Arthur S. Alexion on Fri, 4 Oct 2002 16:30:03 -0400


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[PLUG] when users may not be bound by EULAs


http://www.law.com/jsp/printerfriendly.jsp?c=LawArticle&t=PrinterFriendlyArticle&cid=1032128653116

This is a recent ruling by the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals.  We are 
in the 3rd Circuit, and while this is not binding on our courts, it 
could likely be followed.

Essentially, the court ruled that where the EULA is contained 
"scrollable", on the second "page" of an installation wizard, where the 
program is a free download, downloading users are not bound by its 
terms.  In this instance, the program was the SmartDownload plug in for 
Netscape, and the EULA term avoided was the arbitration clause.

Seems like the court would have reached a different conclusion if the 
user had to agree to the eula in order to download.  The court seemed 
to dislike the fact that the EULA was scrollable, treating it like 
small print.
-- 

_______________________________
Art Alexion
Arthur S. Alexion LLC
mailto:arthur@alexion.com
http://www.alexion.com
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