Willy said:



I'm sorry, but this really flies in the face of common sense. I understand completely the idea that when I buy a copy of WoW or any other piece of software, I don't "own" the software but rather a license to use it. However, to say that I don't own the physical medium on which the software is encoded seems a bit absurd on its face. Does that mean that Blizzard or EA can send people to my house to confiscate my CDs/DVDs because the companies still own the physical media on which their software has been encoded? By the same token, do I not "own" the printed manual or insert that came in that box? I don't mean that I have ownership of the text or photos in that manual as intellectual property; I mean that I have ownership of the book itself. How far is one willing to go with this argument? Because the case could be made that anything having anything remotely to do with third-party intellectual property is owned by the IP owner under all circumstances. I don't own any of my DVD movies or my books?

I'm tellin' ya here and now: Simon and Schuster, Bantam, and HarperCollins better not come to my house and try to take my books, 'cause I'll go all NRA on their asses!

Jonnan001 - If I'm reading your post #236 correctly, the main reason you contend EULAs are nonbinding is that you must directly agree to the contract AND communicate that agreement to the other party. Is this a fair statement?

Second, how would you define an affirmative response, and how you would define communication in this context. Must a physical signature be applied to a paper contract with both parties (or their representatives) physically present? Are verbal contracts with witnesses and/or records valid? Is an electronic agreement similar in nature to a verbal agreement made over the phone?

Recently (as in, last week) I purchased WoW. I "signed" the EULA on Sunday, about 10:30 AM. During the registration and account set up, I transmitted my name, address, phone number, email address, and payment information as part of the same process which began with accepting the EULA/TOU. That personally identifying information, as well as the time and date at which I agreed to the EULA/TOU contracts, are permanently linked in Blizzard's records with the serial number of the copy of the game I purchased the license to. In what way does this process not constitute a provable acceptance to Blizzard's contract?

As to Blizzard never contending full ownership of all materials, bullshit. They entered the EULA containing the quoted text as part of their evidence, specifically as exhibit 21, in support of their statement of fact. While Blizzard never directly asserts ownership of each copy, they consistently assert that users purchase license to use the game, not a copy of the game itself.

And for your hope this gets overturned, you may well be right. In my estimation you are not; either way we'll see at the end of September/beginning of October.

It does seem rather extreme, but asserting ownership of all copies and licensing their use is the only legal method a company has to defend rights they believe are theirs without giving users access to a section 117 defense.

As to a forcable confiscation, at a glance I would say no, unless they can prove you have broken the EULA. You are licensed to use them, and you must have physical possession of them to use them. It IS within their power to require you to return them to the company after installation, but that would likely prove a logistical nightmare far beyond any possible benefit they could get out of it.

Your collection of books, CDs and DVDs are safe from this ruling. They lack any sort of licensing agreement, so you do in fact own these copies. You have a valid section 117 defense.

If the thought of EA or Blizzard owning the discs, books, etc freaks you out, you will shit yourself when you realize this ruling could also give them claim to your hard drive! Yes, there is a copy of their property there, and according to this ruling (and others), they own it. Whether that gives them claim to your entire hard drive, or only the sectors the game is stored on is a pretty trivial concern after that. And what happens if I have more than one company's games on my hard drive? Do they all own it, or only specific parts of it?

Despite what Jonnan001 says, I am not arguing which side I think is *right* in this case, only what I believe the law says is right. I have my personal beliefs, but you won't find them here.

The basics of an contract (Strictly speaking, the writing on the paper is the 'agreement'. The *contract* is the agreement, plus all legal responsibilities that are implied, i.e. your state may guarantee a warranty and such, fraud clause, et al. Close to, but not quite interchangeable):
Offer - Some one offers you a good or service
Acceptance - I choose to take them up on it
Mutual Assent - We've verified that both understood the terms we were agreeing too.
Capacity - I am an adult, not drugged, etcetera
Consideration - We exchanged goods, services, money et al
Legality - Nothing was agreed to in violation of the law.

Now, what we're talking about here is an either/or situation:
Either the EULA is bound up with the sales contract, when we pay the store to buy it over the counter, and accepted when we install,

Or the EULA is a separate contract, accepted separately when we install the software.

The problem is that under either of these, it has problems meeting the defintion of a contract.

It is only fair to note that the TOS when you sign up for an account may or may not have these issues - I'm arguing solely about the EULA included with the software - although the EULA being invalid probably impacts the TOS when you create a server account, that *is* actually a different contract, and probably a valid, or in large part valid contract under the UCC.

