I decided to read the ITunes EULA and the MIT License today.
The first thing that struck me was the differences and similarities in length and style of writing. The length of the two documents is vastly different, ITunes being very long and the MIT License being very short. I believe the purpose in a long length is to diminish the customers desire to read the EULA, where as the shorter version is more clear, concise and to the point. the The writing style is similar, a mix of lower case and upper case, as well as a lot of legal diction, but the EULA is filled with some very odd stipulations where as the MIT License is straight to the point.
An example of this is,
"The Application Provider, and its licensors, reserve the right to change, suspend, remove, or disable access to any Services at any time without notice"
ITunes essentially says that they take away your use of the product for no reason, even after paying for it. As well as to change the license without any notice. This leaves the customer very vulnerable and very, very ridiculous.
Another part that caught my eye was,
" Location data provided by any Services is for basic navigational purposes only and is not intended to be relied upon in situations where precise location information is needed or where erroneous, inaccurate or incomplete location data may lead to death, personal injury, property or environmental damage."
This one is interesting, there is a possibility you could die by using this service. How crazy is that? This makes me worried about what could possibly be in other EULA's that I was never aware of.
The one if I found the most ludicrous is this,
" By using the Licensed Application, you represent and warrant that you are not located in any such country or on any such list. You also agree that you will not use these products for any purposes prohibited by United States law, including, without limitation, the development, design, manufacture or production of nuclear, missiles, or chemical or biological weapons."
Step one, this is trying to impose US law on the entire world (not so different, I know) through a software agreement.
Step two, nuclear weapons(WHAT?!), just incase I wanted to create nuclear weapons with ITunes, I should be worried that they might cancel my service.
As well as reading through this EULA, I scanned a few others and found they had equally funny/crazy stipulations thrown in. Whether these will hold up in court is another matter, but I'm sure in a few years someone will try and own our entire life through the use of their software and we'll find out.
As a contrast, here is the entire MIT License,
"The MIT License (MIT)
Copyright (c) <year> <copyright holders>
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal
in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights
to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell
copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is
furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in
all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM,
OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN
THE SOFTWARE."
That's it; no bombs, no deaths, no financial advise. Enjoy, share, learn,
Cheers,
James Laverty
