You may be right for every case where the entire contents of the basket were boxed sets of DVDs. What about cases where there was more to the order? Amazon gets $20, I get 4 boxed sets plus a non-discounted movie. Well - there you have to ask if there was any consideration for the DVDs - in the case where there is a fair price for the items you have purchased, and then a substatially unfair price for the remaining items - and there is no sign that this unfair price was bargained for - a few things that could be argued (lack of genuine consideration, lack of bargained for contract, etc) but the best argument would probably be a failure of good-faith.
In every contract there is an automatic assumption of good faith - if there is an open and obvious error, it is the responsability of the party who notices the error to bring that error to attention.
There are also some fair dealing rules that kick in (say we contract for a plot of land and "all possestions thereon," we meet there to sign the contract, I drive up in my solid gold hummer of dick-waving, and we sign in front of wittnesses and my cousin the notery public noterizes it right then and there. A prick could argue that the hummer, by dint of being on the property when the contract was signed, was transfered with the land. Then you could come up with a fair dealing argument (demand fair value for the hummer be appended), or contest the terms.. the law tends NOT to be litteral - and most judges will strive for a fair result rather than a literal result.
All of that assumes that the customer did not drop 30 dvd box sets into his shopping cart on seeing the glitch - that kind of abusive behaviour tends toward fraud, and makes the contract voidable at the option of the wronged party (Amazon).
There is also an argument that somehow Amazon is not allowed to charge your card because "it wasn't authorized." Excuse me? When was the last time you ordered something from amazon and didn't have to click the little "I authorize a charge to my payment method" button (unless you used one-click, the authorization is in the contract to sign up for one-click.)
The common sense rule that carries into court is: if you didn't pay for it, but you asked for it, and it wasn't a gift - you have to pay for it or return it. The mail order case you're refering to only refers to "blind mailings" (return this magazine within one week, or you agree to subscribe to 2 years and ow use 200 dollars).
Surely they would rather that nothing can be snooped on than a free for all where everything can be snooped on. I would disagree with that - when you know what your enemy knows, you know if your enemy has broken your encryption and can avoid sending the really important stuff over those lines - better, you can start telling the enemy what you want the enemy to think you're doing while using hand curriers and one time pads to get the vital stuff over. It is far more dangerous to think your safe to talk when you're not, then to know everything you say can be heard.
Dev: Ah.. finally got it up and..
Linux: CRASH AND NOISE AND HORROR AND SCROLL SCREEN KERNEL DUMP!!
Dev:.. stupid drivers.. grr..
||time passes||
Dev: okay, this time.. it stays up.. Linux:...loading.. CRASH!! OH GOD MY SPLEEN! NOT MY HARD DRIVE!! OWWW!
||Five iterations later||
Dev: Finally... now.. WORK!! Linux:...loading.. Hello Dave, can I help you? Dev: Yes! Finally!! Tell me, what is the meaning of life, the universe, and everything!? Linux: Oh that's simple.. spending time with your wife and kids. Dev: What.. oh.. God.. NO!!!
I like linux.. and I like jokes at linux.. go figure.
No. You can't ask somebody to pay one price for something and then charge them something else, even if you've previously told them the terms will be what you later change them back to be. This is called the "last shot" rule: the last exchange between vendor and purchaser determines what's in a contract: if it contradicts anything agreed previously, then the previous agreement is cancelled. This would be true only if a contract exists. Since a price of $0 nets Amazon no consideration for the contract - there is no contract - you meerly had a user request delivery of an item under color of contract, which was still open to interpretation until the contract was in fact formed (once amazon actually got something for the trade).
This is also an excellent example of unjust enrichment - Amazon is a store - stores usually sell product - therefore it should have been obvious that preposed price of 0 was not valid - and Amazon would be justified in going to court in search of a judgement for the value of the product delivered.
Together, the lack of a valid contract - and the expected relationship of buyer to seller creates a solid argument justifying Amazon's act. In court it might go either way - but it's not fraud.
Not in this case, they don't. There is no legal way Amazon can charge these consumers: they quoted a price (whether mistakenly or intentionally, it doesn't matter, the price was quoted on their web site where anybody could see it), took payment, and delivered the goods. A contract was formed, and now Amazon are expecting the customers to honour a different one. Hmm.. yes.. contracts are absolute.. if you make a promise it is law... EXCEPT NOT!
