Hyman Rosen wrote: [...] > You miss the essential difference - when you download a copy of > a GPLed program, it is you who is making the copy, and therefore > you are bound by the license (if you choose to be; if not, then
Let NYSD.USCOURTS.GOV know about that, Hyman. <chuckles> http://www.nysd.uscourts.gov/courtweb/pdf/D02NYSC/01-07482.PDF <quote> unlike the user of Netscape Navigator or other click-wrap or shrink- wrap licensees, the individual obtaining SmartDownload is not made aware that he is entering into a contract. SmartDownload is available from Netscape's web site free of charge. Before downloading the software, the user need not view any license agreement terms or even any reference to a license agreement, and need not do anything to manifest assent to such a license agreement other than actually taking possession of the product. From the user's vantage point, SmartDownload could be analogized to a free neighborhood newspaper, readily obtained from a sidewalk box or supermarket counter without any exchange with a seller or vender. It is there for the taking. [...] Unlike most of his fellow Plaintiffs, Michael Fagan alleges that he obtained SmartDownload from a shareware web site established and managed by a third party. Defendants dispute Fagan's allegations, insisting that the record shows that he must have obtained SmartDownload from Netscape's web site in the same manner as the other Plaintiffs discussed above. I need not resolve this factual dispute. If Fagan in fact obtained SmartDownload from the Netscape site, his claims are equally subject to my earlier analysis. If, however, Fagan's version of events is accurate, his argument against arbitration is stronger than that of the other Plaintiffs. While Netscape's download page for SmartDownload contains a single brief and ambiguous reference to the License Agreement, with a link to the text of the agreement, the ZDNet site15 contains not even such a reference. The site visitor is invited to click on a hypertext link to "more information" about SmartDownload. The link leads to a Netscape web page, which in turn contains a link to the License Agreement. Assuming, for the sake of argument, that Fagan obtained SmartDownload from ZDNet, he was even less likely than the other Plaintiffs to be aware that he was entering into a contract or what its terms might be, and even less likely to have assented to be bound by the License Agreement and its arbitration clause. Therefore, Plaintiff Michael Fagan cannot be compelled </quote> regards, alexander. -- http://gng.z505.com/index.htm (GNG is a derecursive recursive derecursion which pwns GNU since it can be infinitely looped as GNGNGNGNG...NGNGNG... and can be said backwards too, whereas GNU cannot.) _______________________________________________ gnu-misc-discuss mailing list gnu-misc-discuss@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-misc-discuss
