Out-Law / Your Daily Need-To-Know

A programmer has released a piece of code that will remove the End User Licence Agreements (EULAs) found in most retail software, according to a report by news site The Register. In effect, the programmer is making a statement against what he considers the absurdity of these agreements.

The author – who does not reveal his name – says he has done this partly to ridicule what he sees as the absurdity of agreements that buyers cannot know about until after a sale, and partly to be able to honestly say that he never accepted any EULA.

Software licences typically appear when the package is opened and the CD-ROM loaded. The licence asks the customer to click his acceptance before use of the application – known as a click-wrap licence. Such licences have been accepted as valid by courts. In the event that the user disagrees with the terms of the licence, he or she could, at least in theory, return the product for a refund.

However, the author of the Visual Basic script appears to acknowledge that his approach is unlikely to stand up in court. Rather, he is making a statement to the effect that software should not be subject to whatever conditions the developer desires. He argues that it should instead be subject to copyright laws alone, as with a book or a music CD.

We are processing your request. \n Thank you for your patience. An error occurred. This could be due to inactivity on the page - please try again.