No, there are several requirements for a contract - an agreement, between two or more people, (in this case) for goods, with consideration. Consideration is what each contracting partty gets from the deal (and no, shipping wouldn't count as "genuine consideration"). Since in this case Amazon would get jack shit under the proposed "contract" the contract fails - it does not exist. You don't have to keep the good, they don't have to sell it - the final agreement has not been made and new terms may be put forward.
Why? Because, "would you have purchased the goods if the full price were disclosed?" The full price is always disclosed in the listing for the product (on Amazon). The users then had the "2 for 1" special applied, which dropped the price to zero. You saw the price on the page for the movie, you see the deal says 2 for 1, and you see a price of $0 shipping and handling... you think you MIGHT just notice something is wrong?
You are not allowed to keep product sold in error. That's just not in the law.
I come to warn you that there shall be a great outage.. go forth and build an array to save my creations. Make it 100 qubits long, 30 qubits wide, and 10 qubits deep. Into this hash all data in/usr/god/dataM/.. and/usr/god/dataF/
Do this, and you shall survive the outage I shall send.
Oddly enough.. EULA's don't have the full force of law behind them.. thus little things like compelling compliance to requests for user data are beyond the companies seeking to find the users who are selling/buying gold. Combine this with unanswered questions concerning a user's limited property rights (including the right to sell and trade) and these sites are perfectly legit - actually they will probably prompt some baddly needed test cases.
The actual effect on game play is little (no) different from getting set up with a big guild - which is fine by any of the major's EULA's. I know some folks have a problem with cash affecting power balance in game - but those are issues for ethics and society that exceed the limits of the game univers - rich people have the advantadge in nearly every facet of life - from employment choice, to education, and even healthcare. You can't prevent a person with an economic advantadge from leveriging that advantadge -- practically speaking it just dosen't work. Let's at least sheath it in a commonly understood law so we're all dancing to the same tune.
Any game with the X dollars/month pricing model is guaranteed to be tedious, boring, and unsuitable for anyone with a life or a clue. Heck even idiots should see through it. Which is perfect, since that means it keeps the 1/3 of kids that drop out of high school off the streets!:)
Tangential relation to topic absent actual linkage to the article. Overbroad statement sure to atract attention from indignant games Stupid kids joke Generic - traditional companies == bad comment.
This sounds more like the ruby ridge / OK city "the government is out to get my guns and kill my family" conspiracy.. you know.. a far right wing nut-job invention.
Left wing conspiracy theories tend to be about crazy economic domination theories and Bush family members.
Their choice was America, or some other nation yet to be named, (post soviet oppoisition problem) which fallout was not set in. (remember, the original was set in the American west.)
Perhaps.. but I never claimed they were categorically "illegal" (oops, wrong term - uneforcable you mean?)
Anyway, no, they're not unenforceable on their face - but they are limited to reasonable terms, and are supsect to severe limitations (in the U.S.). I've also seen judges rule contracts unenforceable in the pre-trial confrence.. soooo... yeah, maybe it depends on the facts? You know.. those nasty things my comment was based on. Oh, dirty dirty facts, they interfere with soap-boxing mightily.
Regardless - a eula that states you cannot use this product Y unless you buy product X - but only AFTER you have opened Y and voided the return - where the only limitation on the legitimate use IS the contract, which is an adhesion contract... and the clear intent of the contract is to force the user to go back and buy product Y2 which costs more but is otherwise equal - yeah - good luck defending that one.
Yes, they have a lovely contract that says I cannot install this on a VM. Okay.. that's lovely - saddly since it's only revealed after purchase once the return policy is voided, is an obvious adhesion contract (a contract with fixed terms that you MUST agree with to use a service), and the contracts sole purpose it to leverage it's unreasonable position of advantadge to force the client into an untenable position.
Translation, I could break that baby in court after thirty seconds of argument before a judge.
I live in a state with no helmet law, but we have a seatbelt law. Go figure. Do helmet laws really save money though? Figure w/o a helmet you're probably more likely to die in a crash. Thus, the one time cost of cleaning up the road and a funeral. With a helmet you might live, but be messed up for life. I wonder given the stats which is greater? You're forgetting lost oppourtunity cost for employment contribution, taxation, child rearing, consumption, etc - and persisting losses in the form of insurance payments, increased weight on the social welfare systems, and depreciation in the eventual capital output of the family unit.
