Fight Woodworking Piracy: Add EULA Restrictions 662
An anonymous reader writes "Ed Foster's Gripelog discusses EULA restriction on a new woodworking tool.
A small woodworking tool manufacturer, Stots Corporation, includes a license agreement on its TemplateMaster jig tool. The tool is licensed, not sold, and customers cannot sell it or lend it to others. Nor can they sell or lend the jigs they make with it. "Shrinkwrap licenses are showing up everywhere," a reader recently wrote. "I just bought a jig for making dovetailing jigs -- this is woodworker talk if it's unfamiliar to you. The master jig contained a license that says I've licensed the master jig, not bought it. The license says I can't lend or sell the master, and furthermore I can't lend or sell the jigs I make with the master."
The reader was referring to Stots Corporation of Harrods Creek, KY, and the user agreement for its TemplateMaster product. Sure enough, the Stots license says TemplateMaster may be used "in only one shop by the original purchaser only" and that "you may not allow individuals that did not purchase the original Product (to) use the Product or any templates produced using the Product..."
A FAQ document on the Stots website explains that the license is necessary because "the purpose of the TemplateMaster is to clone itself. Therefore we are verifying your honesty that only you will use the tool and you will not be passing it around to others to use for free. It is exactly the same as the 'shrink wrap' agreement that comes with almost all computer software. Please help us fight 'tool piracy'."
Don't you get protections with a licensed product? (Score:5, Interesting)
I once snapped a software CD and I got a new one. Can't be much different.
Re:Don't you get protections with a licensed produ (Score:5, Interesting)
Except it isn't your jig, now is it? It's their jig that you just broke and you'll probably have to buy them a new one.
But how does this affect insurance? If it's their stuff and you only license it, they should cover the costs for keeping the jig insured against theft, right?
Can't do it. (Score:3, Interesting)
The difference with this and a software license is that one rivalous, and one non-rivalous. I cannot loan someone my dovetailing bit without giving up posession myself. Thus, the bit is a rivalous asset.
On the other hand, software can be copied and shared with others without me giving up posession. In this manner, software as a product is non-rivalous. When you "buy" software you only ever receive a copy - the software company keeps posession of the original - so you what you are buying is a license to use.
Re:Simple (Score:1, Interesting)
Land Law (Score:2, Interesting)
So we don't have to worry about this leasing/licensing everything, over the next 600 years it will probably drift back to actual ownership by people. As the feudal lords lose their grip.
Any woodworking people out there? (Score:3, Interesting)
Am I missing something? That seems a pretty simple thing - not the kind of thing you'd expect to make millions selling, or be able to force people to agree to such a licence to use. Does it have some magical properties not apparent to a guy who failed woodwork?
Re:Is this really a problem? (Score:4, Interesting)
This is a very unusual situation -- a jig making jig. I've worked with dovetail jigs before, and they are complicated enough. I would think the reproduction and resale of the jigjig would be protected by patent.
Protection of the items made with the jig (jigs) is strange. It is similar to charging a royalty for the use of a simple dovetail jig. That is, if one licenses use of the ACME dovetail jig, they must pay royalties of x$ for each corner of each drawer made with the jig and sold commercially. Of course any cabinet maker would then simply make their own jig. One only buys a jig because it is convenient. Even if an item is patented, one may make a copy of that thing for ones own use.
The real issue is commercial viability. Microsoft licenses me to use Excel. GNU licenses me to use gnumeric. I also have some spreadsheet like widgets that I wrote. In general, because of licensing, I will use my own jig, I will not use either Excel or gnumeric -- the terms of both are bad for me. It is similar for the shopowner. A single shop needs a bunch of dovetail jigs. They can buy a bunch of jigs, make a bunch of jigs, or license the jig-jig and make a bunch of jigs. Or they can look at the jig-jig and make their own. There is only one question - "which solution is most cost effective?"
