Re: Re: Sony-BMG EULA

[Pierre Vandevenne <pierre () datarescue com>]

Good Day,

I thought about that issue a lot when I was a disassembler user (as
opposed to merely being in a company that publishes a disassembler)

Imho, you have four lines of defence

- shrink wrap agreements, the ones that were supposed to bind you
before you did anything have been considered unsustainable in qite a
few cases.

- if you didn't agree, where is the problem?

- for the agreements saying "By running this program...", just don't
run the program.

- for the "total disclaimer" agreements that once were popular and
specifically stated that no guarantee was made about the program, how
could anyone claim the protection/reporting/whatever (insert anything
here) actually worked in the first place.

These are a bit theoretical.

We were threatened once, by a _very_ large company, who apparently
didn't like our <quote>"intrinsically illegal"</quote> software. We
simply asked what "intrinsically illegal" activity their other
branch/department using our product was involved in. That seemed to
have settled the case.

What's disassembly? What's debugging? Does debugging rely in any way
on disassembly?

If disassembly suddenly became a totally illegal activity, I guess
I'll specialize in writing hostile code; sell our services to the
biggest buyer and sue anyone reversing our stuff ;-)

Seriously, if anything has allowed people to get accurate information
in the IT world, that's the existence of disassemblers and debuggers,
the only tools that can tell you what is going on and how it is being
done.

OSes, compilers and editors are, by far, more dangerous btw. They even allow
you to write disassemblers...

Seriously, Sony didn't even attempt (as far as I know) to play that
game.

Thursday, November 17, 2005, 10:19:55 PM, you wrote:

KP> FWIW,

KP> I never clicked "agree" so that means I'm free to disassemble as much as
KP> I want, no?

KP> "END-USER LICENSE AGREEMENT

KP> This End-User License Agreement (“EULA”) is a legal agreement between
KP> you and SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT (“SONY BMG”), a general partnership
KP> established under Delaware law. By clicking on the “AGREE” button below,
KP> you will indicate your acceptance of these terms and conditions, at
KP> which point this EULA will become a legally binding agreement between
KP> you and SONY BMG."

KP> -k
KP> _______________________________________________
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-- 
Best regards,
 Pierre                            mailto:pierre () datarescue com

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