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Rethinking Consideration In The Electronic Age, Robert A. Hillman, Maureen O'Rourke
Rethinking Consideration In The Electronic Age, Robert A. Hillman, Maureen O'Rourke
Cornell Law Faculty Working Papers
Our fast-paced age of electronic agreements that ostensibly govern transactions as diverse as downloading software, ordering goods, and engaging in collaborative development projects raises questions regarding the suitability of contract law as the appropriate legal framework. While this question arises in many settings, we focus here on the free and open source software (FOSS) movement because of the maturity and success of its model and the ubiquity of its software. We explore in particular whether open source licenses are supported by consideration, and argue that they are, and that open source licenses are contracts. We further argue that a contractual …
Warranties And Disclaimers In The Electronic Age, Robert A. Hillman, Ibrahim Barakat
Warranties And Disclaimers In The Electronic Age, Robert A. Hillman, Ibrahim Barakat
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
This paper reports on software-licensor express warranty and disclaimer practices on the Internet. Our data show that virtually all of the websites and End User License Agreements (EULAs) we sampled include express warranties on the website and disclaimers of the warranties in the EULAs that may erase all or much of the quality protection. Next, the paper reviews the reasons why consumers generally do not read their e-standard forms despite the prevalence of disclaimers and other adverse terms. We then argue that e-commerce exacerbates the problem of warranties and disclaimers and that lawmakers should address this issue. We contend that …