A fair EULA for downloaded works

My latest Guardian column's just gone up, about the message that entertainment companies send when they put crappy EULAs on their digital downloads:

Here's the world's shortest, fairest, and simplest licence agreement: "Don't violate copyright law." If I had my way, every digital download from the music in the iTunes and Amazon MP3 store, to the ebooks for the Kindle and Sony Reader, to the games for your Xbox, would bear this – and only this – as its licence agreement.

"Don't violate copyright law" has a lot going for it, but the best thing about it is what it signals to the purchaser, namely: "You are not about to get screwed."

You shouldn't have to sell your soul just to download some music

• [WeightedCompanionCube]

  Midknyte – MP3 != theft. I never said that, and you’re obnoxious for saying I did. Can you read “plain English”?

  I just pointed out that even though everyone uses it, it’s not the best choice for DRM-free purchased music. If I’m paying close to the same price as a CD, I’d like something lossless such as FLAC and compress it to whatever format I please.

• [gotmike]

  I love the concept, but it doesn’t make it clear to the user what they can and can’t do with the work. If the statement doesn’t grant a license, then any copying, distributing or modifying the work would violate copyright. If the statement is intended to imply that certain uses of the material are permitted without violating copyright, it is hard to determine where the line is. Out of curiosity, I would love to see people reply in the comments with what they think would and wouldn’t be permitted under the EULA. Which of the following do you think would be permitted under the proposed license:

  1. Use of the software;

  2. Copying the software;

  3. Distributing copies to other people;

  4. Making modifications and derivative works of the software for your own use;

  5. Making modifications and derivative works to sell to other people?

  I realize the example was intended to make a point, but I think it would be useful to build on the idea and create a short EULA that is respectful to users and includes a little more detail about what the author expects the user to be able to do with the material.

• [Xopher]

  GotMike, the point of EULAs is to restrict use beyond what copyright laws already prescribe and proscribe. A EULA that merely explains copyright law isn’t very useful to the company trying to do that. What Cory’s doing is essentially saying that EULAs are a bad thing.

• [WeightedCompanionCube]

  Nidknyte – MP3 might be universal, but it isn’t free as in speech OR beer.

  Strictly speaking, all distributors of products or media that utilize MP3 must pay royalties to Thompson/Fraunhofer.

  Sheesh, they’ve even got a website: http://mp3licensing.com/

• [midknyte]

  @10 “…Nidknyte – MP3 might be universal, but it isn’t free as in speech OR beer…”

  Where in my post did I utter the word free? And why does everyone dogmatically equate mp3 with theft. You’ve been trained very, very well.

  Sheesh, I even wrote it in plain English.

• [Avram / Moderator]

  My favorite software EULA was one I saw in the ’80s. I think the software was either a screensaver or a hard drive defragmenter. (Or both.) I don’t recall the exact wording, but it was along the lines of: We’re not going to tell you that you have to buy a license of this software for every computer you use it on in your office, because we know you wouldn’t do it. But at least don’t share it around to your friends and neighbors. We have rent to pay, too.

• [midknyte]

  “…So now the pitch goes: “We gave you what you asked for, you’ve brought us to our knees. Now, please stop ripping us off and start buying music again – we’re offering a fair deal…”

  No, and no. DRM is only being dropped in mantra. 2 out of the 3 major vendors of music downloads (in my mind those are iTunes, Amazon, and the Zune platform), still enforce device tie-in.

  Just sell the dog-gamned music, in an accepted standard format (high bitrate mp3 please) and let me walk away [and play it on the device of "my" choosing].

• [Jeff]

  Is it just a myth that what people find on the internet (stuff they can download), they expect to get for free? And that’s just because people figured out how to share music with their friends (or some variant thereof), to the point where it became the perfect way to get music without paying for it. I want DMR free music and audio books, but then there has to be some logical way to deal with pirated entertainment. AI surveillance of all net traffic? She will know if the files are allowed. No more child porn either. Mother will make the internet safe again.

• [Baldhead]

  Yeah but that wastes the grand opportunity to fid new ways to define copyright law.

• [Anonymous]

  Seems redundant. Might as well say:
  Don’t do drugs
  Don’t shoot yourself
  Don’t be evil
  or
  Don’t do stuff you shouldn’t do.

• [Nur]

  I think it’s still too early to say “don’t violate copyright law” and leave it at that. The field’s been around for a long, long time but the principles have only been applied to individuals in the last 15 or so years.

  The majority of people alive today (including my 20 year old self) would have been alive when it was still only commercial publishers or the most fevered of photocopying librarians who could even attempt to breach copyright law. The law on the area is in no way settled and until the law actually is settled it’s literally against people’s human rights to expect them to follow the strange and unwritten rules that they don’t know yet.

  Wait a few years, watch the outcome of a few trials which aren’t immediately called mistrials (especially wait for one which actually takes place in the UK) before you can actually point to “copyright law” as something you can follow or at least not break, at least beyond common sense things like if “someone pays someone else to record an album and you download it for free maybe someone’ll mind”.

• [midknyte]

  Yes, I have a chip on my shoulder and I barked. Sorry.

• [Takuan]

  “do not bind the mouths of the kine that tread the grain”

• [WeightedCompanionCube]

  For years iPod packaging had “Don’t Steal Music” on it. Even though Apple has a (at the time) DRM-only music store, they know damn well that isn’t where most users get their music.

• [Robbo]

  It’s an interesting age we live in when the previously arcane concepts of copyright law intrude upon our day to day activities. Do we need to constantly define and redefine copyright law with each and every agreement we enter into? No. Awareness of these laws will not slip into the shadows once more any time soon because they are being driven into the light and – hopefully, eventually, inevitably – redefined into a singular and consistent understanding for everyone. Therefore a simple EULA of “Don’t violate copyright law.” would become as inviolate a principle of behaviour as “Thou shalt not kill.”

  Of course, we’re still working on that one.

  While I’m here, I was curious if Cory’s email EULA is public domain? I’d love to emulate, copy, rip-off what you always tag on to the end of your mails – with my own amendments and acknowledgement, naturally – with my own missives.

  Cheers.

• [Church]

  How about, “Don’t violate Jefferson’s Copyright Law?” That I could go for.