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Computer Game Contracts

  • 02-10-2006 9:47am
    #1
    The_Minister
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,255 ✭✭✭✭


    This is another contract question. When you install a game or other piece of software a long and complicated speel comes up that you have to agee to. I never read that and I would imagine that no-one does. Is that contract legally binding?
    They could slip anything into it and I would never notice, I could be agreeing to sell my house or give them money. Could they slip these kinds of things into it, and would I be forced to pay?


Comments

  • #2
    seamus
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 68,317 ✭✭✭✭seamus


    It's a little grey.

    While an EULA will state plenty of things about licensing, and what you can and cannot do, you can bet that they're backed up somewhere by actual legislation. The purpose of the EULA is mainly to inform you of what you've actually bought, and the rights you possess while using the software.

    In this country, ticking a box or clicking a button saying "Yes, I agree", does not constitute a legally binding contract. So in this capacity they couldn't put down things like "If you agree, then you must sell your house and supply your children to us for testing", as they would have no legal stance to enforce it. However, if you were brought to court on a licensing or copyright issue, the fact that you "read" the EULA stands against you.

    To the best of my knowledge, no-one has ever been up in court where the EULA was used as a piece of evidence or tool to convict. Even the big companies, when they discover licence evaders, prefer to work it out privately than bring the offending company to court.


  • #3
    Pines
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 225 ✭✭Pines


    Some cases have come before the US Courts, and there have been a mix of decisions.

    In Blizzard -v-bnetd.org (link below), the defendants created a game hosting environment that emulated Blizzard's own network and which allowed unlicensed copies of games to take part in multiplayer games (which Blizzard's own servers would have banned). To do this they needed to reverse engineer the game software and the EULA prohibited this. They had clicked on "I agree" during the install process and the US Court of Appeal held that they broke this licence agreement when they subsequently reverse engineered the product.
    http://www.eff.org/IP/Emulation/Blizzard_v_bnetd/20050901_decision.pdf

    More info can be found at
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrink_wrap_contract
    and
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EULA#Enforceability


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