Lot's of hot threads about Steam and EULA, I was wondering how the EULA got started. I'd guess scumbag company like Micro$oft or Adobe started it, but maybe not. Could be from corporate software sales - since lot's of corporations were less than honest about buying software for every computer

Does anybody KNOW how the ^&*()$#)(&*@%^(@JI @&*4 EULA got started for consumer software products??

If you don't know but want to vote as to who was most likely, that's OK too, but I really would like to know who was first.

The EULA came from liability waivers and nondisclosure agreements which have been around for as long as man has been doing business.

What's wrong with EULAs?

My thoughts exactly ^

Well, in their current form they are full of too much legalese and far too long.

The concept of an EULA, a contract establishing what guarantor is giving and doing for an end user as well as establishing the rights and liabilities, is perfectly fine.

If the OP wants to see a real-world EULA: call any contractor

do you like the fact that you are essentially renting any pc game (or other) pc software you buy - you don't actually own the game, you can not sell it to someone else like you can an old book, or an old TV or an old car.

Yeah, there are legalese attached to every product you buy, mainly regarding liability/loss, but nowhere else except software, AFAIK, do the EULA state that you do NOT own the actual product you paid for

Selling your license in the second-hand market is completely allowed. There are specific instances where it is not, but they are very rare and I can only recall one case where it was upheld that someone didn't have the right to sell a license -- in a court in Texas (what a surprise for those that are familiar with the 5th circuit :rolleyes: ) upheld that a company didn't have the right to resell the license of a program had paid for. Forget the reasons, but generally speaking you have the http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2008/05/court-smacks-autodesk-affirms-right-to-sell-used-software.ars.

And your silly EULAs don't apply to me since I don't live in your crappy proprietary world.


You aren't paying for a product, you are paying for a license. Same applies to books and movies. When you buy a movie, you don't own the movie, just the right to watch the movie. When you buy a game, you don't own the game, just the right to play the game.

Wrong - I can sell a movie dvd (or VHS tape) to someone else, I can sell a printed book to someone else - AFAIK, you can NOT sell a Steam game to someone else, but you can sell console games, but that is going away now too as they find ways to shove the EULA down customers throats (or up their.....)

re courts - acoording to Wik "The 7th Circuit and 8th Circuit subscribe to the "licensed and not sold" argument, while most other circuits do not" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_license_agreement#End-user_license_agreement

And can you get me a Martian rock for a paperweight?

Funny, the US Supreme Court disagrees. When you buy a book, you are buying that copy of the book. That's where the First-Sale Doctrine comes from, when publishers tried to claim you were only licensing books because of the terms on the inside pages. Courts said no, you buy a copy, not a license, and are allowed to resell it because those terms are invalid. It's the same exact thing game publishers try to pull, by adding terms to the "inside" of the product (so-called "shrink-wrap EULAs"). Courts have also re-iterated things like "format-shifting" for movies and music (eg, rip CDs to MP3s or DVDs to AVIs), which is a right people have of an owned copy of a product. Video games seem to be the only one where people assume you don't buy a copy.

Also consider: copyright law grants almost nothing to someone licensing a product, compared to owning a copy. Everything from installing, to copying to RAM (an essential step to running any piece of software), to running, to modifying, to updating, to reselling... is a right that needs to be explicitly granted by the licensor. Something else this includes: throwing away. Yeah, it's illegal to throw a licensed CD/DVD in the trash if they don't tell you that you can. These rights are all implicit when buying a copy, but not for licensing.

works in gaming industry... that's called a biased opinion

Your steam example applies to books you get through Amazon's Kindle Bookstore. You waive certain rights when you agree to certain licenses. It's something innate to the license, not to the content.


And I can't get you a Martian rock, but I can get you a GNU rock

FYI: circuit districts have a jurisdiction area, their rulings aren't full in scope


Uh, sorry, works of media ARE licensed. You can verify this yourself by trying to freely play a movie to an audience in your local park. It's illegal under the license granted by the movie (which is personal use, not broadcast use).

First-sale doctrine isn't voided by the fact that media is licensed. It just adds a new complexity (see my link of software still falling in first-sale doctrine)

If that were true, it would be illegal for anyone under 18 to buy, since they can't enter into contracts/license agreements. If it were true, what gives you the right to rip CDs to MP3, or to make copies for your iPod? This is something "licensors" actively fight against, so is obviously not part of the license, yet courts have continuously ruled that you can. Just about every time the courts have re-iterated consumer rights over such things, it's been a rights granted by copyright law that only applies to owners of copies, and explicitly denied to licensees.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine
"The doctrine allows the purchaser to transfer (i.e., sell, lend or give away) a particular lawfully made copy of the copyrighted work without permission once it has been obtained. This means that the copyright holder's rights to control the change of ownership of a particular copy ends once ownership of that copy has passed to someone else, as long as the copy itself is not an infringing copy."
The first-sale doctrine only applies to someone who owns a copy. Unless you can show otherwise, it does not apply to licensed copies since you don't own those.

You're allowed to rip CDs because there is a DMCA exemption for it (the only long-standing one)


All software is copyrighted first, licensed second. The license stipulates what you are allowed to do with the software. The way to get around the copyright first part is to do SaaS, like Steam and a lot of proprietary business software does.


End of the day, there's a reason why even IP lawyers want reform in the world of software. At the least we are in dire need of at least a supreme cour ruling on the matter, rather than it just being left up to the interpretation of the disctricts.

And reselling, making backup copies, throwing away...?

backup copies is a fickle thing given that *some* cds and virtually all movies have DRM, which is why you actually can't do that in the US currently (legally) for movies and certain CDs.

Once again, copyright first, license second, which keeps first-sale alive and allows you to resale. licensing just adds complexity.

A lot of the allowed also has to do with precedence for media like music and movies, which predate the digital era. Software isn't lucky enough to have a rich history of precedence

You know what I think would solve half the problems most of us have with EULA agreements?

Stop writing the damn things in legalese so you can understand them without needing a law degree.

but... but....

that would be too easy.

... and to restrict them to a single side of A4 (or letter, for the US). That is, in a normal font and normally formatted, since otherwise you'd end up with a wall of microscopic text...

I have no idea what this means. Can you clarify?

When you have something copyrighted (which is implicit upon creation of the work), you can choose to either license or sell copies. Without a contract or agreement before purchase, it's a sale, which transfers ownership of the copy to the buyer. Without ownership of the copy, the law grants you almost nothing in terms of rights, and just about everything you can do needs to be specified in the license.

All works are copyright protected (unless released into the public domain). Sale is one way of transferring a copy, licensing is another way to transfer a copy. Licensing allows you to withhold rights, whereas a sale does not. You still get ownership of the copy when a work is licensed (so long as you do not violate any part of the license) and you are allowed to pass on that license - IN WHOLE - to another being. The licensor at this point is within their right to revoke the license (they are, afterall, within their right to revoke license at any times according to a good majority of licenses), but first-sale still stands, all that changes is what is sold - a lease, a copy, or a license.