But, back to basics - if the EULA is a part of (modification of) the sales contract, the fact that you were informed of it when you bought it, but did not actually see it, may invalidate it as a contract, depending on the exact terms of the EULA, and whether you are an expert (merchant) or a non-expert (consumer) in the field. Under UCC 2, you *can* be bound by this kind of modification to the sales contract, but you actually have to be made fully aware of it at the time - you can't have mutual assent, if you are not aware of what you are assenting to.

Now - this is where a merchant and a consumer are judged differently (Remember, for UCC purposes, a 'merchant' is anyone that has expertise in the product being sold), because as an expert in the field, it is assumed that a merchant is aware of industry standard clauses despite having never seen the contract or read it. A farmer knows the contracts when he sells to the grain mill, the computer programmer knows the standard clauses on what is legal uses of a compiler.

So, for someone that works in that field to claim he's not bound by the EULA, he has to prove that it's trying to utilize a clause that's not normal, which is fairly hard to do - unless it's just a weird, out there clause, a photographer buying photoshop is probably bound buy the EULA, whether he read it or not.

That's not the case with a 'consumer - the consumer is presumed not to be an expert in 'industry standard clauses' - if he buys something with a modification to the sales contract, he's supposed to be informed at the time - before money changes hands, and he has to actually sign off on it - because he's not an expert, he's protected from agreeing to things without knowing what he agreed to.

So, if the EULA is a modification to the sales contract, it makes a lot of difference whether or not the UCC recognizes me as a merchant, or a consumer, and even whether or not the terms of the EULA are arguably 'standard' terms.

The other possibility is whether the EULA is a separate contract. There are two major problem with that. The first is that it is easier for either a consumer or a merchant to accept a sales contract, than for anyone to get locked into a formal, non-sales contract.

By design, UCC 2 streamlines the concept of a contract because who want's to bring a lawyer to buy a loaf of bread? They streamline it further between 'merchants' to allow for standard terms etcetera, so farmers can sell wheat to a silo without messing around with arguing everything out point for point.

So, is it's *not* a sales contract, there is a very big question about trying to prove Offer, Acceptance, and Mutual Assent - Some states require a Notary Public notarize the document. But that's actually not the biggest problem.

If it's a separate contract, where is the consideration? You can modify the sales contract without consideration being passed back and forth, but if this is a separate contract - then there has to be separate consideration, or it *can't* be a contract.

If I bought the CD, and I own the CD for purposes of making a copy, then I don't receive anything more from Blizzard for having accepted the EULA when I installed - I already had that right. They have to give me something above and beyond that, or they hove no more standing to sue me for using that product anymore than I can sue someone for failing to buy me a gift, even though they promised to do so.

So, if it's a sales contract, UCC 2 steps in and give me some protection, if it's not a sales contract, it's almost impossible to rule it as a valid contract at all.

And that's why I think this can and should be overturned - Jonnan

I get what you're saying, and have for some time. The sticking point is right here:



Your 'consumer' fails to meet the reasonable person test. EULAs have been around for quite some time, long enough for a reasonable person to know of their existence. Furthermore, notice of that EULA is given on the box, as well as where the text of the agreement can be found so a person could read it before purchase. If a consumer doesn't take the steps of noticing the box label (which is rather noticable) and reading the EULA before purchase, they are choosing to be willfully ignorant of the terms. Not knowing the terms is quite a bit different from choosing not to know. There is existing case law (I'm way too tired to find it for you, google it yourself or I'll do it tomorrow) which struck down EULAs without notice on the box, or ones that didn't require the consumer to actively click 'I agree'.

From what I understand of your objections, the only way to meet them would be to force the consumer to physically sign the EULA before purchase, which is impractical for any number of reasons.

The primary one being no one would agree to them if they had to before hand.

I'd love to know where you're finding all this wonderful information. Reading EULA's before purchase for EA games takes some work, and they are the only company that even mentions them on any of the boxes I have sitting around. Perhaps you're looking at corporate software instead of game cases? The Spore EULA is displayed nowhere, to get the Creature Creator EULA, you have to check the manual, to get the manual, you have to buy the game and get it out of the box, or download it through their download manager.

EULA's are hardly standard in any case. For something to be standard, it has to be standard. EULA's encompass everything from basic copyright notification and listings of rights that they choose not to reserve to make your use of the software easier, to shit like EA is pulling these days, termination clauses stating that you lose the right to use the software at their whim without any violations on your part. Regardless, the law is crystal clear on the matter, some asshole making an obviously wrong interpretation doesn't make it true.

