Kingdoms SecuRom discussion - forum rules only

[Didz]

Actually no, you buy a license. This means that you can do whatever you want physically with your cd/dvd, but you're not allowed to copy or anything else the game (software), only install it and use it. Only the CD/DVD is yours by legal rights, not the software, you're only allowed to use it.

Wowww! hang on there...basic principles of contract law.

A contract is not a contract unless.....

a) it is legal....

b) both parties are fully aware of the terms at the time the contract was entered into

c) there is measurable consideration

In other words, the contract is made at the time the customer hands over the cash in the shop. That is the only point at which consideration exists on the part of both the contractor (the shop) and the contractee (the customer). The shop provides the product, the customer provides cash.

Anything that happens after that is outside the terms of the contract as there is no consideration.

So, basically the license agreements that pop up as part of the installation process are not contractually binding on the owner of the software as there is no measurable consideration involved at that point on the part of the owner of the software which an english court would recognise as forming a contract.

For the EULA terms to be legally binding the shop would need to get the owner to sign them before handing over the money in the shop, and be able to show that the purchaser fully understood them. Even then, if the contract includes terms which require secret and illegal installation of invasive software onto the contractee's computer, the contractee cannot be forced to accept this as part of the contract as it is illegal.

It would be like a garage saying in their contract for the sale of a car "You can only buy this car, if you allow me to use it next week to rob a bank." The law would never accept that term as binding upon the purchaser, even if they agree to it.

The fact that in this case the purchaser is not made aware of the fact that this product includes a piece of invasive software which is going to embed itself permantently onto their system BEFORE they paid for the game. Means that the acceptance of this fact cannot form part of any contract related to the purchase of the game.

It is in fact a completely seperate issue. In legal terms the game producer is hacking the customers system using the game merely as a trojan horse to get their software onto the purchasers machine, in the same way as a virus writer might embed his malware into a World of Warcraft Mod. This has to be illegal under English law and I suggest we raise this with European Trading Standards as at the very least it is an unacceptable trading practice.

BTW:
The reason it is illegal to copy the content on the CD has nothing to do with the contract at the time of its purchase, or the acceptance of the license agreement that pops up when you instal the game. It is entirely based upon the general and existing legilsation protecting the copywright and intellectual property rights of the supplier which are legally binding on everyone whether they bought the game or not. After all if someone just gave you a copy of Kingdoms you still would not be entitled to copy it, even though you have no contract at all with the supplier.