[free-sklyarov] EU and EULAs (Was: Seybold session yesterday)

[David Haworth]

Hi Lars & all,

On Thu, Sep 27, 2001 at 03:48:47PM +0200, Lars Gaarden wrote:
> 
> Do you have a reference to laws and court rulings that support this?
> 
> The reason I ask is because 6.4.4 in the EUCD will make 'click-through'
> EULAs a convenient opt-out for publishers. I want to understand how
> these 'contracts' differ from a regular mutually-agreed contract with
> regards to what terms that are considered legally binding.

The Directive on Unfair Terms & Conditions is the one to look for.
Theres an informative page at
http://www.oft.gov.uk/html/consume/general.htm#uct If you follow the
link "regular bulletins" thee are loads of cases - don't have time to
look right now.

I used to subscribe to Which? magazine many years ago. The back page
always contained a few stories about peoples attempts to get compensation
for shoddy goods & services. The basic gist of the cases where people
had a contract imposed after they'd paid for the goods was that
such terms weren't valid (unless of course the consumer could gain
advantage from them). That would also apply to shrink-wrap licenses,
especially in the ridiculous case of "by opening this package you
agree to the terms and conditions inside".
All this applies only to "consumer" purchases, not to commercial
purchases, and of course it's UK law (but pretty similar to the
EU directive).

This could all change after the EUCD though :-(

Dave


-- 
David Haworth
Baiersdorf, Germany
david.haworth at altavista.net
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