Clickthrough licenses considered harmful

By Cory Doctorow at 1:51 pm Saturday, Feb 19

My cow-orker Annalee Newitz has just published a white-paper on End User LIcense Agreements (EULAs) -- those long screens of legalese you don't ever read before clicking "I Agree." What are you agreeing to? Basically, you're agreeing to get royally screwed:

The Windows license, however, is less invasive than the terms of Pinnacle's Studio 9 movie-making software. See the DRM-related provisions in Section 6 of the Pinnacle EULA8 :

"You acknowledge and agree that in order to protect the integrity of certain third party content, Pinnacle and/or its licensors may provide for Software security related updates that will be automatically downloaded and installed on your computer. Such security related updates may impair the Software (and any other software on your computer which specifically depends on the Software) including disabling your ability to copy and/or play ‘secure' content, i.e. content protected by digital rights management."

Clicking through this EULA appears to allow Pinnacle to install software automatically from third parties onto your computer – software which the vendor admits may "impair" the program ("the Software") you have just purchased, as well as "any other software on your computer which specifically depends on the Software."

Link (Thanks, Donna!)