Slashdot Mirror
All Emulation is Illegal
jvalenzu writes "Matt Matthews is at it again! The venerable owner of curmudgeongamer.com has posted his latest missive, All Emulation is Illegal." From the article: "Now, if this is how we interpret the law, then practically every use of a videogame system emulator is illegal. Even a user who dumps the contents of a videogame cartridge for an Atari 2600 game he owns to a ROM file cannot use that ROM file with an emulator unless the original's loss requires resorting to the archival copy. If true, then even my attempt to stay legal by buying games and only then using an emulator to play them is way out of bounds."
Well, that seems rather straightforward and restrictive. That [rom] file is for archival purposes only. Unless the definition is more flexible than it appears, that means the owner of an original may make a a copy and that copy cannot be used unless the original is destroyed or damaged. (Perhaps even that is reading too much into it?) So as long as you have an original, that copy should be sitting somewhere safe until needed to replace the original, should that event ever arise.
The law in question:
Basically, if you interpret "archival purposes" as "keeping it unused until your original breaks down and dies," then all emulation is legal.
However, that's a bunch of crap. I have a giant archive of files on my computer--it's called a filesystem. Anyone ever go to a library and check out their periodical archives? You don't have to wait untel every copy of a given newspaper is destroyed to use it.
Slashdot: Where people pretend to be twice as smart as they really are by behaving like children.
I think he'll be interested to hear that he's "at it again."
The article author hypothesises around an example where he owns a copy of a C-64 game, and whether or not it's legal to run said copy under emulation. He thinks this is illegal, due to the following US (I presume) legislation:
" (a) Making of Additional Copy or Adaptation by Owner of Copy.-- Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106, it is not an infringement for the owner of a copy of a computer program to make or authorize the making of another copy or adaptation of that computer program provided:
(1) that such a new copy or adaptation is created as an essential step in the utilization of the computer program in conjunction with a machine and that it is used in no other manner, or
(2) that such new copy or adaptation is for archival purposes only and that all archival copies are destroyed in the event that continued possession of the computer program should cease to be rightful.
The bold text is his emphasis.
He seems to have missed provision (1) entirely!
If you live under DMCA rule, just claim your C-64, your Datassette, or your 1541 floppydisk drive are broken...
Help savingAmigaOS and a free PowerPC market
(a) Making of Additional Copy or Adaptation by Owner of Copy.-- Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106, it is not an infringement for the owner of a copy of a computer program to make or authorize the making of another copy or adaptation of that computer program provided:
(1) that such a new copy or adaptation is created as an essential step in the utilization of the computer program in conjunction with a machine and that it is used in no other manner, or
(2) that such new copy or adaptation is for archival purposes only and that all archival copies are destroyed in the event that continued possession of the computer program should cease to be rightful. (emphasis from the article)
Ok, so why can't it be under section 1? Making the copy of the game is essential since I no longer own a Commodore 64, NES, SNES or whatever, even though the games are all sitting on the shelf behind me.
I've been screwed since I learned how to download roms 9 years ago....
so what about vm ware and also the new breed of IBM-Apple chips for blade servers?
Remember there isn't any world law, therefore only the country you reside in makes the rules for you. No one else.
Well, buy a game, create a copy then destroy de original, or just scratch the cd to make it unusable...
Finally you are using a legal copy...
You do not own the movie/music/game you buy. You pay for the right to use. Essentially a limited non-transferable (is some cases) license. Which are most cases is specific to individual package.... i.e. if I own the star wars dvd's that does not give me the right to download the xvid versions.
It's bs, but that's how you can get the best-bang-for the buck if your a media company.
Try this analogy : If all newspaper and printed documents were under this same law, you would not be allowed to use any back up copy unless all original copies were destroyed. By that logic, we should be passing the original copy of the Declaration of Independence since we would not be allowed to use any copy of it as long as the original existed. Not very logical is it?
Emulation is wrong. It hurts the industry. I mean, if everyone is downloading Skate or Die! for the Commodore 64, how will the developers make any money??
So I can dump my carts to disk then have a big ole bonfire with them and play the copies legally. Or just throw them in the trash.
