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Site Says 'Go Away!'; Federal Court Says No
CaptainEbo writes "Michael Snow was the webmaster of Stop Corporate Extortion, a private support group website for 'individuals who have been, are being, or will be sued by any Corporate entity.' In order to access his site, users were required to register a username and password, and agree to a statement saying they were not associated with DirecTV, Inc. Several defendants in suits brought by DirecTV would discuss their cases on Snow's site. When DirecTV's employees and lawyers ignored Snow's user agreement and accessed his site anyway, Snow sued, claiming they violated the Stored Communications Act (SCA) by accessing his site without authorization. In an unanimous opinion, the Eleventh Circuit rejected Snow's suit."
This changes absolutely nothing. This has nothing to do with contracts, but "public" vs "private." Basically, in order for something NOT to be considered "public" you must have meaningful screening. Consider a "private club" that allows anyone to join -- it is no longer a private club according to the LEGAL definition of such. Step-Saver, Gateway and the traditional e-Commerce contracts cases (Box-top and clickwrap EULAs) are completely untouched by this.
When in doubt, parenthesize. At the very least it will let some poor schmuck bounce on the % key in vi. (Larry Wall)
Tell that to Richard Dinon, the Florida man charged with a felony after using an open wireless access point. Or how about the Register.com versus Verio case ? The court ruled that Verio scraping a publically available whois database was illegal, because Register.com put a notice in there that repeated automated access was not permitted. That precendent almost contradicts this one (there's the distinction of how versus who).
For what it's worth, I agree with the court's ruling. What I don't agree with is the tendency for people, companies, government agencies, police, and yes, occasionally the courts, to presume that citizens need permission for everything that they do. If it doesn't violate a law, we don't need permission.
In Soviet America the banks rob you!
Property owners that shoot trespassers will end up going to jail for attempted murder in virtually any US jurisdiction, unless you're talking "breaking and entering my home in the middle of the night." I can't tell if you're trying to bait me or asking a serious question. If the latter, post some contact info and I'll explain the state of the law to your heart's content. I was merely discussing adverse posession. I can assure you, the use of force to combat civil conversion of property is a crime anywhere in the united states, no matter what you have posted. [If someone trespasses on your SHOOTING RANGE and you have a sign posted that says "trespassers will be shot" and they get shot, you're probably screwed. If you have a sign up that says "THIS IS A SHOOTING RANGE, YOU MAY BE IN DANGER" and you tell the cops that you intentionally shot him, you're also screwed. You cannot post a sign that says "trespassers may be shot." Signs that say "beware of dog" are akin to the signs that say "this is a shooting range." If you *intentionally* "release the hounds" (i.e. an attack dog) on a trespasser you will go to jail.)
When in doubt, parenthesize. At the very least it will let some poor schmuck bounce on the % key in vi. (Larry Wall)
Does this mean I as a man can now go into woman's bathrooms and showers and such? There is just a sign! There is no real screening process! Woot!
The money you pay is your consideration.
In the case of boxed software the consideration is made to the retailer for a piece of physical property, not to the rights holder for the license.
And a license is not a contract. A license is a grant of limited rights. A license may be a valid license without being a contract at all, as most commercial EULAs are not.
They are often worded in doublespeak as if they were asking you to give something up, such as saying that you cannot copy the program to more than one computer, but this is actually a grant to copy to one computer. You are not giving up the right to copy to more than one computer because you never had that right in the first place.
EULAs are very carefully worded to give the impression that they are contracts without ever actually including any legally enforceable (certain commercial obligations of the licensee and rights held by the licensor cannot be altered by contract, they are a matter of law) contractual terms.
The GPL, oddly enough, is both a valid license and a contract, because it fully spells out the articles of consideration by both parties, the permanent assignment of what would otherwise be exlusive rights of distribution.
KFG