What is an End User Licensing Agreement (EULA)?

I have finally come up with a foolproof plan to completely secure my computer from any and all intruders. The plan involves buying a new computer (not used), bringing it home, locking it up in a vault, and never turning it on! This way I will not have to deal with all of the complexities of owning a computer, but I can still tell people that "of course I own a computer, how could I live without one." I could even open an account with an Internet Service Provider (ISP), and just never sign on, so I would have an email address to put on my business cards.

This hardly seems like a very productive use of my computer. However, with the money I would save by not actually using the computer, I could probably afford to be a less productive. Think about the costs involved in using a computer, the end user licensing agreements (EULAs), the initial costs of purchasing, excuse me, licensing the software, the subscription fees for updating the software, etc. It seems to me that I should be way ahead of the game in a short amount of time.

Needless to say, I recently purchased a new computer from a major computer manufacturer. I got the computer home, turned it on and was greeted by the first of several EULAs. I had not even seen the computer in action yet, and I was already being told how I could (and could not) use it. I like to consider myself a reasonably intelligent individual (who doesn't?) and I can honestly tell you, I had no idea what I was looking at. The agreement looked like it was written in English, but the meaning of it was completely foreign to me. To give you a frame of reference, you are hanging out with a couple of your friends when one of them says, "whereas it is agreed to by both parties, and party one stipulates that...", how long would you continue to hang out with this person?

You may be saying to yourself, "just click on the agree button and get on with it," but this is a legally binding contract. I know this because it says so right at the top, in big, bold letters (so you know it must be true). Now you may be fortunate enough to have an attorney living in your house, who is willing to explain all of the ramifications of the contract you are being asked to sign, but I do not. So now I am left wondering if I should leave the licensing agreement on the screen until I can find an attorney who will come over to review and explain the agreement to me? I would love to hear an attorney's response to this request.

I am a big fan of analogies, I find them extremely useful for pointing out the absurdities involved in most of life's minor trials. So let's find an analogy for owning a computer to use throughout the rest of this article. A computer is nothing more than a home appliance, the same as a stove, refrigerator, or a dishwasher. I have to admit that I use my computer more often than my stove (I am a horrible cook), but I would rather live without my computer than without my stove. So this seems like a good analogy to use.

The necessity that I hear most often, for EULAs, is that in the United States, we have become so litigious that these agreements are necessary for the computer manufacturer's, software developer's, etc., to defend themselves against lawsuits. Seems strange to me that I was never asked to sign an end user licensing agreement before using my stove. I may be wrong, but I consider my stove to be a much more dangerous appliance than my computer.

Another reason for the EULAs is that it protects the manufacturer's rights to their intellectual property. Let's stick to the stove analogy for a moment. If I make dinner on my stove, who owns the intellectual rights to the dinner? Me, or the stove manufacturer? Also, does this mean that if my dinner makes people sick (a distinct probability), I have a legal claim against the stove manufacturer? Does dinner even have any intellectual rights associated with it? The fact that the hardware, programs, etc. are available to me, on my computer, is irrelevant. The heating element, power chord, etc. are available to me with my stove.

The idea behind any form of communication is to express an opinion that hopefully motivates the recipient to think. While I do not begrudge computer manufacturer's their intellectual property rights to their creations, it seems to me that there must be an easier way to protect these rights. Why not take a page from the stove manufacturer's handbook, and include a warning in the owner's manual? This way I have something to bring to an attorney's office if I have questions about it. After all, we do read the owner's manual, right? But this is a topic for another day.