Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Snap a picture, break a contract?

You may imagine that you’re buying a Canon EOS-1D camera, but all you’re buying is actually a license to use it part of what you’re buying is a license to use its software, and a fairly restrictive license at that. “If you let anyone outside your immediate family use the camera — if you lend […]

You may imagine that you’re buying a Canon EOS-1D camera, but all you’re buying is actually a license to use it part of what you’re buying is a license to use its software, and a fairly restrictive license at that. “If you let anyone outside your immediate family use the camera — if you lend it to a friend for the weekend or even ask a stranger to take a picture of you and your wife — Canon could technically sue you for breach of contract.” (Clay Risen, “Shutter Bug”, The New Republic, Oct. 31).

6 Comments

  • The article is subscription only, so I’m wondering what legal theory Canon uses to justify this. While click-wrap licenses on software have some legal support – and at least they make you say ‘yes’ to a contract – I can’t see any reason why a physical product can have any contract obligations adhering to it.

  • Without having read the article, my guess is that the license in question is actually for the software that makes the camera functionable, not the physical product.

    • By Seth

  • Yes, one of the licenses the article discusses is for the software running on the Canon camera. Canon’s license agreement, like many others, forbids lots of things that you’re normally legally entitled to do with something you own. You own the camera, but you’re merely licensing the software that runs on it. And if you violate the terms of the license, Canon could, in theory, revoke your license to that software. The camera’s still yours, though, but good luck getting it to do anything without that software.

    • By David

  • There seems to be a growing trend to claim rights far and above what copyright and patent law allow.

  • Let’s hope courts manage to find some sanity. Whether software is sold or licensed should be considered a question of fact subject to the “duck test”.

    When a physical object is purchased that contains incidental software necessary for the function of the device, it should be assumed that ownership of the copy of the software follows ownership of the physical device. A clear intent on the part of the buyer to consent to something else should be required.

  • The contract is at the point of sale, not after.

    Language hidden on a disk is not different from tiny print or hidden ink on a contract.

    • By dustydog