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."

Comments

BEFORE YOU POST

[Anonymous Coward]

Make sure you read this before posting.

Something Awful

[Anonymous Coward]

Reminds me of Something Awful's recent lampoon of the same subject. Nobody reads these things because they're all in legalese. No wonder companies think they can slide in anything. And what are the users going to do, not accept the terms?

Re:Something Awful

[badasscat]

And what are the users going to do, not accept the terms?

Well, in the case of the chargeback example, they can accept the terms knowing what they've agreed to is completely unenforceable.

Say you agree to that in a EULA, then the software won't install and you ask for a refund, which the company will not provide. You call the credit card company and say "they sold me a defective product and won't give me my money back" and the card company calls the software maker to see what's up. The software maker says "but the customer agreed not to do a chargeback!" You know what the CC company's gonna do?

They're gonna laugh in the software company's face. Then they're gonna do a chargeback.

Your relationship is with the CC company. You can't un-agree with a third party to something you've already agreed to with your CC company. Because the CC company is under no obligation whatsoever to abide by that; they haven't agreed to alter their policies to fit this EULA. Their only obligation is to their customers with which they have prior agreements.

Now, IANAL, but I've got plenty of experience dealing with CC companies (including handling chargebacks) through previous jobs I've had, and this is pretty basic contract law anyway. Contracts are between two parties; if you've got a contract that you're trying to apply to a third party but that they haven't signed, it's meaningless. I can't write up a contract that says "you agree that your sister will never ask me to borrow money" and expect that that actually obligates your sister not to do anything, even if you do sign it.

It's just worth pointing out that some people subscribe to this fallacy that anything you put in a contract is binding as long as it's signed. That's just not the case. You can't agree to something that's illegal, you can't sign away most rights given to you under the law, and you can't agree to something on behalf of a third party (unless that third party also signs, as in a guarantor type situation). The purpose of a contract is to get two people to agree in writing to something under the law. A lot of these companies are apparently using EULA's these days to get people to agree to things that are outside the law, but those EULA's just cannot be enforced.

(This is not to say no EULA can be enforced; obviously, we've seen that they can be. But a EULA has to be written properly just like any other contract; you can't just stick random stuff in there.)

Breach Of Contract Is Not A Crime

[John Hasler]

Where do these doofuses get the notion that you can go to jail for failing to comply with the terms of a contract?

Great damage to the company

[jrockway]

My cell phone contract contained similar language. It stated that cancelling the contract before the term was up would could "cause damage to the Company that is difficult to determine, but is approximately $150". I was ready to pay this (because US Cellular is the absolute worst phone company EVER... I live in Chicago and didn't even get good reception at US Cellular field!), until I read the whole contract and realized that my cell phone company screwed up -- they said my term was "0 months" (not 2 years like I thought). Needless to say, I called them and pointed this out. They said they'd call back, but I haven't heard from them in months. I haven't gotten a bill either, so I guess they just silently admitted defeat.

Funny how the contract can actually screw the company over sometimes :)

Sony

[Space cowboy]

There was a clause in an NDA I signed with Sony that said something along the lines of "In the event of You disclosing material which is considered proprietary under this agreement, the Company will seek maximum damages, and financial reparation may not be sufficient".

That scared me slightly... I still signed though. And I made sure not to have any first-born (hah! As if I had the chance back then :-)

Simon

no habla ingles

[davidwr]

Scenario #1:
I asked my non-English-speaking friend to buy me a new computer and install OpenOffice.

Of course he got the English-language MS-Windows and of course he had to walk through all the EULA and activation stuff. He'd watched someone else do it before so he knew what buttons to press but didn't understand a word of what was on the screen.

He didn't know enough to tell me he'd just signed away a bunch of rights on my behalf.

Who if anyone is liable if I violate the EULA - the very EULA that neither me nor my friend is aware of.

Scenario #2, except instead of me asking him, he did it on his own and gave me the PC w/ OO installed for Christmas.

Per machine vs per user licensing

[WIAKywbfatw]

The reason for this is because Microsoft licenses for Windows XP (and all of its operating systems) are per machine (or per processor), whereas its licenses for Office and other applications are per user.

Hence, it's permissable for an individual to install a single copy of Office on both their desktop and laptop without requiring more than one license, as long as both aren't used simultaneously. However, installing Windows XP on both those machines would always require two licenses, regardless of how the machines are used.

One side effect of this is that people who use Office at work can normally buy a copy of Office to use at home for a nominal fee. For example, under the terms of Microsoft's licensing as it applies to her mid-sized employer, my girlfriend is entitled to purchase a copy of Office for around £10, which covers the cost of media, postage and packaging and processing her request.

Re:Depends on who initiated the chargeback

[dgatwood]

In this case, it's more like "you agree to not ask your sister to borrow money from me, even though I am under a binding contract with your sister not to ask you not to ask her."

In other words, report these clowns to Visa and they're likely to get their merchant account revoked. I strongly suspect that attempting to circumvent the terms of your merchant account agreement would constitute a violation of the terms of said agreement....

MS Front Page License?

[commodoresloat]

Didn't MS have a license with Front Page for a while that said that it violated the license to use the product to create web pages critical of MS? As I recall they took the clause out after people complained about it, but the fact that they even had the audacity to consider it is troubling.