I think this company will find that there is a big difference between coding Autocad or Microsoft Excel from scratch and making a jigjig. A huge difference in basic old fashioned man-hours.
Re:Don't you get protections with a licensed produ (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Can't do it. (Score:5, Interesting)
> not be valid, you will lose an enormous amount of money. In the event that you do hire a good
> enough lawyer, you will only lose a large amount of money.
This is an unfortunately common misconception.
I have been sued twice in my life by people with far more money than I have. In one case, I defended myself - against their real "went to law school" attorneys - and won. In the second case, I hired an attorney, won, and they were forced to pay all my legal expenses.
Both times, the other parties tried to pull the "we're going to play the 500lb gorilla, and sue you into oblivion" routine. I think that they were expecting me to run screaming or something. I didn't. They lost.
Bring it on, lawyer-boy.
The common trait of both of these lawsuits? I was right. And, despite the cynicism that a lot of people seem to have about the American legal system, the person who's right will prevail in a vast majority of cases.
If someone threatens to sue you, and you're right, let them. Go in, make your case, and you'll probably prevail. A judge will know that you aren't an attorney, and generally cut you a fair amount of slack.
Re:Look at the silly monkey (Score:3, Interesting)
Its redundant to say "IANAL" but I'm pretty sure that you cant just sign away basic rights, like "I can do what the fuck I like with this 'stuff', including sell it to someone else if its not suitable for my uses or I'm finished with it".
They need to ask a lawyer about this stuff, cos I suspect they just humiliated themselves.
And yeah. Ya cant mass reprocuce the stuff for others because of patents. But heres the rub: If I break a patent to make something for myself, I'm fairly convinced thats ok, as long as I dont pass it on. I might be wrong there.
Sounds like the rubber stamping/crafts scene (Score:2, Interesting)
For example, there are some companies that would not allow you to buy or sell used rubber stamps because it would violate their copyright. In addition, they would not allow you to sell anything that you made with their rubber stamps.
Because of the backlash, some companies became known as "Angel Companies" where they would allow free and open use of their rubber stamps with no limitation. Hmmmm, this sounds kind of familiar, huh?
Other companies are hella harsh with their restrictions, but most small-timers don't care and don't heed to the rules anyway.
So if this company is licensing their designs for woodworking, then maybe there is a case for it. However, it will be almost impossible to enforce, and will just lead to alienating their customers. Overall, it's a stupid, stupid decision on their part, and the best way to combat this is to spread the word to avoid greedy ass, stupid companies like the one in the story.
Niche market strategy (Score:3, Interesting)
What they are doing differently, is to try to protect or enlarge their niche market by using EULA to prevent you from becoming one of their competitors, i.e. somebody who'd give away a free copy, or sell it even.
IANAL but I have my doubts about the enforcebility of such licenses, especially if there's no "click" on install to prove you alledgedly even knew there *was* a license. Also, they'd have a hell of an enforcement issue proving a copy of a public domain template came from their product.
Not in my country (Score:2, Interesting)
Thus, breaking the seal of a software package does NOT imply that you agree with the license agreement printed on it. That goes for any product, not just sofware.
Maybe we ought to export these tools to the Netherlands (or China...), unwrap them an re-sell them to the US. They'll be more expensive, but totally license free.
Whoa, slow down there, lefty... (Score:5, Interesting)
It's a device meant to produce jigs, apparently. So it's a tool designed for creating items. Now, the way I look at it, these absolutely stupid licensing restrictions have a solution, much like the stupid licensing of compilers way back when. Some of you older folks out there might remember a time when you'd buy a C compiler (for example). You'd have to give the company that wrote the compiler royalties on every product sold that was created with that compiler. It's true. Screw open source, man.
Then along came GCC. Sure, you needed the commercial compiler to compile GCC, so that version of GCC you created was restricted (legally). Then we point out the stupidity of the licensing scheme - recompile GCC with the GCC you just created, and the new GCC is not restricted. Most software companies then saw the stupidity of this kind of licensing and licensed their products with a new kind of less restrictive license. Now I can't think of any, offhand, that don't simply allow you to compile and sell your program.
