[mythtv-users] Free US/Canada Listings

[Braindead]

On Tue, 11 Sep 2007 14:13:33 -0600
"Brett Kosinski" <fancypantalons at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 9/11/07, Gabe Rubin <gaberubin at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > On 9/11/07, Richard Freeman <r-mythtv at thefreemanclan.net> wrote:
> > > Chris Petersen wrote:
<snip>
> > Chris' statement should probably be understood that website owners,
> > et. al., can use contractual restrictions to do what copyright law,
> > itself, may not provide.  The issue with a lot of these terms of
> > service are not that copyright law is what makes them meaningful
> > (and potentially enforceable) but rather common law contract
> > principles.
> >
> 
> TBH, I'm not convinced they're supportable by contract law, either.
> In order for a contract to be enforceable, both parties must agree to
> it.  What you're suggesting is that, by simply visiting a website, I
> am agreeing to a contact, and that seems dubious at best.
> 
> Oh, and BTW, by reading this email, you agree to send me $20. ;)
> 
> Of course, I'm not aware of any TOS being tested in court (I'd love
> to hear of any case law to the contrary), and I will freely admit
> IANAL, so this is all just speculation on my part.  My own guess is
> that, if screen scraping were found illegal in a court of law, it
> would be because it runs afoul of other laws (eg, theft or denial of
> service, etc).

Shrink wrap/click wrap licenses may be considered similar in many respects.  There has been plenty of litigation regarding these, in many cases invalidating at least portions of these 'agreements'.  Most of these involve 'agreements' where by using their service, signing up for service, unwrapping a box...etc.. constitutes agreement to terms.

There's also Bragg v. Linden Research where a judge ruled the Linden's TOS constitute a 'contract of adhesion'.  I don't believe that has been settled yet, but I believe that most websites TOS may be considered similarly.