The judges are making illegal rulings. Your refusal to accept it simply makes you as dishonest as most of the population is. The legislature and judiciary are separate for a reason, judges enforcing illegal contracts are just more pond scum that need removed.

And that's where you're not getting it - for a 'consumer' to have to read the fine print of something he's not an expert in is exactly what the consumer/merchant distinction in UCC2 is supposed, is literally designed to avoid. I mean think about it - I've studied copyright law, as I presume you have, and we can disagree rather vehemently on what something like "Owner of a copy" provision on copyright law means - whether or not it's feasible for that provision to even be circumvented by an EULA.

That's two intelligent and informed people. Mutual Assent means confirming that people understand what they're signing - think about the amount of paperwork you had to go through last time you signed for a loan, all the places you had to assert that "Yes - I understand I have to pay this back, Yes they are charging interest, Yes they can have my first born child . . .".

Those are the streamlined, simplified, made easy so people don't have to hire lawyers extra special contracts, as implemented under UCC Title 2, between merchants and consumers.

When you talk about that high bar not meeting the reasonable man standard - That's *not* the reasonable man standard Will - what you're seeing as a high bar is the 'contracts for dummies' standard.

Jonnan

@240 (sorry I'm a bit late...)

Hmmmm so if I buy the game at amazon I should read the box first in the shop around the corner?

One question that comes to mind here - Blizzard is NOT selling you the software when you buy the box.  Otherwise, they would have to charge for the client when making it available through their own resources.  And they do NOT sell the client.  You can go and download the client now, with out paying a dime.  And w/o actually agreeing to anything.  What Blizzard is SELLING is access to their servers.  When you purchase the box, you purchase the access license associated with the key code contained in the box.  Similarly, if you purchase the license directly from Blizzard, you're charged a fee.  It is a seperate transaction from gaining access to the client software.

MDY's Glider program modifies how the client interacts with the server.  Thus, violating the portion of the license agreement that stipulates that they won't do that.

Also, one (minor) tidbit that weighs in Blizzard's favor vs MDY - this entire suit was brought as a COUNTERsuit to MDY's suing Blizzard for enforcing the license agreement that MDY's customers were knowingly and willingly violating.

Chaos, is it really that difficult?

You go to the store, you buy an item, the item is yours. It's final, that's the nature of a sale. The only things that can be done are allowances. You can allow the store to return your money in a recall. The store can allow you to return an item that you can't use or doesn't work. The store cannot call you up and demand that you give it back. The people that sell through the store can't either. You can give something away without any compensation, but you are not allowed to take, it's fraud.

Software companies think themselves special, and idiot judges are agreeing with them. Blizzard can claim whatever the hell they want to, but they are selling the client in those boxes, period. Jonnan has explained it in detail, given all the relevant law on the matter, and still it's not clear?

Apply your idiocy to any other product you buy in a store, that the manufacturer can claim they are selling you a license to use it with terms unknown to you at purchase. Just try to convince yourself that is in any way fair or legal.

Your claim that because they give away trials, they aren't selling the software is honestly the dumbest thing I've seen in this thread. That's saying something. Retail products are given away as samples around the world, how fucked do you have to be for that to mean they aren't selling the products when you buy them?

Also, you have no question in your entire post.

Awake, I have yet to see a game box list the license. Very few even mention the existence of one. WOW included, I was at wally world a couple days ago and checked out of curiosity since the retards keep using it as an example.

psychoak - You are either the biggest liar in this topic, or an idiot.



I can't speak for exactly what games you have sitting around, but I see a couple problems there. If you're looking at game cases, it's not surprising you haven't found any warnings. Warnings would generally be on the original packaging only. Of the games I still have the original packaging for, only one does not have a warning of an EULA, or at least a Terms of Use agreements.

Specifically, Diablo II says "The use of this software product is subject to the enclosed End User License Agreement. You must accept the End User License Agreement before you can use this product. use of Battle.net is subject to the acceptance of the Battle.net Terms of Use Agreement."

Vanguard: Saga of Heroes says "Installation and play subject to Vanguard; Saga of Heroes User Agreement and software license available at www.joinvanguard.com and inside.

Hellgate: London, Final Fantasy XI, Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars, and Command & Conquer: Generals all have similar notices. The only game that has absolutely no warning is my collector's edition of Galactic Civilizations II - but I'm not entirely sure that what I have was the outside packaging.



