On Fri, Oct 17, 2008 at 09:07:12PM +0200, Frederik Ramm wrote: > Jochen Topf wrote: > > If we create a license that is not > > enforcable, why bother? > > This issue - contract only works where parties know about the contract > before - has arisen in previous discussions. The usual retort went like > this: > > (1) you don't *know* that it is not enforceable, you just *assume* - > court cases like this are few and far between;
A contract by definition is something you can only enter into voluntarily. So I know that it is not enforcable unless both parties have agreed. It might still be not enforcable if both parties have agreed (for any number of reasons), but if there is no agreement, there is no contract. Wikipedia says "A contract is an exchange of promises between two or more parties to do or refrain from doing an act which is enforceable in a court of law." The only discussion could be around the question: Can the usage of the data in itself be seen as agreement to the contract, or do we need some kind of positive action (like a click-through). Judging from the many click-through licenses used everywhere most legal minds seem to think that you need this... > (2) even having a non-enforceable license that basically says what we > want is suitable as some kind of ethics/morality stick we can use to > beat people who misbehave, even if they misbehave within the envelope of > the law. > > Of course, once you go down (2) the question arises, why do we need a > lawyer at all, why not write down a "brief brief" and be done with it. Exactly. Jochen -- Jochen Topf [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.remote.org/jochen/ +49-721-388298 _______________________________________________ legal-talk mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