Basically, either the victim is near the upper half of the economic spectrum, and their loss has an impact on the economy (minor as individuals but adds up), is at the lower end, and the family burden winds up on the comunity and the state, or is somewhere in the middle and hits society less, but a little on both ends.
Then there's the emotional trauma to the victim's family, and the other driver.. just a mess.
That said, I haven't done the math.. but I wouldn't be suprised.
Me like. If that can be said to be a precedent, it means anyone with an unsecured WiFi network has a strong argument for not being held liable for anything done on that network - it's open, after all. Anyone could drive by, park, download [insert bad stuff here], and drive off. Unless the prosecution has video surveillance of your house/apartment, it'll be very hard to *prove* who did what. It's just a holding.. if it's cited by a judge in the process of constructing a future ruling, it becomes a "precendent" in the meaning I think you're suggesting.
It's not really a binding precendent until a court above the court you're arguing in front of rules the same way. It is persuasive though.. to judges that respect that court.
Well.. if you went down to my original comment.. you might note that I stuck (artifact?) after the line. I was just defending the position that we can acknowledge the validity of statistics as fact. We don't have to accept their importance of course.
Meh, the existence of a hoax correlating voting records with IQs dosen't negate the existence of a statistical measurement of IQ by state. Most of the ones I've seen that are worth looking at run off of SAT scores or some of the no child left behind testing.
All joking aside, there is a reason I added the (artifcat?) to the end of that line - IQs, when they're measured correctly - are basically meaningless unless you are at the very very bottom, or the very very top. The middle regions will be offset by other factors (work ethic, educational oppourtunity, etc) - which the SAT based tests attempt to solve by measuring the HS "results" - but that's more a measurement of school quality than average intellect.
The point I was responding to was the great-grandparent of this post's inability to understand that a statistical fact (average iq) is neither an absolute (actual) fact, nor an applicable (This person is stupid because he's a kansian and the average kansian is stupid) fact.
If you want to research in some of the Journals of Education, politics, or psychology, there's been more than a few case studies of intelligence by area of the country, by state, and so on. Kansas does often rank in the upper middle area - and missippi is almost always at the bottom. Massachusets, New York, New Hampshire, etc, the new englands - tend to be in the top 10 or 11 of every study.
This does nothing to abridge the founding principle that we base our political engines on - 1 man (person) 1 vote.
Its a statistical fact that all people in Kansas have a low average IQ? You're an ass. No, numbnuts, it's a statistical fact that Kansas has the lowest average IQ in the union.
In other words, the Wii is selling at a higher rate than the 360 ever did. The 360 is another big, fat failure for Microsoft's XBox division. I don't think they're ever going to get out of the red on that thing. Don't get me wrong.. the Wii is a great system, and I am searching for one right now.. but I also own a 360, and I've bought a whole lotta games for that system. Of the existing Wii games.. two seem interesting to me (Zelda and that hospital sim), and one of those is interesting only in that my fiance has had a long interest in medicine, and it's a game that lets you play doctor without all that blood, gore, and people dieing. I simply cannot wait for the first sword fighting game written for the wii, with the control schema in mind.
That being said, I expect to spend alot more time on the 360. It's a more powerful system for shooters, it's got some great supporting developers (you know, like EA - the largest games development company in the world, bungie, etc), and of course, the control schema is more traditional - which is nice for existing game formats. Add in Live, which is like cocaine served on dorritos, and you have a very sold - very dangerous - combination.
Another way to look at this, is that the 360's killer apps only started to come out around November of 2006 - games like Gears of War sell systems. Halo will bring another swell, as kids visit their friends with 360's and catch a glimpse of what the online community looks like.
So, to summarize - the Wii is a great system with a very bright future - but once the shiny new stuff bump is gone, I believe sales may falter. The PS3 still has some strong features that may eventually trump the 360, quite likely allowing it to overtake the Xboxen. The Wii may suffer as many of the buyers find that - while they like wii sports and a few other games, it's more hook than bait.
Slashdot Mirror
In every contract there is an automatic assumption of good faith - if there is an open and obvious error, it is the responsability of the party who notices the error to bring that error to attention.
There are also some fair dealing rules that kick in (say we contract for a plot of land and "all possestions thereon," we meet there to sign the contract, I drive up in my solid gold hummer of dick-waving, and we sign in front of wittnesses and my cousin the notery public noterizes it right then and there. A prick could argue that the hummer, by dint of being on the property when the contract was signed, was transfered with the land. Then you could come up with a fair dealing argument (demand fair value for the hummer be appended), or contest the terms.. the law tends NOT to be litteral - and most judges will strive for a fair result rather than a literal result.