Either you didn't try, or are lying. The warning on the battlechest edition is located on the bottom panel of the box, in a white box with black type. This is the same location and presentation as the system requirements notice.

I have a couple issues with that. First, if this is a valid distinction, why did MDY not attempt to defend themselves in this way. Their lawyers all (presumably) have law degrees, while neither of us do. If it could occur to you, and is such a knock-out blow to Blizzard's case, why not use it? I'll be the first to admit that this is not a definitive answer to this point, but it bears thinking on.

Second, I use my current apartment rental agreement as example. As I remember, I only had to sign the lease in a couple of places, not at every term being placed on my rental of the unit. Does your interpretation, based on my status as 'consumer' rather than 'merchant', exempt me from the clause that prevents me from doing automotive repair work in their parking lot? I'm not a professional renter of anything and I didn't specifically acknowledge that term in the lease agreement, so they can't enforce this, right? By the agreement I signed, simply changing a tail light could be eviction-worthy. At least on the second or third offense.

Most importantly, to me at least, is why the Wall Data case has not been overturned. As with the MDY case, no distinction between merchant or consumer was made. As with the MDY case, the transaction was ruled a license, not a purchase. This ruling is more than two years old now. Why has the full circuit court not overturned these foolish judges (three of them, none involved in the MDY decision)? Why no Supreme Court decision? Again, not a rigorous disproving of your case, but nonetheless worthy of consideration.

Those are all EA games with the exception of FFXI, which is Sony. Thanks for listing a whole two publishers, one of which I already gave as an example of one of the few that does. Perhaps next time you decide to call me a liar, you could sample a slightly larger variety first? I have original retail covers from six different publishers, I've looked at probably every major and minor publisher currently in existence at one point or another. I have never seen the license displayed. A warning is not the license. Saying there is one doesn't cut it. This has been explained repeatedly, clearly, and irrefutably.

Your rental contract comparison is outstanding material. Rewrite history. They gave you the signature page, and then showed you the rest of the contract after you signed it and gave them your deposit. Get the picture?

Edit: Kaos, read through again, you're completely out of context.

Blizzard (WoW, D2) is not an EA company. Nor is Square Enix (FFXI). Stardock (Galciv II), nope, not an EA company. So I gave 5 companies, not two.

My lease is meant as a counterargument for Jonnan's contract law in general, not specifically EULAs. If you want a contract that DOES do all of that, look at the residence hall contracts for a university. What you described is exactly what happens.

Then you listed games from a whopping three publishers to support your point outside the already been mentioned in every post for the last several pages WOW. Congratulations on your widely diverse list.

I signed a residence hall contract. I was given the terms with the information material months before I payed. When I payed, I signed the contract, terms and all, before I got to pay. If you didn't, your university was breaking the law and vulnerable to suite for enforcing contract terms. Not surprising, the government affiliated public universities are the only ones more likely to be filled with inept morons that can't read english than the private ones are. The feds can't even figure out that their tax forms are invalid.

Well, first of all, remember, these protections only apply to consumers - as soon as you're an expert that makes money using this software, that consumer protection is diminished or gone, so it's not going to be an issue - Correct me if I'm wrong but that "Wall Data" case involved a company IIRC, so they are by definition not consumers buying a product for household use. Any standard clauses will apply even if they never read the EULA/contract, and if they actually signed off on it upon receipt, anything they might dispute is out the window.

Other than that, when the defendent is a consumer? I confess, my suspicion is simply overspecialized lawyers that think in terms of copyright, civil rights, or federal law rather than the simple UCC case - on those occasions where the issue has been consumers and the UCC has been brought up, people tend to win - that's the entire Raison d'être for UCITA - software companies wanted to make sure people were bound by EULA's, but fortunately only Virginia and Maryland were foolish enough to sign on to that.

As for the 'example' of your apartment lease - I guess I'm really confused why you think of that as a counterexample? Because I consider it a good example of the UCC 2 merchant to consumer contract - like the loans, you were (I presume) allowed to sit down, read through it, you signed at the end, they may actually have had you initial at specific points to verify you read certain paragraphs. So yeah - that's an example of the kind of contract a merchant has to set up to be sure that a consumer can't claim he didn't understand what he was signing - and management companies *still* lose tenant lawsuits because they were lax.

