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iTunes Prohibits Terrorism

Afforess writes "A recent closer look at the oft-skimmed EULA agreement for iTunes has an interesting paragraph in it, Gizmodo reports. 'You also agree that you will not use these products for any purposes prohibited by United States law, including, without limitation, the development, design, manufacture or production of missiles, or nuclear, chemical or biological weapons.' Although humorous, some readers suggested that this may be a defense measure to previously discussed price changes in the iTunes music store."

17 of 124 comments (clear)

  1. Boilerplate. by jcr · · Score: 4, Informative

    That language probably came right from the EULA for Mac OS X.

    -jcr

    --
    The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
    1. Re:Boilerplate. by Doctor_Jest · · Score: 2, Funny

      Well, there goes another good idea. No sense in downloading protest songs on my iPod to incite the masses! :)

      --
      It's the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.
  2. Seriously? by AdmiralAudio · · Score: 4, Informative

    Maddox already noted this 2 years earlier than the article in March of 2007: http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=macs_cant

    1. Re:Seriously? by drinkypoo · · Score: 2, Funny

      Just don't interfere with the Microsoft patent on defenestratable ballistic seating.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  3. Shit. by MindlessAutomata · · Score: 2, Funny

    I hope Apple doesn't enforce this provision too strongly.

  4. The attack is off by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Violating dozens of federal and local laws was one thing, but I for one do not want to run afoul of Apple's EULA!

  5. Terrorism with your iTunes by rob1980 · · Score: 3, Funny

    Does that mean playing Amy Winehouse at a party is off limits?

  6. "Terrorism" by mqduck · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Isn't it a bit of a leap to use the word 'terrorism' as shorthand for "missiles, or nuclear, chemical or biological weapons"? Missiles aren't even necessarily weapons.

    When did "weapons development by those the United States doesn't like" become the definition of terrorism?

    --
    Property is theft.
  7. Re:Laughable. by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 2, Funny

    Spoken like somebody who doesn't have access to the OSXapocalypse86 project's private tracker...

  8. Re:Laughable. by jcr · · Score: 4, Informative

    The idea that you'd use OS X for something as serious as missile development / nuclear simulations is laughable.

    Laugh all you want, but there are a lot of Mac users at Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos. They use Xgrid.

    -jcr

    --
    The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
  9. Re:Laughable. by lightversusdark · · Score: 3, Funny

    Fact is they talk about using XGrid.
    They're still running their non-standard FORTRAN with dependencies on compiled binaries from companies that went under for architectures that don't exist anymore except under emulation.

    All those Mac users are running Terminal.

    --
    "There is nothing nice about Steve Jobs and nothing evil about Bill Gates." - Chuck Peddle
  10. Oh please... by Anachragnome · · Score: 3, Funny

    Terrorist #1: Hey, did you read the EULA for this thing?

    Terrorist #2: No. Why?

    Terrorist #1: All the more reason to bomb them into the Stone Age. Here we are, building a nuclear weapon, and those crazy Americans are sweating the LEGAL ramifications.

  11. iTunes Prohibits Terrorism... by Clandestine_Blaze · · Score: 5, Funny

    Terrorists around the world were heard saying: "Curses, foiled again..."

  12. Re:As old as iTunes by turbidostato · · Score: 4, Funny

    What I don't understand is this:

    'You also agree that you will not use these products for any purposes prohibited by United States law, including, without limitation, the development, design, manufacture or production of missiles, or nuclear, chemical or biological weapons.'

    Does that mean than all deveopment, design, manufacture and production of missiles, nuclear, chemical and biological weapons are prohibited by United States law? One certainly would think otherwise seing the seer number of missiles, nuclear, chemical and biological weapons that USA does indeed develop, design, manufacture and produce.

    Anyway, fortunately the EULA does not explicitly forbid its use for the development, design, manufacture or production of conventional weapons, air bombs, mines, grenade-launchers, mortars and/or laser beams, plasma rays, antimatter doom day devices, et al.

  13. Re:Laughable. by fractoid · · Score: 2, Informative

    I'm pretty sure you don't have to be running "Super Futuristic Movie OS" with a "Design Nucular Missile System" button in order to work on missile development. Any OS that can run a CAD program (I'm taking a wild guess here and saying that's "all of them") will do just fine.

    --
    Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
  14. Re:Laughable. by ToasterMonkey · · Score: 2, Insightful

    All those Mac users are running Terminal.

    Hey genius, could it be that _ALL_ UNIX admins spend most their time in a terminal, be it putty, gnome-terminal, or Terminal, and gnome-terminal sucks so much ass people would rather use a NonFree(tm) system just for a better terminal emulator?

    Answer: Yes

    Sorry to be so harsh, but trying to devalue OS X because a subset of users spends most their time in a terminal is just bat-shit insane. Did you consider what most Linux desktops are doing?

  15. Re:Laughable. by Lars+T. · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Laugh all you want, but there are a lot of Mac users at Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos.

    Are you implying that the US goverment is violating Apple's EULA?

    Are you implying the US government is violating United States law?

    --

    Lars T.

    To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck