------- Forwarded Message Follows ------- Date: Thu, 4 Jul 1996 17:27:43 -0400 (EDT) From: Edupage Editors <educom@elanor.oit.unc.edu> Subject: Edupage, 4 July 1996 ***************************************************************** Edupage, 4 July 1996. Edupage, a summary of news items on information technology, is provided three times each week as a service by Educom, a Washington, D.C.-based consortium of leading colleges and universities seeking to transform education through the use of information technology. ***************************************************************** [..] "SHRINK-WRAP" LICENSES OKAYED BY COURT The validity of the "shrink-wrap" licenses that many software publishers rely on for copyright protection was bolstered by a recent appellate court ruling in Chicago. Last month, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a lower court's finding that shrink-wrap agreements were unenforceable. Plaintiffs in the case, ProCD vs. Zeidenberg et al., charged the defendants with distributing the software program via the Internet. The defendants had argued that they couldn't be held to the license terms because they'd had no chance to negotiate or object to parts of the agreement. They also said the license agreement should be printed on the outside of the box, where it could be read before purchasing. The latest ruling found this suggestion to be an onerous burden, but did say the box must have a notice saying there's a licensing agreement inside, and that buyers should be able to return the software if they don't agree to the license once they read it. (Investor's Business Daily 3 Jul 96 A5)