My personal belief is that if the respective game creator no longer makes money from my purchase of the game, I have no problem using an emulated version. Case in point: Let's say I want to play EVO, one of the only Super Nintendo RPG's I didn't buy when the system was new. Where do I get it? I can buy it used at Gamestop or GameCrazy, but Nintendo nor the publisher profits from that, just the huge corporate game company. I could buy it on eBay, but again, neither the developer nor publisher profits off of that, just the private seller and eBay. In cases such as this, it has no effect on the platform owner, the developer, or the publisher whether I download the emulated version or buy the copy used from someone else.
Several others have pointed out that all you have to do is claim that your original system broke down and you're in the clear, but I'm going to take it to the next level.
Emulator writers are also in no danger because the emulators themselves have a huge number of legitimate uses. The law already covered this issue many, many times with the Xerox ruling about photocopiers and the Betamax ruling about time-shifting.
Furhtermore the bit about emulators "[making] use of a copyrighted BIOS or kernal(sic)" smacks of technical and legal ignorance. Unless the emulator writer literally copies the bits or precise algorithms, it's not an issue at all - and that's highly unlikely since many changes have to be made in order to accomodate another platform. But assume that the emulator writer did package an exact bitwise copy of a copyrighted component - they're probably still covered under the derivative works section of fair use: it's a translation making the work accessible when it would otherwise not be.
Emulation itself is logically not criminal - especially since there are so many valid uses for it - so twisting the law to make it illegal is idiotic. Even if it were the case that it is illegal under current law, that wouldn't last long under any half-assed challenge.
It's hard to soar like an eagle when you're surrounded by turkeys.
Its attempts to emulate a complete, stable OS have not reached fruition yet. Nothing to worry about for now.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
When you purchase a dvd, you don't purchase a license. You purchase and own THAT PARTICULAR COPY of the movie in THAT PARTICULAR FORMAT. Unfortunately, you don't also purchase the right to create a copy from your own copy (except for archival purposes). That right is reserved for the copyright holder.
If emulation is illegal, then why did Nintendo release the Classic NES series, which is nothing more than an emulator running NES ROMs.
Surely an archive copy is legally usable if the original is beyond repair - otherwise what's the point of having it (as the law allows you to do)?
This would mean you can legally use emulation if you own the orginal rom (floppy/CD/etc.) and it's broken beyond reasonable repair.
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
What if the rom is a reverse engineer? Ive seen copies of Mario World for the ti89 that dont look to be complete rips of the original rom from the GameBoy cart. It looks like some geek sitting in the back of his CS class decided to recode the damn thing in assembly. I could be wrong about the geek, the class, and the language, but its definately a recode and not a straight copy. How would the law interpret this?
Back in the early days of the computer market (the 50's, in this case), IBM had some serious problems. Basically, they would come out with new mainframe models every couple years or so -- but the architecture was so radically different from the previous generation that it couldn't run the previous generation's software (this was before they got the whole "backwards compatibility" concept). Recompiling also wasn't much of an option because most of the software written back then was done in assembly -- and even in the few cases where it was written in Fortran or something, the hardware, OSes (as primitive as they were back then), etc., were so radically different that a simple recompile wouldn't do either.
Their solution? Emulation. When you bought a new IBM mainframe, you could also acquire an emulator for the previous generation's equipment so you can continue to run your old stuff. Given as how storage technologies, etc., were also changing as fast as the CPU architectures, you would also essentially be running the emulated software off of the equivilent of "ROM archives."
There wasn't a problem with this back then, and I don't see why there should be a problem with this now.
I mean, last I checked the process of reverse-engineering closed systems was illegal, therefore creating an emulator of a video game system is by definition illegal. I mean, I understand the article (which is focused on the games rather than the consoles themselves), but isn't it also illegal to have created the emulator in the first place?
The only exception to this would be in a situation where the rights holder to the hardware/firmware releases said specifications and code into the public domain... to the best of my knowledge there aren't any console manufacturers that have done that. And no "abandonware" doesn't count since technically the rights of the originator still apply even if the originator does not still exist as a formal entity (for example Commodore; the rights to the C64 hardware and firmware still exist but reside in the hands of others).
I didn't think this wasn't already common knowledge.
Ive owned a crap load of Amstrad CPC, SNES, and PS1 games but 99% of them were broke/dumped/lost.
DO I have the right to get the ROM? I did own the games afterall.
Hypothesise a single game released for, say, the C64, that has been released into the public domain. Run that. There you go, an example that shows all emulation is not illegal.
