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End User License Gems
satosphere writes "TG Daily has an article on EULA Gems, priceless statements that companies want you to agree to in their End User License Agreement." From the article: "You agree, if purchasing by credit card or charge card, that you permanently and irrevocably waive any and all right to cause a 'chargeback' ... You agree that, if you institute such a "chargeback", it constitutes a material violation of this license, and damages Company in ways impossible to calculate, and with long-term adverse effects to the Company."
and furthermore a EULA is not a contract.
it's a strongly suggested lengthy piece of psuedo-legalese, designed to make people think it's binding.
Science : Proprietary , Knowledge : Open Source
If there's no license granting you permission to take actions governed by copyright, you can then be liable for copyright infringement.
An increasing number of forms of copyright infringement are criminal.
Yeah, I'm thinking that might breach the third party program's EULA, contravene the DMCA, etcetera.
Everybody's a libertarian 'till their neighbour's becomes a crack house.
If you took the time to actually read the thing you posted, you would notice that you have nothing to worry about unless you are using an illegal 3rd party app like they stated. So in other words, you must be pissed that you cant use your bots/teleport/speed hack programs in WoW without getting banned.
In the words of WoW General Chat:
Cry more n00b.
WHY DO END USER LICENSE AGREEMENTS LIKE CAPS SO MUCH?
Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted! Reason: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.
How do you know that their program doesn't look for webpages which talk about hacking WoW (such as what your viewing now as you post) and searching for specific keywords?
The software you have running that you got from your favorite clan website might be detected as dodgy and you can be kicked off the server/account closed.
They decide the rules and your not in control, its similar to the MS malicious software detection tool, I wonder just what they actually consider malicious...
liqbase
It wouldn't because 'law language' is a kind of 'API' between opposing interests ; write out of specs, and both editor and customer lose because nobody will be able to predict the meaning a judge will give to the words. At least, if properly written, an EULA can be submitted to a lawyer, and he'll be able to give a fair appreciation of the chances it has to be enforceable (or not). It doesn't mean that everything in an EULA is as if casted in stone, because an editor may be tempted to use legalese to scare the customer before going to a trial, but it means that legalese is a linga franca among professionals of law that help going straight to the point.
The problem is, for the cheaters, "cheating" is the game. :(
And with that, your guidelines fall flat.
I'm Rick James with mod points biatch!
Oh i'm not fully against Warden. I understand why it's there, and I trust Blizzard enough that i'm willing to risk continued use of their software. But that doesn't mean I don't think this is an utterly rediculous invasion of privacy. I mean come on... Maytag doesn't get to lace my house with CCTV cameras when I buy one of their dishwashers. Why does Blizzard get unlimited access to my computer simply because i'm using their software? Just because its the norm? Infact, i've got a better word than "norm". Try "collusion". Look around - software EULAs have gone completely off the deep end while everyone was busy being mesmerized by the internet. It's just too bad avalanches are easier to start than they are to stop.
I always wondered how they would define portable device.
I have a carrying strap for my desktop, it's portable. Actually, most systems are portable, as in not bolted to the floor.
Is it possible that the law can override the stuff written in a license?
Of course. You can't be held to a contract that violates the law.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Something that bothers me, why do EULAs typeically come in eight-point font in a 400x200 dialog box, and make it impossible to copy the text? There's absolutely no excuse for the small font--no paper is being saved, and the tiny window is just to discourage people reading and finding out just how many ways they are getting screwed.
I hate it when they put paragraphs in ALL CAPS. It makes it even harder to read the EULA without my eyes going crazy. I think they do it to ensure that you have even less chances of reading the EULA.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
If I was writing an EULA, I would include everything from owning their person, their soul, their political opinion, and their children to not being responsible for anything I say, do, think, kill, or mess up.
America is a lawsuit-happy nation. Of course they're going to try to protect themselves.
I still wonder if it would be illegal to buy a game, and never install and agree to the EULA. Could I legally distribute copies of it, claiming I was ignorant of the EULA, and didn't agree to anything anyway?
You need to brush up on your legalese man. It says they can look for whatever the hell they want and do whatever the hell they want, period. Here's the key bit:
ANY THIRD PARTY SOFTWARE, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION ANY "ADDON" OR "MOD," THAT IN BLIZZARD ENTERTAINMENT'S SOLE DETERMINATION:
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
To respond to your post: actually depending on your jurisdiction, it may be a binding contract. One of the keys is that acceptance of an offer to contract may be manifested by conduct. Some courts have recognized that conduct as running the software and/or failing to return it. However, the EULA is still vulnerable to the doctrine of unconscionability, among other reasons for a court refusing to enforce a contract.
I agree (more recently, anyone following Blizzard v. BnetD should be aware of this, but IANAL or a law student either, just an interested layperson), but the case seems very weak to me in many cases. (i.e. they may be binding contracts, but they seem to me to present some very specific issues that nobody is addressing).
Let me give you an example.
Many people don't install their own software. They take their computer to the store and say, "I want eTrust, Office Professional, Photoshop, etc" and then the friendly people at the store install the software. In these cases:
1) There is almost never any discussion of the EULA's either before or after.
2) While arguably the technicians at the stores are acting as agents of the customer, it is very difficult to argue that the end user was ever fully informed about the contract, nor are ordinary means ever used to inform users of their obligations under the agreement.
