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<!--#set var="title" value="Legal Validity of Software Contracts" -->
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This is a presentation that I gave in a law-related course at the New Jersey
Institute of Technology (NJIT) in the Spring of 2012.
In the presentation, I define software contracts (a.k.a. "end-user license
agreements", "software license agreements", or simply "licenses") and explain
the history of software copyright law and contracts. I then examine the
disputed legal validity of software contracts in three main areas: assent to
terms (including "shrink wrap" and "click wrap" contracts), ownership of copies
(the "licensed, not sold" argument), and conscionability and preemption.
The presentation refers to statutory and case law in the United States, but the
concepts should apply to almost any jurisdiction.
Slides
======
The following are the slides I prepared for the presentation:
* [OpenDocument Format](software-contracts.odp)
* [Portable Document Format](software-contracts.pdf)
Included in the OpenDocument version is the script to the presentation (in
LibreOffice, look in the "Notes" tab).
Many reader programs render stripes in the slide background of the PDF file.
This is due to [a bug][bug-lp] [in cairo][bug-fdo] which has been fixed in a
version newer than that which I used.
[bug-lp]: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/cairo/+bug/164233
[bug-fdo]: https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=47706
Copyright
=========
Copyright © 2012 Patrick "P. J." M<span class="super">c</span>Dermott
All works related to this workshop, including this document, the flyer, the
notes, and the session records may be used under the terms of the
[Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license][cc-by-sa-3.0].
[cc-by-sa-3.0]: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
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