Warning sign one: No one gives a rat's ass about chapters in title 17. Sometimes people do (e.g. Chapter 11 bankruptcy) but not here. Likewise, people usually don't say 'title' unless they mean the entire thing (e.g. federal copyright law is chiefly codified in title 17).
The cite anyone familiar with copyright law would provide would be 17 U.S.C. 117. Getting basic stuff like this wrong is a bad sign.
Moving on, he has skipped -- though he took the trouble to quote -- an important clause in the section.
Taking this into account, we can say that:
So the checklist is pretty simple:
* Do you own a copy of the program? (EULAs may interfere with this, which is one of the reasons they're really intolerable) N.b. that some people misread owning a copy as owning a copyright. But that would be asinine as a copyright holder cannot infringe on his own copyright at all. It's as impossible as stealing something from yourself.
* Is the computer program being utilized in conjunction with a machine? Yes, if we're going to run it in an emulator.
* Are any reproductions or adaptations of the program you make only made as an essential step in running it in the emulator? Yes. Essential here doesn't really mean that there is no alternative, but rather that it's not utterly superfluous. I.e. merely because you might be able to run a program without reproducing it to the hard drive, but rather reproducing from CD straight to RAM, you aren't obligated to.
So what's the upshot for emulator writers? Well, I would worry about contributory copyright infringement, the type of legal challenge that all the Peer-to-Peer applications have had to deal with
I would generally not worry about that. To escape contributory infringement on the basis of a capability of a technology, one need only demonstrate potential, significant, noninfringing uses. Since there are plenty of programs that can be run in emulation which are authorized to be so run, in the public domain, or run by copyright holders themselves, that's likely sufficient. And even that presupposes that the guy is right, and he's not.
The backup/archival copy exception is a very narrow limitation relating to a copy being made by the rightful owner of an authentic game to ensure he or she has one in the event of damage or destruction of the authentic. Therefore, whether you have an authentic game or not, or whether you have possession of a Nintendo ROM for a limited amount of time, i.e. 24 hours, it is illegal to download and play a Nintendo ROM from the Internet.
This is roughly correct. First, note that Nintendo's statement applies to the backup provision of 117 -- 117(a)(2). We've been looking at 117(a)(1), which concerns itself with running software, not backing it up.
Second, I would disagree that backups lawfully made pursuant to 117(a)(2) can only be used when the original cannot be used.
The exclusive rights of the copyright holder are in 106. The relevant one is reproduction (i.e. making a new copy, given the special definition of 'copy' in 101). Use -- as distinguished from reproduction -- is not covered, and therefore not infringing. A caveat, however, in that a use that involves a reproduction is infringing on the basis of the reproduction; this is why we need 117, since moving things into hard drives or RAM is reproduction.
The statute allows archival copies to be made if they are only for archival purposes, but this only makes sense if they can at some point be acti
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
According to the guy's logic, then this should be illegal too:
Buy an original copy.
Make a copy.
Archive the original
Use the copy until it wears out.
Make another copy from the archived original.
Use that until it wears out.
Etc.
After all, it is pretty well known that the average person cannot make a copy that is as high-quality as the original. (CD-rot seldom happens to originals, just to CDRs, see?). So, if I use the original, and it suffers wear and tear, then how can I be sure that my archived copy is really going to save my bacon when needed? While archiving the original practically guarantees it!
Anyway, if the preceding is illegal, then we need a new law!!!
what about wine then? :)
Ah, i forgot, wine is not an emulator
There was a case where Company A had a software product and also provided support for it for a fee. Company B started providing support for Company A's software product as well. One year, let's say 1987, Company A stopped "selling" the software to their customers and started "licensing" it instead. The court found that Company B was violating Company A's copyright just by loading the programs into memory to provide support for their customers, but only for the customers that purchased a license after 1987. Company B could still provide support for customers that had originally "bought" the software prior to 1987.
(a) Making of Additional Copy or Adaptation by Owner of Copy.-- Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106, it is not an infringement for the owner of a copy of a computer program to make or authorize the making of another copy or adaptation of that computer program provided: (1) that such a new copy or adaptation is created as an essential step in the utilization of the computer program in conjunction with a machine and that it is used in no other manner, or (2) that such new copy or adaptation is for archival purposes only and that all archival copies are destroyed in the event that continued
Clearly, the copy is able to be modified to play on an emulator or it can be archived, nothing else. In fact if the original gets destroyed, it could be argued that you no longer have a right to use the copy, because you may not have a legal right to owning the original anymore. There is something to be said about critical thinknig courses.
