use it to make another restriction free jig. Use the original jig to make a jig, then use the new jig to make a jig, and viola, no stupid restrictions.
It may not be as simple as recompiling GCC (because the jig creates a dovetail creating jig, not another jig that creates a dovetail creating jig), but if I was annoyed, that's what I'd do.
Really, though, it just points out the stupidity of this kind of licensing. I find it hard to believe there aren't any other jigs with less stupid restrictions.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
If they want to rent or lease out the item fine.. let them do so and call it a rental or a lease. And let them try to "rent" stuff to their customers. But if they are selling a tangible physical item for a one-time fee they are SOL as far as enforcing that EULA goes.
Hell, courts have even overturned some software EULA restrictions on reselling or giving away software which was originally bundled with a PC. So don't think a judge will be all too keen on enforcing these restrictions. The guy paid for it and if he wants to give it away or sell it I don't think there is a heck of a lot the company can do to stop him.
If he had been dumb enough to sign a rental agreement or lease when he got his jig master.. THEN they would have some say. They know they wouldn't sell any jigs if they required the buyers to sign a rental agreement. This EULA is just an attempt to get the benefits of renting to customers without the damage it would do to their sales.
Just don't buy from them. The rest of the tool manufacturers will get the message. Woodworkers are not a dumb sheep bunch like the typical PC user. I have been woodworking for years now. These people will not sit by and let someone do this. They are used to building / fabricating their own tools if need be. This will flop, mark my words.
There is a canadian farmer being sued by montsanto for have a crop contaminated by montsanto's seed stock. Montsanto actualy tresspassed onto the guys property, stole seeds from his crop for genetic testing and later sued him for have a field that was 20% contaminated.
OBTW, heirloom seeds are big business, seed prodicers will pay big busks for them; the undomesticated corn is probably worth millions.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
We need a service whereby illiterate people open all our software for us. In such a case, they cannot claim that we agreed to the license, nor could our agents as they cannot read ;-)
-------- -------- Support Wesley Clark for president!!!
Every customer must sign an agreement (essentially EULA) which establishes that they will not reclaim GMO seeds for planting, farmers must instead go through a seed company, like us, so they pay the royalties.
The difference between this and the "EULA"s in the article is that these are legally binding - they're presented before the sale, and they're signed by the purchaser.
I'm not saying it's right or wrong, just that the Monsanto contracts are legally binding.
There's been a lot of ranting about whether this is legal or not.
Well, it might be, depending on how it is presented. See my EULA FAQ for details.
>You can't redistribute copyrighted works without
>the author's permission.
You *can* infact re-sell used books.
You *can* infact re-sell used CD's.
and you sure as hell, can resell a real-world tool, like a hammer, or whatever this gettin'jiggy-with-it thing is.
you can not reproduce copyrighted works, and sell those derivatives.
this manufacturer doesnt have a legal leg to stand on.
... hi bingo
For example, once we had slavery, the preamble to the constitution cannot have meaning in a country that practices slavery. The argument arose and it was solved by an amendment to the constitution which clarified the argument completely: if all men are created equal, no man can be another's property.
This misrepresents both the logical argument and the amendment.
The logical argument from "all men are created equal [before the law]" does not lead to "No man can be another's property." Instead it leads to "No man can be BORN another's property." Eliminating HEREDITARY slavery is a major step but not a total elimination.
The amendment, as well, doesn't ban slavery either. It bans slavery "except as punishment for a crime". This goes beyond banning hereditary slavery, also banning temporary or permanent voluntary slavery (chosing now to lose ALL choices later) and slavery to repay civil judgements (debtor's prison, indenture). Only a criminal judgement can lead to involuntary servitude.
Of course this puts intstitutions like the draft in an interesting position. Ditto irrevocable powers of attorney. (And certain kinky entertainments, if performed without a bailout mechanism, can lead to both criminal and civil liability if the kinkee doesn't like how the kinker kinked.)
