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Shrink-Wrap Lic. uphelo by courts. From Edupage, 4 July 1996
------- Forwarded Message Follows -------
Date: Thu, 4 Jul 1996 17:27:43 -0400 (EDT)
From: Edupage Editors <[email protected]>
Subject: Edupage, 4 July 1996
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Edupage, 4 July 1996. Edupage, a summary of news items on information
technology, is provided three times each week as a service by Educom,
a Washington, D.C.-based consortium of leading colleges and universities
seeking to transform education through the use of information technology.
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[..]
"SHRINK-WRAP" LICENSES OKAYED BY COURT
The validity of the "shrink-wrap" licenses that many software publishers
rely on for copyright protection was bolstered by a recent appellate court
ruling in Chicago. Last month, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals
reversed a lower court's finding that shrink-wrap agreements were
unenforceable. Plaintiffs in the case, ProCD vs. Zeidenberg et al., charged
the defendants with distributing the software program via the Internet. The
defendants had argued that they couldn't be held to the license terms
because they'd had no chance to negotiate or object to parts of the
agreement. They also said the license agreement should be printed on the
outside of the box, where it could be read before purchasing. The latest
ruling found this suggestion to be an onerous burden, but did say the box
must have a notice saying there's a licensing agreement inside, and that
buyers should be able to return the software if they don't agree to the
license once they read it. (Investor's Business Daily 3 Jul 96 A5)