End User Licencing Agreements and the Business Software Association

(From UpFronteZine - Author: Ralph Grabowski)

 

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u p F r o n t . e Z i n e
the business of cad, enlightened

Issue #548 | February 26, 2008 | English Edition
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Waddington Dogs Autodesk's EULA . . . .

R. Paul Waddington keeps on commenting on the content of Autodesk's end-user licence agreement: "The only way these [EULA] documents can be viewed is as a quasi code of conduct," he says.

Only a very few customers care to read EULAs [end user license agreements] sufficiently to get frustrated with their one-sided nature -- whether written by Autodesk or another software firm. In short, the typical software vendor promises close to nothing in exchange for your continuing agreement to take all responsibility.

(One of the drollest terms accompanied the software included with my first computer, the Victor 9000. The agreement required that I return the software after 20 years -- to a company that went out of existence after 5 years.)

For its part, Autodesk legal reps continue to be unimpressed by Mr Waddington's protests:

"Your open letter repeats the same ill-conceived grievance in relation to the audit clause in Autodesk's End User Licence Agreement that our client has responded to fully in the past. Our client will not be drawn into responding to your weblog and in any way validating your unfounded complaint."

(The infamous audit clause means you agree to allow software firms to send agents into your home or business in search of unlicensed usage -- usually through a front organization called the Business Software Alliance.)

Autodesk's legal reps, however, take the wrong approach towards Mr Waddington, for he is a tenacious bulldog on this issue. Refusing to engage him in dialog only strengthens his conviction that Autodesk's legal relationship with users is questionable.

Today Mr Waddington writes me, "The NCC [National Consumer Council of England] have details of what I have uncovered as well in relation to the Audit clause and the Trojan CIP [customer involvement program] software, and details of the components of Autodesk's EULA that fall within the UK's unfair contract laws.

"It would only take UK users to write to their Fair Trading people and several components of Autodesk's EULA would probably cause some real heartburn for Autodesk (i.e. the insolvency clause). It would force Autodesk to delete or completely reword the clause to avoid penalty."

The NCC this month examined 25 software products to find:

• complex wording and widespread use of legal jargon.
  
• legal uncertainty, with frequent references to legislation in other countries.
  
• immediate contract termination rights for the provider.

It's good that there are people like Mr Waddington and NCC who make the effort to question the status quo, because the rest of us

(1) haven't got the patience to read EULAs, and
(2) don't care about their legal content. We get our software legally, we use it, we go on with our work.

Software developer Deelip Meneses provides the counter-argument: it is impractical for vendors to custom-tune the EULA for every customer. "For fun, let us imagine that Carl Bass takes leave of his senses and decides that he wants to negotiate his EULA with all nine million Autodesk customers. I will leave you to calculate the legal bill that such negotiations will result in. And while you are at it, take a wild guess as to who will eventually be paying for that bill."

Considering how few companies the BSA charges each year, any provision in any EULA is unlikely to ever affect us. And if the BSA does make life miserable for you, pay your fine, and then switch to a different software supplier. The final joke is on the software companies: the BSA does not share its recovered funds with member companies.

www.upfrontezine.com/

Links:
http://miletter.blogspot.com (Waddington's blog)
http://www.ncc.org.uk
http://www.deelip.com/2008/02/unfair-eulas.html (Unfair EULAs)

Created 3rd March 2008