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There is a difference between a contract that "Joe can use this" and one that says "Joe can let anyone use it". Sure, if Mary uses it Joe can say "She's just us
by mcherm 14y ago
There is a difference between a contract that "Joe can use this" and one that says "Joe can let anyone use it". Sure, if Mary uses it Joe can say "She's just using it for me", but UNLIKE code, the law is not completely decimated by a single loophole. Judges and juries can see through blatant abuses and rule that the contract did not cover that use. ("Can", not "will", but even the chance is enough: a 1% chance of losing a 100-million dollar class-action lawsuit is a million dollar cost, plus legal fees.)
- jamesbritt 14y agoJudges and juries can see through blatant abuses and rule that the contract did not cover that use. I've seen this observation mentioned a few times on HN and it seems quite right. The letter of the law may say this or that, but ultimately it comes down to some form of the giggle test. You have to imagine a judge saying, "You didn't really think that's what the law|contract meant, did you?" For example, people trying to avoid penalties for unauthorized distribution of copyrighted material by claiming they own the copyright on certain large integers or are merely passing _numbers_ around, not movies or songs. With the boilerplate TOS there may be all sorts of things that one could imagine are allowed but I'm pretty sure Instagram's (i.e. Facebook's) lawyers thought that the original phrasing would not be sufficient to clearly allow them to do what they wanted to do, so it was changed.