...
The copyright holder for the Vectrex arcade game hardware and the various games which were released on cartridges has explicitly allowed its user community to create emulators for that hardware and run copied images of that software as long as the emulation is not done for profit.
Because of this, Vectrex emulators are perfectly legal, and it is legal to copy the ROM images and play them in a Vectrex emulator on a PC.
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
This is pretty much the news-article equivalent of a troll, right?
Okay. Real content. We all know when we break the law. Some choose to do so, and some choose not to break the law. It's not like these anti-copying notices and end user license agreements (EULAs) are written in some foreign language. They're written in English, and distributed with each copy of the game, and even the system. If you want to copy a game, you know whether it's legal. "Desired by the manufacturer" and "Legal" are NOT THE SAME. If you do something that makes the manufacturer frown, boo hoo. If you do something illegal, shame on you. Illegal things are illegal whether you get caught or not, and copying some software you don't own and distributing it *against its EULA* is in fact illegal.
It is legal to make something that works like something else. Suppose you wanted to make your own blenders, and sell them. Go ahead. You can do that. However, you may need to work around existing patents when it comes to the gray areas where our patent system doesn't know how to deal properly with electronics and software. From what I've seen, all that's been patented is hardware that does this and that, not software algorithms to do the same thing. Making an emulator is not a crime, right? Well, if you make it for the purpose of stealing money from the emulatee, that's obviously wrong. But I don't think that's the idea behind most emulators. I think the crew made ZSNES (for example) for a fun project, and also so they could play their games on their computers instead of on the television.
I think it's already been established that downloading copyrighted material without an agreement between yourself and the owner of the material is illegal.
Why write more inflamatory articles about it? Just to have all the discussion massage the old ego? "Oh, look, I wrote and 100,000 people talked about it! I am the MAN!!!"
Can we please not encourage these authors to write what's already been written?
Thanks for the info. Also, might be worth it to mention that not all emulation requires a backup copy. For example my PC reads Playstation disks fine, so I never need to use a backup to run the game on an emulator. This completely removes the code he mentions from any consideration in the legality of all emulation.
But since you have to create a new copy in RAM in order to play it, you are in fact relying on 17 USC 117(a)(1). So it's certainly a section worth discussion.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
I don't think most Playstation emulators cache the entire disc to RAM. This would be pretty unnecessary (and probably require something like 1+ GB of RAM), especially since most of the content on the discs that takes up any real amount of space is the audio and video stuff, which is usually streaming as the game plays.
When you look at the state of the world, how can you not become a radical, liberal anarchist?
Doesn't have to be the entire thing, and it doesn't have to be there any longer than it takes to merely reproduce it further or let people directly or indirectly perceive it.
The leading case on reproducing to RAM being potentially infringing is MAI v. Peak. You might want to google for it and give it a read. It's kind of bizarre, but it is widely followed.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
If Playstations are legal to operate, than emulators are, in that regard.
And he already mentioned the exception: Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106, it is not an infringement for the owner of a copy of a computer program to make or authorize the making of another copy or adaptation of that computer program provided that such a new copy or adaptation is created as an essential step in the utilization of the computer program in conjunction with a machine and that it is used in no other manner.
Computer programs can be copied as much as needed to be used, as long as you don't use said copies in any other manner. (1) This has been law for over a decade now. I'm really tired of people still operating in 1972 or whenever. We don't need 'permission' to run computer programs.
1) Okay, that is a bit weird. How would you use a computer program in a manner that is different from 'utilization of the computer program'? Someone got their wires crossed while writing that. Maybe you could use a computer program as an encryption key, and it would not be legal to use the aforementioned memory copies for that. ;)
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Well, the curmudegon article does a bang up job introducing you to the legal theory of 2000. Fortunately, nothings changed. But he fails to make ANY argument as to how ALL emulation is Illegal. To do so would require a proof that Nintendo's own emu's offered to developers were themselves illegal (they arent) or a less pedantic argument that emulators themselves are illegal without the permission of the important parties (generally the court cases have shown this to not be true). I think the author would have been more correct in saying "all commercial ROMs are illegal (without explicit permission)". Writing and using emulators for the sake of writing software for the platforms (often done for cost or effiency) is a whole 'nother can and is also actively pursued by some emulation enthusiasts.
