[misc.legal] Email `shrink-wrap licence' ?

brnstnd@stealth.acf.nyu.edu (05/25/90)

Certainly once you've received a copy of the software, you're not bound
by any after-the-fact licenses. Shrink-wrap licenses are simply invalid.

In this case, the license appears to grant most normal ownership rights
explicitly, so it's rather useless and its unenforceability is rather
irrelevant. The only possible problem is #4, which pretends to restrict
sale and sublicensing rights; I don't know why Stanford thinks it has
that power, or what it gains from anything in that license.

I don't know what's going to happen in Europe. If you can be bound by a
license without agreeing to it, I'm scared for you.

Followups to trial.misc.legal.software, which will become
misc.legal.software if it gains enough readers.

---Dan