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Cory Doctorow on Shrinkwrap Licenses
An anonymous reader writes "Web privacy advocate Cory Doctorow is on about shrinkwrap licenses, in his latest essay. They've always been onerous. Now, Doctorow says the new EULA in Vista and even the MySpace user agreement could put users at risk of being sued. He closes with: 'By reading this article, you agree, to release me from all obligations and waivers arising from any and all [everything].'"
By reading this article, you agree, to release me from all obligations and waivers arising from any and all [everything].'
This shouldn't be an issue here.
Not to mention that with a click-through license, there is no way of knowing who agreed to the "contract". I could get my underage kid to agree to the licensing terms, and he will not be legally obligated to abide by them because he is not allowed to enter into a contract at his age. And I can use the computer afterward without having agreed to any terms at all.
Here's the news: EULAs are bullshit. They always have been (except in a few benighted countries)... they were always meant to muddy the legal waters rather than enforce their ridiculous conditions.
Microsoft's dream has always been to enforce EULA restrictions by *technical *means. This means no need to deal with legal matters... want to change things, or enforce patently bullshit restrictions, then they just change them. This is why they started the TCPA, subsequently the TCG (Trusted Computing Group), and spent time designing their dream hardware along with the likes of IBM, Sun, HP etc etc: they call it Trusted Computing, and the hardware is a "TPM"... which will now be installed in every PC (and is already in the Apple Mac). The hardware gives Microsoft (and Apple) the ability to actually enforce the EULA by technical mans... read your EULA, read the specs, and criticisms, and be afraid.
we are allowed to quote things to make our point.