I Browse at +4 Flamebait
Open Source Sysadmin
does it say you can't download? I thought it said you couldn't upload.....
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Um, and Playstations copy it to RAM also.
I know. It's one of those glaring problems with copyright law these days. Playing a Playstation game in a Playstation is infringing too unless one of several things apply: The game is in the public domain; permission is given (expressly or implicitly) to do so; 117 applies, or; 107 applies.
As a rule you can expect that the latter three apply for playing a console game on the console it's made for.
The permission angle is a little tougher with emulators, but we still have 117 and 107 and between them they basically cover it.
We don't need 'permission' to run computer programs.
I'm afraid you do. Unless you can run it without reproducing it, the reproduction is infringing unless any of the factors listed above apply. (or you hold the copyright of course, since you can't infringe against yourself) One of those is if the copyright holder has authorized you to reproduce it.
You should really read MAI v. Peak. (finding that running a program was illegal) And then maybe Intellectual Reserve v. Utah Lighthouse Ministry. (finding that looking at a web site was illegal)
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
I've never seen a console game that even pretends to be licensed. (And EULAs are pretend licenses that won't hold up in court.)
And the other didn't involve a computer program, so no exception.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Section 117 of copyright laws says the owner of the copy has a right to make any copies they need to run it, and Peak was not the owner, but merely a contractor hired by the licensee.
Yes, and? MAI stands for the proposition that reproductions to RAM are infringing unless one of the previously mentioned factors applies.
You're saying that MAI's licensee had a factor going for it (it was authorized) but that Peak didn't (it wasn't authorized, 117 didn't shield it, 107 either didn't shield it or wasn't alleged, and the work was copyrighted).
If a console game is not licensed -- and I agree there -- then the owner of the game is EXACTLY the same boat as Peak was. One of these conditions needs to be satisfied, or running the game will result in infringement. Since all but the public domain condition seem to apply, the owner is all set. (the permission needn't be in a formal license, you know; it could be inferred from conduct, such as selling people the damn game)
Why are you arguing over something we seem to agree on?
(And EULAs are pretend licenses that won't hold up in court.)
Read the ProCD case?
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
It seems to me that if you interpret "for the purpose of execution only" in the very strictest sense, the copy in memory that you are allowed to make for execution cannot then be stored to another more permanent medium. You can only execute the copy, you can't store it.
Alternately, you can make a backup copy, as long as it doesn't pass through memory on its way from one medium to the other...
If you take this logic to its ultimate extreme, storing a program in virtual memory is illegal unless the size of the program is larger than the size of the physical memory in the machine.
If any part of a program resident in memory is temporarily flushed to the hard drive, it would be an extra copy that wasn't just a static archival copy and also isn't strictly required to run the code.
This also means that suspend to disk is illegal, since you aren't actually executing the copy of the software stored on in the suspend partition and your original copy of the software is still intact when you resume and start using the data from the suspend partition.
Clearly this law is obsolete. You can't use a modern operating system without automatically violating it.
I took that to mean i had to sharpen the edges of my backup dvd's and throw them at people
bah!*@%!
While I always prefer the real thing to emulation, we emulation of any game console that I have come across tends to be inaccurate, incomplete, and buggy compared to the real thing... emulation is in no way illegal or wrong. If there was something wrong with it, you can bet Nintendo would have sued more emulator authors, and Sony would have won all of their anti-emulator suits.
If emulation was illegal, then your "IBM compatible" PC would also be illegal. Dell, Compaq, etc... would all never have existed and we would all be running expensive $5000 Macs.
Sorry, but for example I play all my Playstation games in an emulator, right off the original CDs. There is _no_ ROM image involved, and there is _no_ copying the data off the CD involved.
Furthermore, just for the sake of beating on the obvious fallacy some more: even for SNES or GBA games, it would be trivial to make a connector (or a gamepad with a connector) so you can run games directly off the original cartridge. Just plug it in, and run the game off it. No copying or ROMs involved. Dunno if it's been done, but it would be trivial to do it, if there was a market for it.