As to the amendment being passed to "solve the argument", it was actually passed for a much different reason: As a tactic by the US Federal Government to weaken the Confederate States of America during the "Civil War/War Between the States". The issue in THAT war was the right to secession (as Linconl made perfectly clear when he said that he'd free all, some, or none of the salves, whichever was necessary to save the Union). Slavery was constitutionally banned (except in limited circumstances) as a byproduct.
(Of course, some states explicitly go beyond the Constitution's provisions.)
Human rights trump property rights.
Property rights ARE human rights - the rights of humans to own and control pieces of property, regardless of the wishes of the non-owners. The constitutional limitation on slavery in the US, along with its current interpretation and the lack of laws establishing marketable slaveownership as a criminal penalty, just says that humans are excluded from the category of "property" over which other (non-governmental) humans can exercise rights.
Slavery is illegal and slave-owners are S.O.L with regard to their property rights pertaining to their slaves.
Yep.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
one should not reasonably expect to make a living selling a product who's purpose is to replicate itself
I was thinking about dabbling in the slave trade, but you've persuaded me otherwise...
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
Why shouldn't companies be able to charge different amounts for different licensing terms? If I am selling a product to a wide range of customers -- from weekend hobbyists to wealthy Fortune 500 companies -- I would like to create a price structure that matches the price to the product's value for each customer. I would like to charge a lower price to the hobbyists and a higher price to the Fortune 500 professionals. Unless I make a low-quality version, the difference between the products sold to these polar-opposite customers will be in the licensing terms. The amateur gets a product with a restrictive "non-professional use only" terms and the big company gets an "unrestricted" or "royalty-per-use" license. In both cases, the customers pay a different price because they get something of different value.
The "everyone-pays-the-same-price-no-restrictions" model is not that good an idea, especialy for the hobbyists. People may gripe about having to pay a different price for what they consider the same product or gripe about stupid licensing terms, but a differentiated price structure provide benefits to the low-end. Without some way to differentiate the product between amateur and professional use, the company would need to charge the same price to everyone. This price would be higher than that charged to the "restricted-use" customers and would make the product less affordable to hobbyists.
I may not like that some products come with restrictions, but I understand why companies do this and how it maximizes the number of people that can afford to buy the product.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
a jig is a tool used to help in the wood working process. most woodworkers make custom jigs for their own use for certain types of projects that they do over and over. i'm sure most serious woodworkers have made their own jigs for dove-tailed joints. this product seems like a stupid way to make money off of newer woodworkers so they can save some time. the cost is appalling. it looks like a little piece of crap thing.
please me, have no regrets.
Obviously you don't know what a contract is.
In order to form a contract, there are several necessary elements that are lacking here. There must be an agreement. From reading the link, and the links beyond that, there seems to be no agreement, only a unilateral statement from the company posing as one. Also consideration - this means that there has to be an exchange of goods or services, both parties must receive something or it is not a contract. In this case, there is no consideration. The person supposedly accepting the contract has already bought the jig, and the contract gives him nothing new - it only takes away things he already had.
To make a contract of this, at minimum the customer would have to indicate assent in some way, after having read the terms of the 'agreement' (and no, keeping and using the item he already paid for does not suffice to show assent) and also to receive some consideration for such assent. They could, for instance, offer a rebate to those who signed the contract and returned it, and then they would have a contract (and also be open to a deceptive advertising charge if they were not clear on the terms upfront.) But this? This is nothing but a piece of paper which makes a lot of unsupported claims. Use it as toiletpaper.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
I've been looking to buy one of these soon, as it turns out.
TemplateMaster isn't a jig in the usual sense. It's a jig to make jigs. The problem with most jigs of this type (dovetailing, etc.) is that you tend to make a lot of passes with a powerful tool (a router) and sooner or later you'll screw up and route the shit out of your jig. When your jig costs $600, you're gonna be pretty pissed.
TemplateMaster lets you build jigs out of cheap materials and then use *those* until they wear out or you screw up. Then build a new one. The likelihood you'll ruin your TemplateMaster is much less since you really don't use it that often.
