Ongoing History Daily: More on the iTunes end-user license agreement
We’ve all been faced with end-user license agreements or “EULAs.” They come in the form of dialogue boxes that pop up when we’re installing new software or hoping to use a certain product online. To get it working, we have to click “agree.” By doing that, you’re now a party to a legally binding agreement between a software vendor and you that protects the developer from—well, everything that could go wrong.
And let’s face it, no one ever reads those things because they’re long and incomprehensible. We don’t know what we’re agreeing to. Here’s my favourite.
The EULA to download a single song on iTunes has a word count greater than what Shakespeare needed to write Macbeth. But it gets even better. This is a real clause from the document. “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 missiles, or nuclear, chemical or biological weapons.”
For downloading a song on iTunes? Talk about covering your ass, huh?