If they took your money, let you move in, and then came by with your contract a week later saying you had to sign or they were going to throw you out, *then* you would have an example of the exact situation UCC 2 protects you from - under UCC as a consumer you couldn't be forced to accept a contract after the fact that way.

So yeah, (Assuming nothing weird) you're bound by your lease - but your lease has been done in a completely different manner than an EULA, so it's an apples to oranges comparison. If you ever find yourself bound to a lease you never saw buying a box of crackerjacks, then you should probably contest that as not complying to UCC, but that's a lot closer to an EULA than I suspect your lease is.

Jonnan

If using the product to make money disqualifies one for "consumer" status, Blizzard is covered. MDY was certainly making money off Blizzard's software, and one of the selling points of the Glider program was to help get its users into Real Money Trading schemes - selling game assets for real money. Certainly not *all* glider users were into RMT, but enough of them were to make it a type of cottage industry. Would Glider then count as a type of software used in a home buisiness?

The distinction between merchant and consumer is pretty idiotic at the individual level. If I buy a copy of Quicken for my personal use, I qualify as a consumer. But if I buy a second copy a week later to use in my business, I'm magically a merchant, despite having gained no new knowledge in between?

In the Wall Data case, I agree they would fall into the merchant catergory - anyone using 6000 copies of software would qualify. But why was this distinction not brought up by either side? More importantly, does a person still count as an expert if they work in IT and make that big of a blunder?

It's feasible that Blizzard could have a case to make regarding whether Glider clients, specifically, were using it to make money as professionals, thus qualifying as merchants under UCC. I think that's an awfully weak case, but it would at least be a valid argument. Since they didn't make it in the original arguments, it doesn't matter - the judge can only take into account the arguments they actually make, not the arguments he *thinks* they should have made.

Yet - you just made the distinction needed - home and personal use, versus business use. Yes Gentleman, he can be taught -{G}!

Seriously - looking at the definitions:

and


it's not a laser thin demarcation - there might be enough grey between "Household use" and "skill peculiar to the practices or goods involved" for a small businessmen to qualify as a consumer in circumstances where the product isn't in their core business, i.e. a mechanic that bought Quicken for their business might still qualify as a consumer for UCC purposes. But that actually *is* an issue where individual courts can reasonably disagree depending on the details of a specific case.

But there's not *that* much grey area - certainly if you're large enough to have someone that does the accounting and is a CPA, (s)he is authorized to spend business funds to buy software, and *they* bought software, then the business is going to be held to the EULA as a merchant.

So yeah, that's the gist of it.


Umm - why would it get brought up? I mean, we disagree on whether the sky is blue at any given moment and we both agree that it's not really up for question whether or not 6,000 licenses qualify as business use is it? Unless you think the Judge is more extreme than the two of us at our worst put together or you're hoping (s)he will keel over laughing, not really worth wasting time on really - {G}.

And that *is* worth remembering - outside the game market 90+% of these EULA cases *are* going to qualify as merchants, not consumers, so most of the time these EULA's are going to be legitimately upheld unless the agreement actually says something unconscionable.

Jonnan

Way to quote me out of context. I am well aware of the plain-text reading of the definitions, I was pointing out that they are completely meaningless in some situations.

For example, the definition of consumer does not take into account the definition of merchant, and vice versa. If the CEO of EA bought a copy of WoW, he would simultaneously qualify as a consumer and a merchant. Which catergory should he fall into with regard to the enforcablity of the EULA?

How many of the Glider users would also fall into both catergories? They may not be using Glider commercially, but their day job might make them merchants under § 2-104. Should they be individually questioned as to their status, then the number of charges against MDY ajusted accordingly?

§ 2-104. Definitions: "Merchant"; "Between Merchants"; "Financing Agency".

(1) "Merchant" means a person who deals in goods of the kind or otherwise by his occupation holds himself out as having knowledge or skill peculiar to the practices or goods involved in the transaction or to whom such knowledge or skill may be attributed by his employment of an agent or broker or other intermediary who by his occupation holds himself out as having such knowledge or skill.

WWW Link

As far as I can tell, you are either a merchant or not a merchant, based on whether you fit the above definition. I didn't see a definition for 'consumer' or anything like that.

I linked for consumer directly above what you quoted - it's one section previous in the same area of UCC 2



Jonnan

I don't think I quoted you out of context - I just responded point for point, but heck I quoted everything you typed man - {G}.


Short answer - That would be for a court to decide, weighing the two competing definitions against each other - Conceptually a professional photographer is probably *always* going to be a merchant for UCC purposes if he buys photoshop whether he's using it at home or the office - he has that "skill peculiar to the practices or goods involved in the transaction" counting against him.