The problem is that you can use the TemplateMaster to make jigs out of substantial materials like aluminum that are viable for resale. Now, that's generally not a big issue - there are lots of products like that in the world - but if you make a product for production, you charge a hell of a lot of money for it since you know it'll have a limited market. This is designed for consumers and is actually very inexpensive even compared to other consumer jigs.
The mfgr is in a catch-22. He's made a product for consumers, but if it's picked up for production usage, it can seriously undermine his business.
Personally, I think he's going the wrong way with this. He *should* be making his own jigs from the TemplateMaster and selling those (in addition to the TemplateMaster), and use existing laws to block other manufacturers from making and selling identical products. Even if they don't sell, their existance should protect him, and who knows, maybe they will sell...
> The difference between this and the "EULA"s in the article is that these are legally binding - they're presented before the sale, and they're signed by the purchaser.
What about people who claim it blew onto their property?
Why shouldn't companies be able to charge different amounts for different licensing terms?
They are, but this product is not licensed, it is sold.
I would like to create a price structure that matches the price to the product's value for each customer.
Yes you would - this would optimize your revenue. However, you have no right to expect the governemnt to exert special effort to help you do this.
I may not like that some products come with restrictions, but I understand why companies do this and how it maximizes the number of people that can afford to buy the product.
This is only a secondary effect - the main reason for a price structure is to maximise profit.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
Hypothetical querstion...
Soybeans exist as the seed itself. To grow soybeans, you plany soybeans, correct?
So, what stops me from buying "food" and simply planting it? Yeah, you mentioned that they make the seeds infertile, but that will have some fallout rate, such that the second gen might only get a few plants, but most of the third gen seeds will remain viable.
In that situation, I have not signed a contract with you, with Monsanto, not even with the farmer (I'll starve to death before I sign a contract for a package of edamame).
So, as the end user, with no contract to restrict my use of the "food" I buy, what stops me from simply using these seeds to grow crops? The way I see it, Monsanto can enforce their terms only because of contracts throughout the entire chain of production. What closes this seemingly trivial loophole?
Re: still the same product:
Actually, the license makes this untrue to the extent that the license is a binding contract. It is said that nobody "wants to buy a drill, they want to buy a set of holes" In the case of this product, the seller is selling the right for one person to make certain wood products for their own use. Perhaps the company should offer two versions of the product, a cheap "single user" model and a more expensive "neighborhood" model. Then people could choose which license made sense and not feel they were unilaterally prohibited from lending the product to their friends.
Re: advocating subsidies or making more money of some people
Yes, those are two ways to look at it. You could also look at it as the high-paying group paying for the up-front capital costs, and the low-paying group only paying the recurring costs (this is what happens in airline revenue management systems). The variable price model seems to create unfair opportunities for the seller to profit. But the fixed price model creates unfair opportunities for customers to profit. I would argue that a professional cabinet-making shop profits more from a jig than does a weekend hobbyist. The difference between the retail price and the value (the higher price one would be willing to pay) is the extra profit the buyer gets if they get it for less.
Re: most products sold at a fixed price:
This is only seems true in the world of consumer retail goods. It is not true with EBay, car dealers, airlines, stock markets, commodities markets, or in industrial sales. It's not even that true around the world -- haggling is still alive and well. Now that I think of it, its not even as true in retail anymore since retailers can quickly change the prices of goods to differentiate between customers willing buy now or wait til later (just watch how gasoline prices vary across the weekdays if you don't believe me). Worldwide and across the economy, I would argue that most products are sold with some value-of-usage differentiation in the final stages of pricing.
Re: scalpers
I have no problem with scalpers since they seem to be an artifact of the flawed fixed-price system. Worse, the illegality of scalping creates a lack of transparency in the market that actually conspires to create those outrageous prices. Personally, I'd advocate a periodic Dutch auction process for primary sales with a bid-ask secondary market, but that's just me.
The real issue is: should prices be determined by the cost-of-production (i.e. fixed profit margins for the seller) or the value-of-usage (i.e. fixed profit margins for the buyer)?
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.