All of that assumes that the customer did not drop 30 dvd box sets into his shopping cart on seeing the glitch - that kind of abusive behaviour tends toward fraud, and makes the contract voidable at the option of the wronged party (Amazon).
There is also an argument that somehow Amazon is not allowed to charge your card because "it wasn't authorized." Excuse me? When was the last time you ordered something from amazon and didn't have to click the little "I authorize a charge to my payment method" button (unless you used one-click, the authorization is in the contract to sign up for one-click.)
The common sense rule that carries into court is: if you didn't pay for it, but you asked for it, and it wasn't a gift - you have to pay for it or return it. The mail order case you're refering to only refers to "blind mailings" (return this magazine within one week, or you agree to subscribe to 2 years and ow use 200 dollars).
-GiH
-GiH
Dev: Ah.. finally got it up and..
Linux: CRASH AND NOISE AND HORROR AND SCROLL SCREEN KERNEL DUMP!!
Dev:
||time passes||
Dev: okay, this time.. it stays up..
Linux:
||Five iterations later||
Dev: Finally... now.. WORK!!
Linux:
Dev: Yes! Finally!! Tell me, what is the meaning of life, the universe, and everything!?
Linux: Oh that's simple.. spending time with your wife and kids.
Dev: What.. oh.. God.. NO!!!
I like linux.. and I like jokes at linux.. go figure.
-GiH
-GiH
This is also an excellent example of unjust enrichment - Amazon is a store - stores usually sell product - therefore it should have been obvious that preposed price of 0 was not valid - and Amazon would be justified in going to court in search of a judgement for the value of the product delivered.
Together, the lack of a valid contract - and the expected relationship of buyer to seller creates a solid argument justifying Amazon's act. In court it might go either way - but it's not fraud.
-GiH
No, there are several requirements for a contract - an agreement, between two or more people, (in this case) for goods, with consideration. Consideration is what each contracting partty gets from the deal (and no, shipping wouldn't count as "genuine consideration"). Since in this case Amazon would get jack shit under the proposed "contract" the contract fails - it does not exist. You don't have to keep the good, they don't have to sell it - the final agreement has not been made and new terms may be put forward.
This is first year contracts stuff bucko.
-GiH
er.. $0 + shipping and handling.
You are not allowed to keep product sold in error. That's just not in the law.
-GiH
I come to warn you that there shall be a great outage.. go forth and build an array to save my creations. Make it 100 qubits long, 30 qubits wide, and 10 qubits deep. Into this hash all data in /usr/god/dataM/ .. and /usr/god/dataF/
Do this, and you shall survive the outage I shall send.
:D I can't resist a bad pun.
-GiH
Oddly enough.. EULA's don't have the full force of law behind them.. thus little things like compelling compliance to requests for user data are beyond the companies seeking to find the users who are selling/buying gold. Combine this with unanswered questions concerning a user's limited property rights (including the right to sell and trade) and these sites are perfectly legit - actually they will probably prompt some baddly needed test cases.
The actual effect on game play is little (no) different from getting set up with a big guild - which is fine by any of the major's EULA's. I know some folks have a problem with cash affecting power balance in game - but those are issues for ethics and society that exceed the limits of the game univers - rich people have the advantadge in nearly every facet of life - from employment choice, to education, and even healthcare. You can't prevent a person with an economic advantadge from leveriging that advantadge -- practically speaking it just dosen't work. Let's at least sheath it in a commonly understood law so we're all dancing to the same tune.
-GiH
Tangential relation to topic absent actual linkage to the article.
Overbroad statement sure to atract attention from indignant games
Stupid kids joke
Generic - traditional companies == bad comment.
4 points.. not bad.
-GiH
How is this a "left-wing" conspiracy theory?
This sounds more like the ruby ridge / OK city "the government is out to get my guns and kill my family" conspiracy.. you know.. a far right wing nut-job invention.
Left wing conspiracy theories tend to be about crazy economic domination theories and Bush family members.
-GiH
Their choice was America, or some other nation yet to be named, (post soviet oppoisition problem) which fallout was not set in. (remember, the original was set in the American west.)
-GiH
Come.. pay us now.. why wait to see what we can do to you later.
