Thanks to the horrifying xenomorphic nightmare known as Twitter, I just learned about the Eulagisca Gigantea, an Antarctic scale worm with a retractable mouth tube and a body lined with creepy gold bristles that's roughly the equivalent size of a squirrel. — Read the rest
John Overholt from Harvard's Houghton Library spotted a paper towel dispenser whose prominent EULA prohibits refilling it with non-Tork brands of towels, with Tork vowing to "enforce its rights under applicable laws and agreements."
Not much detail on this patented houseplant and its terrifying license "agreement": redditor GooberMcNutly posted it a few hours ago and hasn't said anything else about it. Plants are patentable, and in theory patents reach into private conduct. Whatever the story, this is some primo late-stage capitalism right here.
The latest episode of the always-outstanding Adam Ruins Everything (previously) is my favorite yet: a wide-ranging look at the way that tech has exploited policy loopholes to monopolize control over repairs, features, parts and consumables; to spy on users; to use predatory pricing to crush competitors; to avoid taxation; and to become a force for oligarchic control.
A teenager livestreaming a demo of a Fortnite cheat he found online got sued by Epic Games, but the case raises questions about who, if anyone, is legally obligated after he clicked the user agreement required to play the game.
"Precision agriculture" is to farmers as Facebook is to publishers: farmers who want to compete can't afford to boycott the precision ag platforms fielded by the likes of John Deere, but once they're locked into the platforms' walled gardens, they are prisoners, and the platforms start to squeeze them for a bigger and bigger share of their profits.
Washington and Lee law professor Joshua Fairfield is the author of a recent book called Owned: Property, Privacy, and the New Digital Serfdom, which takes up the argument that DRM and license agreements mean that we have no real property rights anymore, just a kind of feudal tenancy in which distant aristocrats (corporations) dictate how we may and may not use the things we "buy," backed by the power of the state to fine or jail us if we fail to arrange our affairs to the company's shareholders.
Back in 2015, cartoonist Robert Sikoryak started publishing single pages from his upcoming graphic novel Terms and Conditions, in which he would recount every word of the current Apple iTunes Terms and Conditions as a series of mashup pages from various comics old and new, in which Steve Jobsean characters stalked across the panels, declaiming the weird, stilted legalese that "everyone agrees to and no one reads."
Rogue archivist Carl Malamud writes, "I just got back from the big debate on is free law like free beer that has been brewing for months at the American Bar Association over the question of who gets to read public safety codes and on what terms."
Last December, Vtech, a crapgadget/toy company, suffered a breach that implicated the data of 6.3 million children, caused by its negligence toward the most basic of security measures.
The crooks that Edward Snowden outed (and their complicit overseers in government) like to talk about how Snowden violated an oath when he gave journalists documents that established that security services in at least five countries were breaking their own laws in order to pursue unimaginably aggressive mass surveillance. — Read the rest
When you click through the Windows 10 "agreement," you agree to let Microsoft subject your games and hardware to authenticity tests and to shut down anything it doesn't like the looks of.
I amuse myself (and sometimes others) with my email sig, which makes you promise to release me from any agreements I've gotten into with your employer — but it turns out I'm a rank amateur.
When you bought your Wii U, it came with one set of terms-of-service; now they've changed, and if you don't accept the changes, your Wii seizes up and won't work. That's not exactly what we think of when we hear the word "agreement."
One year ago today
Fermi's Paradox, the tapeworm-and-anus versus: Fermi's Paradox speculates that the fact that our civilization has not yet encountered evidence of alien civilization implies that such life must not exist. In "Tapeworm Logic," Charlie Stross brilliantly skewers this by looking at the version of Fermi's Paradox that a tapeworm-philosopher might arrive at. — Read the rest
Researchers at Malwarebytes have discovered that some programs covertly install Bitcoin-mining software on users' computers, papering over the practice by including sneaky language in their license agreements allowing for "computer calculations, security."
The malicious programs include YourFreeProxy from Mutual Public, AKA We Build Toolbars, LLC, AKA WBT. — Read the rest
One year ago today
Thoughts from a Japanese Media Pirate: This isn't to oppose copyright. I agree that we need copyright law, but also that we should have access to everything. I'm all for supporting artists and buying their work, but is anyone suffering for the existence of mashups? — Read the rest
Of all the stupid clauses in the license "agreements" that the Internet crams down your throat, the cake-taker is "this agreement subject to change without notice." In other words, you're "agreeing" to anything and everything that the company dreams up, for the rest of time. — Read the rest
Further to yesterday's post about the availablity of a DRM-free, EULA-free MP3 download for the audiobook of Little Brother, I'm pleased to announce that I'm also selling the audiobook for my new novel Pirate Cinema. As with the Little Brother audio, this is a professionally voiced, unabridged audiobook from Random House Audio. — Read the rest
Tom Scott's Welcome to Life is a clever and chilling short film about the EULA you will be asked to click through when you die. It paints a picture of an afterlife run on the kinds of shitty, non-negotiable terms as today's social media sites. — Read the rest
