4 ms·

A contract "poison pill" or litmus test. Pretty ingenious, is that sort of thing common practice in contracts?

0x0539 12y ago
Yes its quite common now. Working in my high schools theater which was the largest in the town we'd get these types of requests so I imagine in they would be even more common for something that mattered
- Nanzikambe 12y ago
  Care to give an example of the sort of thing you encountered? Purely to satisfy a curious mind :)
  - bgarbiak 12y ago
    Here's the selection of various artists' demands/riders: http://www.thesmokinggun.com/backstage http://www.thesmokinggun.com/backstage Sometimes these riders serve a purpose (Van Halen's case), sometimes they are indeed a caprice, or a joke. If I recall correctly it was Pearl Jam, who once demanded their M&M's to be segregated into jars, and each jar could only contain one color of a candy. There were photos floating around the net with the band members laughing and posing with that jars and the guy who felt into the trap. Oh, life of a rock star ;)
    - judk 12y ago
      That's just obnoxious and undermines Van Halen's meaningfully safety-oriented gesture.
Cthulhu_ 12y ago
Maybe something like this should appear in the legal stuff everyone always just clicks I agree -> next on. Instead of an 'I agree', you are to send a picture of a jar of M&M's with a certain color missing. Cleverly hidden somewhere deep in legalese.
peteretep 12y ago
I heard a rumour of technical specification including some of the jokier RFCs to check that people were really reading them... http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1149.txt http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1149.txt
- tragic 12y ago
  Don't laugh too quickly. Given a slow enough connection and a big enough file, the pigeon (with flash drive strapped to leg) will win. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_over_Avian_Carriers#Other_avian_data_transfer_methods http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_over_Avian_Carriers#Other_av...
  - TheCoelacanth 12y ago
    Except that RFC 1149 specifies a single IP datagram per pigeon, which means it will be slower than even the slowest of dial-up connections.
    - rasz_pl 12y ago
      IPv6 jumbograms to the rescue, 4GB per packet
- rmc 12y ago
  That was published on 1st of April. It's an april fool's joke. There are loads of April Fool's RFCs. It's not a litmus test for reading, it's a community having fun. BTW: A group tried the IP over Avian Carrier: http://www.blug.linux.no/rfc1149/ http://www.blug.linux.no/rfc1149/ The ping times were unimpressive.
  - porpoisemonkey 12y ago
    I think the litmus test being suggested is to include the joke RFC in the reference section of a different technical specification as a way to verify the specification is being reviewed in detail.
herghost 12y ago
That's something that I've done with data processing and security contracts for the last 4 or 5 years. It's an addendum to the main commercial contract and is deliberately long. Almost all of it is non-exceptional "just do it right" kind of stuff, but there are a handful of clauses I've put in that absolutely no company could reasonably agree to. If they agree to it without challenging those clauses, I then know that I am going to need to grill them on the detail of everything that they do. It's proved very effective for me. edit: I actually refer to them as my "Brown M&M Clauses" too!
- btown 12y ago
  What are some examples of these clauses, if you don't mind sharing them? Presumably you don't actually ask for brown M&Ms, but rather for something technical and infeasible.
  - herghost 12y ago
    for example, the right to audit their premises at our convenience and their expense without giving notice. There is a legit requirement for us to be able to audit, but placing the other conditions on it makes it, at the very least, unreasonable but the "without notice" bit means that if they agree to it we have can disrupt their business at our leisure (since an audit requires their resources to conduct too). another example is requesting infeasible levels of application logging, insane retention periods, and onerous evidence that they're acting on that information.
- alain94040 12y ago
  Same thing with software outsourcing contracts to China (for instance). On purpose, send the half-finished specs. You know there are huge gaps in the specs, they can't be implemented without asking clarifying questions. What does the outsourcing vendor say? We read the specs, we understand them very well, no problem, we'll do it. Fire vendor.
borplk 12y ago
If you install the software I distribute and "agree" to the terms of conditions I own your life.

Yes its quite common now. Working in my high schools theater which was the largest in the town we'd get these types of requests so I imagine in they would be even more common for something that mattered

Nanzikambe 12y ago
Care to give an example of the sort of thing you encountered? Purely to satisfy a curious mind :)
- bgarbiak 12y ago
  Here's the selection of various artists' demands/riders: http://www.thesmokinggun.com/backstage http://www.thesmokinggun.com/backstage Sometimes these riders serve a purpose (Van Halen's case), sometimes they are indeed a caprice, or a joke. If I recall correctly it was Pearl Jam, who once demanded their M&M's to be segregated into jars, and each jar could only contain one color of a candy. There were photos floating around the net with the band members laughing and posing with that jars and the guy who felt into the trap. Oh, life of a rock star ;)
  - judk 12y ago
    That's just obnoxious and undermines Van Halen's meaningfully safety-oriented gesture.

Cthulhu_ 12y ago

Maybe something like this should appear in the legal stuff everyone always just clicks I agree -> next on. Instead of an 'I agree', you are to send a picture of a jar of M&M's with a certain color missing. Cleverly hidden somewhere deep in legalese.

peteretep 12y ago

I heard a rumour of technical specification including some of the jokier RFCs to check that people were really reading them... http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1149.txt http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1149.txt

tragic 12y ago
Don't laugh too quickly. Given a slow enough connection and a big enough file, the pigeon (with flash drive strapped to leg) will win. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_over_Avian_Carriers#Other_avian_data_transfer_methods http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_over_Avian_Carriers#Other_av...
- TheCoelacanth 12y ago
  Except that RFC 1149 specifies a single IP datagram per pigeon, which means it will be slower than even the slowest of dial-up connections.
  - rasz_pl 12y ago
    IPv6 jumbograms to the rescue, 4GB per packet
rmc 12y ago
That was published on 1st of April. It's an april fool's joke. There are loads of April Fool's RFCs. It's not a litmus test for reading, it's a community having fun. BTW: A group tried the IP over Avian Carrier: http://www.blug.linux.no/rfc1149/ http://www.blug.linux.no/rfc1149/ The ping times were unimpressive.
- porpoisemonkey 12y ago
  I think the litmus test being suggested is to include the joke RFC in the reference section of a different technical specification as a way to verify the specification is being reviewed in detail.

herghost 12y ago

That's something that I've done with data processing and security contracts for the last 4 or 5 years. It's an addendum to the main commercial contract and is deliberately long. Almost all of it is non-exceptional "just do it right" kind of stuff, but there are a handful of clauses I've put in that absolutely no company could reasonably agree to. If they agree to it without challenging those clauses, I then know that I am going to need to grill them on the detail of everything that they do. It's proved very effective for me. edit: I actually refer to them as my "Brown M&M Clauses" too!

btown 12y ago
What are some examples of these clauses, if you don't mind sharing them? Presumably you don't actually ask for brown M&Ms, but rather for something technical and infeasible.
- herghost 12y ago
  for example, the right to audit their premises at our convenience and their expense without giving notice. There is a legit requirement for us to be able to audit, but placing the other conditions on it makes it, at the very least, unreasonable but the "without notice" bit means that if they agree to it we have can disrupt their business at our leisure (since an audit requires their resources to conduct too). another example is requesting infeasible levels of application logging, insane retention periods, and onerous evidence that they're acting on that information.
alain94040 12y ago
Same thing with software outsourcing contracts to China (for instance). On purpose, send the half-finished specs. You know there are huge gaps in the specs, they can't be implemented without asking clarifying questions. What does the outsourcing vendor say? We read the specs, we understand them very well, no problem, we'll do it. Fire vendor.

borplk 12y ago

If you install the software I distribute and "agree" to the terms of conditions I own your life.