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Submitted via IRC for FatPhil
Good news out of the Ninth Circuit: the federal court of appeals heeded EFF's advice and rejected an attempt by Oracle to hold a company criminally liable for accessing Oracle's website in a manner it didn't like. The court ruled back in 2012 that merely violating a website's terms of use is not a crime under the federal computer crime statute, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. But some companies, like Oracle, turned to state computer crime statutes—in this case, California and Nevada—to enforce their computer use preferences.
This decision shores up the good precedent from 2012 and makes clear—if it wasn't clear already—that violating a corporate computer use policy is not a crime.
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Ninth Circuit Doubles Down: Violating a Website’s Terms of Service Is Not a Crime
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(Score: 3, Insightful) by ledow on Friday January 12 2018, @01:22PM (1 child)
A contract and a licence / usage agreement are very different things.
Though one may include a clause which requires adherence to the other, they are entirely different documents, with different requirements and penalties.
Everything from "you hereby agree to this contract if you park in this car park" to shrink-wrap EULAs have been thrown out of courts worldwide for such things, more precisely: not being a contract.
Additionally, a contract has to be fair, have informed, mutual consent and (legalese ahead) be "a meeting of minds" (i.e. something you both reasonably agree to where you both move the same kind of distance towards compromise for).
You can't just draft some nonsense, stick it on a website that's completely open, and then pretend it's enforceable.
Certainly not if, like the shrink-wrap EULAs, you can only find those terms out by accessing the website, running the software, tearing open the box etc. and then you're immediately bound by them (i.e. some kind of mystical psychic ability is necessary to "consent in an informed manner" to them).
Put what you don't want seen behind a login wall, make people agree contracts for supplying that login. Shut off those logins if they cheat the contract.
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Friday January 12 2018, @02:25PM
This is a clear, succinct statement of this entire issue, using simple, easy-to-understand words and phrases. Well done.