On Sun, 13 Feb 2005, Sam MacDonald wrote: > I understand your point of view and agree that wrong is wrong. > But > If you purchase something that has a binding legal agreement with and you use > said product you are bound by law to abide by that agreement. Wrong is wrong > even if it's my wrong. > Right. Of course, the concept of shrinkwrap agreements is on dubious legal ground, and I generally _don't_ buy such software. I looove the GPL! Yeah, it kind of limits my computer gaming options, but that is what consoles and arcades are for. Besides, arcades are much more fun than any hardware I can afford. > Read and understand the rules of a product before purchasing the product. We > need to be smart consumers not sheep that make mistakes because we didn't > read and understand the agreement. > Part of the dubious legal ground of shrinkwrap agreements is that you can't read it first. The other part is that it is unilaterally binding on the purchaser (you can't "return it to the place of purchase" if you disagree with it). There is no option of refusal after you have read the agreement, and most people don't know what it says. > Maybe if we didn't purchase the stuff that has crazy legal agreements the > legal agreements wouldn't be so crazy. > I don't, and they are. Go figure. > The power company tells us to call before we dig but every year people are > killed by underground power lines when they put a spade through the line. > Should the power company have to post a warning every 5 feet. The price of > power would be $100.00 per kWh, what then? > Bogus argument. We aren't talking about physical safety issues, we are talking about companies trying to sell stuff without actually giving anything up to do so. A more appropriate example would be if the electric company were to wire the electric through your plumbing at random intervals, and send you notice through the post when they did so (after the fact). All the risk would then be yours, and you wouldn't know about the risk until potentially too late. -- Daniel Taylor random at argle.org Forget diamonds, Copyright is forever.