Meeting of the minds does not necessitate negotiation. These programmers had full knowledge of the wording of Software contracts. They were also informed of the contract prior to purchase.
The EULA containing a return policy where blizzard will repay you if the retail store will not, is all that is required for consideration.
The court held that the EULA in question is a valid contract in both California and Missouri Law.
"The first sale doctrine is only triggered by an actual sale. Accordingly, a copyright owner does not forfeit his right of distribution by entering into a licensing agreement"
-and-
"The EULAs and TOU in this case explicitly state that title and ownership of the games and Battle.net remain with Blizzard. Defendants do not produce sufficient evidence demonstrating that title and ownership of the games passed to them. Therefore, the Court finds the first sale doctrine is inapplicable here"
And as far as your 'the courts' goes, section 117 of the Copyright Act specifically mentions computer programs and that if they are licensed and not transfered first sale doesn't apply.
I expect their primary reason was wanting to retain control of their unreleased project WC3 and secondarily from a desire to reduce piracy of their other products which used battlenet. Perhaps it was the other way around.
I think you will find it does matter as the court ruling on this case is that the EULA is valid contract law. Indeed, most EULA's are held as valid contracts.
Which is why of course the EFF appealed the ruling.
"I'm a moron who has extensions turned off for known file types and instead of verifying that my download was a video after I un-rar'd it I just double clicked it"
Slashdot Mirror
Blizzard does, they won a lawsuit vs bnetd on this fact.
Additionally blizzard will refund your cash if the retailer won't take it back because you don't agree.
There are Japanese games out already that refuse to run unless you update.
Where have you been. We haven't required written signatures for legal contracts forever.
Some courts have upheld that notification on the box counts as being presented.
Try any of the following
Settlers of Catan
Citadels
Carcassone
Ticket to Ride
Puerto Rico
Meeting of the minds does not necessitate negotiation. These programmers had full knowledge of the wording of Software contracts. They were also informed of the contract prior to purchase.
The EULA containing a return policy where blizzard will repay you if the retail store will not, is all that is required for consideration.
The court held that the EULA in question is a valid contract in both California and Missouri Law.
From the ruling:
"The first sale doctrine is only triggered by an actual sale. Accordingly, a copyright owner does not forfeit his right of distribution by entering into a licensing agreement"
-and-
"The EULAs and TOU in this case explicitly state that title and ownership of the games and Battle.net remain with Blizzard. Defendants do not produce sufficient evidence demonstrating that title and ownership of the games passed to them. Therefore, the Court finds the first sale doctrine is inapplicable here"
And as far as your 'the courts' goes, section 117 of the Copyright Act specifically mentions computer programs and that if they are licensed and not transfered first sale doesn't apply.
It wouldn't help.
The dmca is not involved in this case because of the EULA.
The EULA prevents reverse engineering. The court agreed with this.
Secondarily, the DMCA prohibits bypassing copyright protections methods which bnet did.
Whether bnetd folks agreed to the EULA or not they would still be liable under the DMCA.
I expect their primary reason was wanting to retain control of their unreleased project WC3 and secondarily from a desire to reduce piracy of their other products which used battlenet. Perhaps it was the other way around.
The court found that they were contractually bound by the EULA to not reverse-engineer.
Additionally the court found they were guilty of violating the DMCA by bypassing the anti-piracy cd-check.
So its not as simple as people shouting 'DMCA REVERSE-ENGINEERING BAD BLIZZARD BAD'
I think you will find it does matter as the court ruling on this case is that the EULA is valid contract law. Indeed, most EULA's are held as valid contracts.
Which is why of course the EFF appealed the ruling.
Except the first court doesn't agree with you that the EULA doesn't stand up to contract law.
Translation:
"I'm a moron who has extensions turned off for known file types and instead of verifying that my download was a video after I un-rar'd it I just double clicked it"
Installing the update is a manual process regardless of what power source you're plugged into.
And still people persist in thinking of gamecube as a kiddy system.
Morons.
tagging for future reference.
"This is obviously an anti-Bush remark"
No it is not. What it is is your anti-bush bias coloring your daily life experiences.
you were probably looking for the word 'slightly'
"PS2 is significantly inferior to the XBOX "
That word significant doesn't mean what you think it does.
"It just seems that the Xbox 360 is an evolutionary upgrade"
Quoth the fanboy.
By 'completely closed and proprietary' you mean ISO9669 format and totally open correct?
And lets not forget that 90% of innovation is crap.
" When you have hundreds of people in an area sumiltaneously before a new "zone" is created."
Sorta like 100s of people in diablo chat rooms before the instance is created.
Of course they're also planning on releasing expansions every few months.
This of course is your monthly fee.
"which is why I don't understand why Zonk would say that this is clearly a "big mistake.""
Because he owns an xbox/gc?