2004-10-28

More Virgin Digital Licensing Agreement

From the official Virgin Digital Music Download Service licensing agreement (emphasis added):

PERMITTED USES



This License allows you to install and use the Virgin

Digital Software. The Virgin Digital software, and all other software made

available by Virgin Digital on or through the Service, are protected by

intellectual property laws and your use of them is governed by this Agreement as

well as any applicable end-user license agreements. You may not reverse engineer

it. You may not copy it. You can take an occasional screenshot if you want to

show family & friends, but that’s about it. Please don’t hack it. We worked

really hard on this thing. Okay, finally, we recently saw the following

disclaimer on a competitor’s usage agreement: THE SOFTWARE IS NOT INTENDED FOR

USE IN THE OPERATION OF NUCLEAR FACILITIES, AIRCRAFT NAVIGATION OR COMMUNICATION

SYSTEMS, AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL SYSTEMS, LIFE SUPPORT MACHINES OR OTHER EQUIPMENT

IN WHICH THE FAILURE OF THE SOFTWARE COULD LEAD TO DEATH, PERSONAL INJURY, OR

SEVERE PHYSICAL OR ENVIRONMENTAL DAMAGE. What does that mean? Who would use

music software to operate a nuclear facility? Did they put that disclaimer in

because at one point someone did in fact navigate an airplane by using their

music software? Is that even possible? I can’t imagine it is, but hey, if they

feel that it’s necessary to put that stuff in a software usage agreement, well

then so do we. Needless to say, when we think about it, we get pretty creeped

out.



No comments:

Post a Comment