Only in America...
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| Sachankara Sep 07, 2006 2:05 AM EDT |
...Can a paper from a company take away your rights and protections of the law from a person. Most other countries have laws that state: "You cannot bypass the law with a contract". I'm not bashing Americans, I'm bashing the American legislative system which allows companies to butt-rape its people. |
| Scott_Ruecker Sep 07, 2006 2:33 AM EDT |
Don't you know? Its the American way to do things now. Corporations are much more important than individuals. Their rights are supposed to supersede the rights of the individual. I mean, how else are they supposed to make money for the people in charge and protect them at the same time? By making sure that the serfs cannot not sue them for anything. |
| dinotrac Sep 07, 2006 3:23 AM EDT |
Sachankara - I think you misunderstand. In the US, you cannot contract your way out of the law. A contract to break the law is not valid. What Microsoft's contract does is limit the damages you can seek against them. That is completely valid and should be. Remember that a contract is an agreement between two parties, that there is a tradeoff between protection and freedom. More protection = less freedom. It's not quite clear where the line of liability would fall. For example, under the EULA you can't sue for economic damages from negligence, but, presuming a situation could arise in which Microsoft could legally be considered grossly negligent or reckless, the disclaimer would likely have not effect. |
| nalf38 Sep 07, 2006 2:40 PM EDT |
Yeah, you just have to decide if that kind of license is something you can live just so you can use what everyone else is using. I doubt OSX's EULA is much different, though I haven't had a look at it. It's kind of the same thing with most cell phone plans or any other monopoly; they're all filled with hidden fees and you almost always end up paying more than what your contract says, but you end up getting a cell phone anyway because you have to use *something*. That's the benefit (for corporations) of being a monopoly. I guess that's what I like so much about the GPL. You still can't sue for damages, but at least you have the option of fixing it yourself. If an MS product is broken or full of security holes, it could stays that way until they decide that enough people are pissed off about it enough to affect their bottom line, e.g. as long as very few people outside of MS know about the problem, they can afford to be complacent. That's probably why Apple is throwing so many lawyers at the guys who discovered a flaw in those wireless drivers. Seems like they would have spent a LOT less money if they would freaking fix it already. |
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