So, no, emulation is _not_ a synonim for "ROMs downloaded off some warez site." They are completely different things, and completely different issues.
What the law might or might not say, is that you're not allowed to play off a ROM image if your old console still works. It also _does_ say is that you can't rip your games and offer them for download over the Internet. Sorry, that's not _one_ copy, that's not for personal use, it is not for archival, and sure as heck leaves you with no way to erase all copies downloaded when you get rid of the cartridge. So anyway you want to interpret the law, hosting a site full of ROMs _is_ illegal.
But does it say that "_emulation_ is illegal"? Gimme a break. That's the most brain dead interpretation I've ever heard. It just shows that the author has no clue what emulation even means.
Or let me rephrase it: it shows that for them "emulation" just means "downloading pirated ROMs off the Internet". Sorry, no. It doesn't.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
I think this guy likes the sound of his own voice and that he doesn't know much relevent history (and that he hasn't been bothered to use Google either).
As I get a bit sick of explaning to muppets like him who are arrogant enough to think they have uncovered some crucial legal precident or frame work that no-one else has noticed (including teams of lawyers working for firms like Sony), the issue of emulation has been delt with in court in the US many times, even specifically in the area of emulating video games consoles.
A good example is the Connectix vs. Sony case. Connectix of course were responsible for the the leading quality PlayStation emulator 'Virtual Game Station' for Windows and Macintosh.
Sony tried multiple legal angles to stop distribution of this program (and similar emulators), including 11 claims of patent violation. They lost, and in the end just bought the technology from Connectix to keep it from being avalible.
The same issue had already come up years ago in case involving Sony and Accolade (and it had bearing on the Connectix vs. Sony case). That 'Emulation is illegal' was a bogus assertion then, a bogus assertion in the Connectix vs. Sony case, and a bogus assertion now.
In the Connectix vs. Sony case, the court ruled that it was perfectly legal for developers to make dumps of the firmware for the purposes of building an emulator (even if it's a commercial competing product). You may not, however, distribute them or include patent code in your code (no surpise there).
There is quite a good summary here.
Of course this still doesn't mean it's okay to obtain ROM's from the internet (obviously) but some people inextricably link "emulation" with "OMGWTFBQQ free gamez0rs 11!!11" and get confused when you try to treat the issue of emulation as a seperate topic from software piracy.
Copying into RAM is an infringement unless 117 applies, and 117 only applies to the owner of a copy. If you are the owner of the copy, you don't need permission. (BTW, there's a law being considered to fix this, changing 'owner' to 'lawful possessor'.)
Now...
As for ProCD, the logic there is absurd. And opens up absurd loopholes...all I have to do is claim that I myself did not purchase the software, but was given it as a gift, sans packaging. Or maybe the packaging was damaged right there. Or maybe I can't read. (Which is not only crazy, but somehow means that someone who didn't actually own their copy legally sold it to me, which is inane.)
And the court was seriously confused about who was making the offer. Their logic only works if the software company was making the offer, and someone walked up and said 'sure', like tickets with rules on the back. But a package on a shelf is not an offer, and it's certainly not an offer from the software company.
Walking up and handing it to the cashier is the offer, and the customer does that to the merchant, not the software manufacturer. Just because the product packaging claims to contain additional restrictive terms on behalf of the manufacturer (Which is legal), doesn't mean that when I make an offer to a third party that I expect them to apply. If I purchase a stereo in the orginal box at a yard sell with a two year warranty, I'm not expecting to get the warranty.
It's even more absurd when you consider that, while most additional terms do contain restrictions on what the service was labeled as, they don't restrict you from doing something that you legally could do otherwise. If I purchase an 'open ended' plane ticket with blackout dates on the back, well, I didn't have any right at all to be on their plane anyway. It's a restriction on what they have to do in return for your cash, not a restriction on something you could do anyway. Whereas I did have a legal right to copy any software I am legally owner of, which (Pretending EULAs are valid here), I would have been had they not stuck the terms there.
I.e., most 'small print' slightly changes things, and it's understandable to allow customers to agree without seeing. (Although absurd to not let them see, like with most software. Some software companies just lost a suit over that, IIRC.) It's not understandable to change the entire terms of a sale, especially when that sale was with a third party!
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?