Having dabbled in wood working myself (although not having made any dovedail joints), it seems to me if you have a jig to make dovedail joints you can use it to make another restriction free jig. Use the original jig to make a jig, then use the new jig to make a jig, and viola, no stupid restrictions.
It may not be as simple as recompiling GCC (because the jig creates a dovetail creating jig, not another jig that creates a dovetail creating jig), but if I was annoyed, that's what I'd do.
Really, though, it just points out the stupidity of this kind of licensing. I find it hard to believe there aren't any other jigs with less stupid restrictions.
Re:Simple (Score:3, Interesting)
But then, isn't that part of the agreement? What if that's one of the parts I don't agree to?
patented seeds (Score:3, Interesting)
OBTW, heirloom seeds are big business, seed prodicers will pay big busks for them; the undomesticated corn is probably worth millions.
EULA May Be Legal (Score:2, Interesting)
There's been a lot of ranting about whether this is legal or not.
Well, it might be, depending on how it is presented. See my EULA FAQ [britishsteal.com] for details.
Re:A bit screwy ? (Score:5, Interesting)
Is it illegal to spray your plants with Roundup? No.
Do plants fuck? Yes.
If Monsanto wanted to protect their IP, they should not have permitted their genes to pollute Mr. Schmeisser's field. If they could not prevent that pollution, they can hardly blame Mr. Schmeisser for attempting to make the best of their negligence.
Re:Look at the silly monkey (Score:5, Interesting)
This is beside the point. It has nothing to do specifically with software, which is NOT exempt from first sale doctrine, at all.
So when you click on "I Agree" in that EULA, you are agreeing to that expressed warranty
Actually, no. The only thing that says "clicking 'I agree' means you agree" is the EULA itself. So, if you don't agree, you can happily click "I agree" without, in fact, agreeing.
as long as it's spelled out in the contract, and you used the item therefore agreeing to the terms, it can be upheld in court.
And if you don't agree, you're free to use the software anyway.
What's interesting is that regardless of whether the end user agrees or not, such a contract (presented after the sale) is invariably illegal, and wouldn't hold up in court, because it's an attempt to change the terms of another contract that has already been executed (purchasing the software is a contract, and the EULA is attempting to modify the contract after it's been executed, which is illegal.)
In order to be upheld in court, an EULA would have to be presented to the purchaser before they buy it, not afterwards (at which point, it doesn't matter whether the user clicks "I agree" or not.)
Re: Simple: Value of Limited Use vs. Unlimited Use (Score:3, Interesting)
The "everyone-pays-the-same-price-no-restrictions" model is not that good an idea, especialy for the hobbyists. People may gripe about having to pay a different price for what they consider the same product or gripe about stupid licensing terms, but a differentiated price structure provide benefits to the low-end. Without some way to differentiate the product between amateur and professional use, the company would need to charge the same price to everyone. This price would be higher than that charged to the "restricted-use" customers and would make the product less affordable to hobbyists.
I may not like that some products come with restrictions, but I understand why companies do this and how it maximizes the number of people that can afford to buy the product.
Re:Whoa, slow down there, lefty... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Whoa, slow down there, lefty... (Score:2, Interesting)
And there is the rub. With old compilers, you could make...a compiler. This results in recursion, which points out the flaw in the system (how many generations do I have to be removed before I can use the tool wherever I like?). This is totally different here, since recursion is not present - the tool you make doesn't perform the same functions as the tool you licensed.
I'm not commenting on whether I think this is right, and I'm not yet decided, but your analogy is completely flawed, lacking the same basis as the current case.
Re:A bit screwy ? (Score:3, Interesting)
In fact, what he probably should have done, the moment he realized what had polluted itself onto his land, was promptly sue Monsanto for the cost of all of his crops over the next 5 years.