3) Does this mean that the customer ever really agreed to the contract?
As an analogy...
Lets say I send my son to go and buy something. Lets say for the moment that he is 14 years old. In order to buy this, he is required to agree to certain terms. He punches the relevant buttons and completes the transaction and never thinks anything more of it. Later on, the vendor comes after me because I failed to live up to the terms of the agreement. But I was never aware of the terms of the agreement, and never agreed to them. They say, "yes, but we have this card that says this sale was accompanied by the agreement of the terms" and I say "What? I sent my 14-year old son to buy that. He must have punched the buttons."
Now what? It seems to me that the contract is invalid because it was agreed to by a minor. But what is the preferred remedy? Would it be any different if a third party to the transaction was the one that agreed?
It gets more interesting in that it seems that 14-year olds by this standard might be the only ones immune from the reverse engineering clauses. And they play games, so maybe we need more 14-17 year olds working on BnetD...
The main problem is that the "I Agree" button does not record any identifiable record of the identity of the person agreeing to the contract. I.e. with a signature one can try to establish that one did not really sign it which is why many contracts require witnesses and/or notary publics to verify the identity of the person signing the contract.
Of course I avoid this problem by only using Free/Open Source software, but I am very concerned for many of my customers.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
My EULA on all my software, regardless of any written or implied language in the 'agreement', is interpreted by me, the primary user, to be:
(1) The possessor of this software, regardless of how the possessor came to be in possession of the software, is entitled to do whatever the fuck they want to with the software. Included but not restricted to: giving the software to whoever the fuck I want, for any or no compensation that I so chose; examining and altering the software in any fashion that I chose; commenting negatively or positively on the quality of the software, in totality or part, in any forum that I chose to, public or private.
(2) I, the primary user of the software, accept that the maker of the software offers no assurance, either explicit or implicit, that the software in any way, works for the purpose or any purpose that I, the primary user, acquired it for. Nor, do I, the primary user, make any assumptions that the data produced by the software be accurate, correct, realistic, are in any applicable to the purpose that the software was acquired. Regardless of the consequences of the use of this software, the makers or providers of the software to the primary user will hold no liability for any fucking thing that can happen as a result of interaction with the software on any level.
This is what I am agreeing to when I click on I agree. The lawyers for large software corporations have this incomprehensibly weird idea that anyone would agree to clause #2 without the corporation's acceptance of clause #1.
For example, the wonderful example where The Breeder Standard (is this real, and not a joke?) says that you agree to pay them $8k if you try to chargeback. I'm pretty sure this is incompatible with the UK Sale of Goods Act, which gives you various rights, and with other UK sale of goods regulations which limit what contracts may be imposed in the mass market. For example, from a UK Government site:
"The Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999 (SI 1999 No 2083) provide that a term which has not been individually negotiated in a consumer contract is unfair (and hence non-binding on the consumer) if, contrary to the requirement of good faith, it causes a significant imbalance in the rights and obligations of the parties to the detriment of the consumer." There are similar regulations in effect in the whole of the EC.
There was a discussion some time ago here on whether Apple could, by Eula alone, prevent buyers of OS X from installing it on non-Apple hardware. The issue is the same as the question of whether MS can, by Eula alone, prevent buyers of Office from installing it under Wine.
The answer in both cases is no: not because of any difficulty with Eulas. But because such linked sales conditions are unlawful under EC competition law.
In the same way, a Eula condition which placed the buyer in involuntary servitude would not be lawful in the US, not because Eulas are problematic, but because involuntary servitude is unlawful under the constitution. Whatever boxes you check on a Eula, no court is going to place you in involuntary servitude.
So really, the most helpful way to look a this is not by focussing on Eulas. The thing to focus on is whether the company behaviour and conditions which they are trying to enforce in this way are lawful, regardless how they are enforced. The involuntary servitude example: suppose they had a guy standing at the exit to the store who had you sign a contract in the presence of three witnesses, and under oath. That would not be a Eula, and it would not be enforceable either...
> I guess you're arguing that by purchasing a Windows CD you have free reign to do whatever you like with the bits on the CD?
:) Actually, what they try to claim is that you didn't buy a copy, you don't own your copy, and so you have no default rights to do ANYTHING with the software that you supposedly paid good money for! Contrast this to the GPL which assumes that if you got a copy of the software, you own that copy of the software, just like you would own a copy of a book, and you can use it any way you want, AND in addition, grants you some limited rights to make copies, which you do NOT have with that book.
Yes, in fact you do (or would if not for the EULA), except that you cannot do anything that would violate copyright. Which basically means, no copying. Aside from that, you bought it, you own it. It's not the "finer points of copyright law". It's the CORE of copyright law -- COPYright law is about COPYING and ONLY about copying! Not about use! If you buy a book, you can chop it up and glue it back together (MS tries to forbid this), write and publish a review (MS explicitly tries to forbid this), study the composition (MS explicitly tries to forbid this), draw faces on the pages, sell it back to a used bookstore once you're done (MS explicitly tries to forbid this), etc. You can USE it however you want as long as you use the copy you got, and don't make more copies.
The rights that MS claims to grant you are rights you already had! (Awfully generous of them, isn't it?)
Please educate yourself. The first amendment prohibits the GOVERNMENT from restricting speech, not private entities such as companies.