But for a game? it seems to me to be a fairly rough standard to create a category for "skill peculiar to the practices or goods involved in the transaction" that's going to pull almost any gamer into the realms of "merchant" if it is bought for home use. I suppose your example there of a CEO would qualify, or a game reviewer, and you *might* be able to make that argument for a developer - arguably Jafo and Frogboy may be bound by EULA's even for games in ways that I am not, or anyone competing in gaming competitions where there is money at stake.

There's a legitimate argument for a judge to decide there - but if you're talking about a person, the default view is going to be to assume they're a consumer and to prove otherwise if you want to hold them to an EULA - for some people that will be easy to prove, for others the court will be annoyed that you wasted their time with this. But the lawyer trying to enforce the EULA will have to actually prove that the plaintiff is a merchant.

Jonnan

I think that would have been established since he was selling the bot. sales+distribution typically= merchant. especially if he has been known to sell hack and bot's in the past. It could be concluded that he put him self in the merchant position once he started charging for the bot.

Also...Buying a CD does not buy you the contents of the disc as in terms of ownership. you buy a Physical CD with digital media that requires an agreement to terms of use. you Physically own the CD not its contents. You can set the CD on fire or turn it in to a frizbee, BUT you can not use the digital media written upon it as you wish. Use of the media and its abilities falls under a license which you must agree to before use. you buy the CD you do not buy the source code nor any derivative of the media contained on the Disc. You are not given free reign to do with the contents as you wish. Just as with DVD movies or Music CD's. You own the disc NOT the CONTENTS.

Any body whose not been living under a rock for a bit Knows there are term agreements to almost all software currently out there. So it falls under common knowledge. Every bit of software ive installed that I can remember in the last what 5+ years? you have to at one point or another Click "agree to EULA AND/OR TOS" to install section in the installer. I know WOW has one. As well as there is stipulations to said terms on the outside of the BOX, thus giving the purchaser a preemptive knowledge to the existance of the terms before they purchase, as well as offer the reader a web site to go and read the EULA AND TOS BEFORE any cash has exchanged hands.

So claiming foul after digitally signing a contract is moot at best. read before pressing the go button.

Any one who click the EULA and TOS agreements before reading them. Has digitally signed a contract with no knowledge of it's contents. And yes your digital signature by clicking "I agree" etc.. Is Binding. Whether or not, you read the contracts and the stipulations of use there in.


Im still scratching my head as to how they chose this course of action. A bit of a stretch IMO.. I would have set it as one heck of a Civil Contract Breach case. As he had to digitally sign the EULA AND TOS to be able to access the necessary bits of data to build his bot. Even If he used no part of the actual Code source he agreed to the terms of the afore mentioned items to be able to see how to build the bot. In terms of game structure and server feeds, and necessary knowledge. etc to run the bot etc. ( IE he had to run the game and find out how it worked to build the bot). Either way he is in breach of the terms, and has left him self wide open for litigation of monitary loss. Blizzard could possibly take him for every $ hes got and then some.


I do however reserve the right to cheer that a cheat provider was plugged. Even if the way he was nailed is as perplexing as all get out..

This merchant/consumer 'issue' is utter crap and meaningless in the extreme.

I eat...and I cook...ergo when I go to Macca's I'm a merchant, not a consumer?

As the English would say....'bollocks'.

Is this yet another case of the recently educated determining getting into/out of University means all is now known...on all topics?

You get this a lot.

The older you get the less you will realise you know.  One of the things you learn 'more' is the extent of your own ignorance.  I know I do...;)

Um - first of all Jafo, I'm not quite 40, so I'm no more a kid just out of college than you are, and that attitude that having studied something so you know wtf you're talking about means you think you know everything is in my experience a really nifty way of avoiding being responsible for holding informed opinions.

Informed Opinions are *not* like assholes, 'cuz most people *don't* have one.

Now, in Australia it may well *be* meaningless crap (actually, I kinda doubt that since a lot of American UCC code is codification of Old English common law, but I have no idea what the Australian equivalents would be), but in the U.S. yeah, it makes a major difference.

Lastly:

Is there any way in hell you pulled that from a discussion regarding the definitions we have here? When the heck was the last time you went to Macca's and were presented with a frick'n License Agreement anyway?

First time I've ever heard of trying to split the tip with a strawman argument.

Jonnan