They shit on his yard, and now they're suing him for the price of manure.
Re:Don't you get protections with a licensed produ (Score:5, Interesting)
TemplateMaster isn't a jig in the usual sense. It's a jig to make jigs. The problem with most jigs of this type (dovetailing, etc.) is that you tend to make a lot of passes with a powerful tool (a router) and sooner or later you'll screw up and route the shit out of your jig. When your jig costs $600, you're gonna be pretty pissed.
TemplateMaster lets you build jigs out of cheap materials and then use *those* until they wear out or you screw up. Then build a new one. The likelihood you'll ruin your TemplateMaster is much less since you really don't use it that often.
The problem is that you can use the TemplateMaster to make jigs out of substantial materials like aluminum that are viable for resale. Now, that's generally not a big issue - there are lots of products like that in the world - but if you make a product for production, you charge a hell of a lot of money for it since you know it'll have a limited market. This is designed for consumers and is actually very inexpensive even compared to other consumer jigs.
The mfgr is in a catch-22. He's made a product for consumers, but if it's picked up for production usage, it can seriously undermine his business.
Personally, I think he's going the wrong way with this. He *should* be making his own jigs from the TemplateMaster and selling those (in addition to the TemplateMaster), and use existing laws to block other manufacturers from making and selling identical products. Even if they don't sell, their existance should protect him, and who knows, maybe they will sell...
Re:Look at the silly monkey (Score:1, Interesting)
You can't own a service, you can own a product.
It is not common practice to change the contract post sale for any product, ever.
There is a world of difference here.
BTW, please don't write like such a tool.
Seriously, you claim that because he's not a
lawyer he's an idiot, but even though you
aren't one either, you know how it all works.
OK, buddy.
Re:Monsanto (Score:3, Interesting)
What about [slashdot.org] people [percyschmeiser.com] who claim it blew onto their property?
Re:Nice ... hmmm, not really. (Value vs. Cost) (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, the license makes this untrue to the extent that the license is a binding contract. It is said that nobody "wants to buy a drill, they want to buy a set of holes" In the case of this product, the seller is selling the right for one person to make certain wood products for their own use. Perhaps the company should offer two versions of the product, a cheap "single user" model and a more expensive "neighborhood" model. Then people could choose which license made sense and not feel they were unilaterally prohibited from lending the product to their friends.
Re: advocating subsidies or making more money of some people
Yes, those are two ways to look at it. You could also look at it as the high-paying group paying for the up-front capital costs, and the low-paying group only paying the recurring costs (this is what happens in airline revenue management systems). The variable price model seems to create unfair opportunities for the seller to profit. But the fixed price model creates unfair opportunities for customers to profit. I would argue that a professional cabinet-making shop profits more from a jig than does a weekend hobbyist. The difference between the retail price and the value (the higher price one would be willing to pay) is the extra profit the buyer gets if they get it for less.
Re: most products sold at a fixed price:
This is only seems true in the world of consumer retail goods. It is not true with EBay, car dealers, airlines, stock markets, commodities markets, or in industrial sales. It's not even that true around the world -- haggling is still alive and well. Now that I think of it, its not even as true in retail anymore since retailers can quickly change the prices of goods to differentiate between customers willing buy now or wait til later (just watch how gasoline prices vary across the weekdays if you don't believe me). Worldwide and across the economy, I would argue that most products are sold with some value-of-usage differentiation in the final stages of pricing.
Re: scalpers
I have no problem with scalpers since they seem to be an artifact of the flawed fixed-price system. Worse, the illegality of scalping creates a lack of transparency in the market that actually conspires to create those outrageous prices. Personally, I'd advocate a periodic Dutch auction process for primary sales with a bid-ask secondary market, but that's just me.
The real issue is: should prices be determined by the cost-of-production (i.e. fixed profit margins for the seller) or the value-of-usage (i.e. fixed profit margins for the buyer)?