Not sure where you're from aneth, but in Commonwealth jurisdictions they definitely are binding. Any ambiguity is construed against the party that wrote the contract (which is the same in normal commercial contracts) and any unfairness is generally not allowed (same as normal consumer contracts).
The case law in Australia will enforce standard form contracts where the weaker party misunderstood terms that are not ambiguous. Facebook doesn't really have any ambiguity with their EULA. Failing to read the EULA probably isn't enough.
On a side note, nearly all insurance contracts are contracts of adhesion. It's usually a breach of utmost good faith (which doesn't come into play in normal consumer contracts) which will determine enforceability. Facebook only have to act with good faith, which they more or less do.
Edit: i'm not a lawyer, and this isn't legal advice, i've just picked up bits and pieces as I've gone :-)
There are two things that worry me about this post:
- that people think that they can change a contract just by saying something that the other party most likely never even read, which to me is like thinking that McDonalds will pay you $1000/hr to flip burgers just because you told your friends you'd like that wage
- that there seems to be no distinction between what is legal and what is enforceable. It doesn't really matter if what Facebook does in relation to user rights is legal or not, whether or not there is a pragmatically enforceable breach does. If Facebook did use their data in some way that the message forbids, how do these people think they're going to stop them? By showing them a wall post? At best it's going to be weeks of stress and/or thousands of dollars.
It's the same as if a bootstrapped startup has tried to defend their product with a patent. Sure you have a legal right, but how the hell are you going to enforce it if Google decide they want in?
Also: preventing citizens from contracting out of their legal rights would actually be a huge violation of the citizens rights and runs against the underlying principle of contract law in most jurisdictions - that two parties who've made an agreement freely should be bound be that agreement.
There is an assumption that you've read the terms and conditions when you signed up for Facebook and they don't really hide the fact that everything you do is more or less theirs. I don't really think you could say that you're induced into anything on it. You might get lucky in the right court with the right advocate, you might not.
But they haven't copied that clock at all! Its only an image an iPad! The real clock has a silver metal border and can be hung on a wall. An iPad can't be hung on a wall.
Therefore Apple didn't copy.
QED
Wouldn't surprise me if they follow that line in court actually -.-
I'm predicting a payout personally. I also think the second hand looks stupid, but that's just me I guess.
the only implementation that makes sense to me is tony stark's phone in iron man 2 - clear screen, control whatever is viewable through the glass through the magic of movies.
the iron man armour also has a jetpack... coincidence?
I broke it! I got a 0.07 (which is the lowest I've managed to get) with:
"Now, I have to go back to work on my State of the Union speech. And I worked on it until pretty late last night. But I want to say one thing to the American people. I want you to listen to me. I'm going to say this again: I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky. I never told anybody to lie, not a single time; never. These allegations are false. And I need to go back to work for the American people. Thank you."
To me, there are two potential benefits to all innovation:
1. to improve the standard of living for the general population (consumer/user)
2. to reap the rewards of making your ideas reality (inventor/creator)
My understanding of the patent system was to balance these two concepts - the inventor has the right to get the benefits (financial or otherwise) from their creation for a reasonable time but must in return share their idea so that it becomes public knowledge. In my view, patents aren't necessarily about protecting small businesses - the system is designed to incentivise innovation.
In theory this is fairly sound, however the potential for abuse, specifically trolling, is high. In practice, we live in arguably the most innovative time of human history.
Of course the system isn't perfect, I'm not pretending it is. It seems to work OK most of the time though. The tech advances are putting strain on a system intended for physical manufacture and so we'll probably see a reform soon. Here's hoping they don't screw it up (though they prob will).
The thing that strikes me about this article is that the patents such as pinch to zoom and double tap were NOT obvious to me at all before the iPhone existed. I'm fairly young though and I didn't really know about what the cutting edge of tech was like when the iPhone came out. I do remember how much the device amazed me when it came out though.
Now these methods of interacting with a touchscreen are so ubiquitous that I get annoyed whenever a touch screen doesn't implement multitouch, two finger scrolls etc. You probably do too.
It doesn't matter if they're obvious now - it matters if they were obvious when they were created. In that sense, I can understand where apple is coming from. After reading the 150 page leaked document where Samsung blatantly stated they would copy hundreds of features of iOS I think this situation is a bit more grey than the "Fuck Apple, I'm using a Samsung TV as a computer now" position that the author has taken. See also the Samsung store in Sydney, Aus.
My startup falls exactly within the 'obvious in hindsight' category - it's an app that can work out what emotions a child is feeling. You can bet your ass I will be patenting it everywhere we plan to sell for exactly that reason.
Which massive fortune 500 company were you competing with for your yard sale? I don't get how your facebook event levelled the playing field for you in any way - it just let you clear your stock
You're almost wilfully ignoring that the poster is claiming that he's devised a way of making $10000 profit at 3000%+ ROI but decided instead to make a startup aimed solely around facebook ads - which coincidently were the things he took advantage of to achieve this massive product.
Surely something with stats as lucrative as this yard sale would mean that he would create a startup based around selling other peoples stuff after advertising through FB events instead??
It will definitely drive up traffic, but I don't think that the story is anywhere near convincing enough to undo the damage that has occurred after the clickfraud claims.
Would be interested to know how many people from HN would sign up based on this post.
And on a side note, I'm not 100% convinced FB ads are going to be very efficient for a someone selling analytics software to multinational companies. So it'll be a different platform then.
Oh wait so we shouldn't trust the guy whose livelihood depends on people buying FB ads when he says FB ads are fantastic and definitely not a scam cos they worked for him?
The case law in Australia will enforce standard form contracts where the weaker party misunderstood terms that are not ambiguous. Facebook doesn't really have any ambiguity with their EULA. Failing to read the EULA probably isn't enough.
On a side note, nearly all insurance contracts are contracts of adhesion. It's usually a breach of utmost good faith (which doesn't come into play in normal consumer contracts) which will determine enforceability. Facebook only have to act with good faith, which they more or less do.
Edit: i'm not a lawyer, and this isn't legal advice, i've just picked up bits and pieces as I've gone :-)