-GiH
Perhaps.. but I never claimed they were categorically "illegal" (oops, wrong term - uneforcable you mean?)
Anyway, no, they're not unenforceable on their face - but they are limited to reasonable terms, and are supsect to severe limitations (in the U.S.). I've also seen judges rule contracts unenforceable in the pre-trial confrence.. soooo... yeah, maybe it depends on the facts? You know.. those nasty things my comment was based on. Oh, dirty dirty facts, they interfere with soap-boxing mightily.
Regardless - a eula that states you cannot use this product Y unless you buy product X - but only AFTER you have opened Y and voided the return - where the only limitation on the legitimate use IS the contract, which is an adhesion contract... and the clear intent of the contract is to force the user to go back and buy product Y2 which costs more but is otherwise equal - yeah - good luck defending that one.
-GiH
Yes, they have a lovely contract that says I cannot install this on a VM. Okay.. that's lovely - saddly since it's only revealed after purchase once the return policy is voided, is an obvious adhesion contract (a contract with fixed terms that you MUST agree with to use a service), and the contracts sole purpose it to leverage it's unreasonable position of advantadge to force the client into an untenable position.
Translation, I could break that baby in court after thirty seconds of argument before a judge.
-GiH
Just a law student.
Basically, either the victim is near the upper half of the economic spectrum, and their loss has an impact on the economy (minor as individuals but adds up), is at the lower end, and the family burden winds up on the comunity and the state, or is somewhere in the middle and hits society less, but a little on both ends.
Then there's the emotional trauma to the victim's family, and the other driver.. just a mess.
That said, I haven't done the math.. but I wouldn't be suprised.
-GiH
I know it made for easy points on my crim law class. "Oh possesion.. he's guilty."
Now, imagine I was evaluated on my conviction rate - man I'd LOVE strict liability.
-GiH
It's not really a binding precendent until a court above the court you're arguing in front of rules the same way. It is persuasive though.. to judges that respect that court.
-GiH
Well.. if you went down to my original comment.. you might note that I stuck (artifact?) after the line. I was just defending the position that we can acknowledge the validity of statistics as fact. We don't have to accept their importance of course.
That and you flamed me.. so I returned the favor.
-GiH
Meh, the existence of a hoax correlating voting records with IQs dosen't negate the existence of a statistical measurement of IQ by state. Most of the ones I've seen that are worth looking at run off of SAT scores or some of the no child left behind testing.
All joking aside, there is a reason I added the (artifcat?) to the end of that line - IQs, when they're measured correctly - are basically meaningless unless you are at the very very bottom, or the very very top. The middle regions will be offset by other factors (work ethic, educational oppourtunity, etc) - which the SAT based tests attempt to solve by measuring the HS "results" - but that's more a measurement of school quality than average intellect.
The point I was responding to was the great-grandparent of this post's inability to understand that a statistical fact (average iq) is neither an absolute (actual) fact, nor an applicable (This person is stupid because he's a kansian and the average kansian is stupid) fact.
If you want to research in some of the Journals of Education, politics, or psychology, there's been more than a few case studies of intelligence by area of the country, by state, and so on. Kansas does often rank in the upper middle area - and missippi is almost always at the bottom. Massachusets, New York, New Hampshire, etc, the new englands - tend to be in the top 10 or 11 of every study.
This does nothing to abridge the founding principle that we base our political engines on - 1 man (person) 1 vote.
-GiH
AND you can't do your own research? Wow. -GiH
Having difficulty reading words?
-GiH
actually, he's citing a statistical fact. (artifact?) -GiH
That being said, I expect to spend alot more time on the 360. It's a more powerful system for shooters, it's got some great supporting developers (you know, like EA - the largest games development company in the world, bungie, etc), and of course, the control schema is more traditional - which is nice for existing game formats. Add in Live, which is like cocaine served on dorritos, and you have a very sold - very dangerous - combination.
Another way to look at this, is that the 360's killer apps only started to come out around November of 2006 - games like Gears of War sell systems. Halo will bring another swell, as kids visit their friends with 360's and catch a glimpse of what the online community looks like.
So, to summarize - the Wii is a great system with a very bright future - but once the shiny new stuff bump is gone, I believe sales may falter. The PS3 still has some strong features that may eventually trump the 360, quite likely allowing it to overtake the Xboxen. The Wii may suffer as many of the buyers find that - while they like wii sports and a few other games, it's more hook than bait.
-GiH