Click to Accept
By Lincoln D. Stein
A few days ago I needed to read a PDF file and decided to upgrade my copy of Adobe Acrobat Reader to the latest and greatest version. I downloaded a free copy of the software from Adobe's Web site and ran the installer to place a copy of Reader onto my laptop's hard drive. When I first launched the program, I was greeted by a grey dialog box containing a copy of Adobe's "click-wrap" license, a long, tedious document filled with legal terms and phrases. Usually I just scroll to the bottom of these things, but this time I read it all the way through. The license began:
"Adobe Systems Incorporated. Electronic End User License Agreement for Adobe Acrobat Reader. Notice to user: This is a contract. By installing this software you accept all the terms and conditions of this agreement."
This seems a bit presumptuous. Can running a piece of software have the same legal force as signing a written contract? There was also a major catch-22 here, because I had to install the software before I could read the contract.
The next section granted me the right to use Acrobat Reader and to make and distribute copies, provided that I included the installer and copyright agreement with them. This was followed by a statement of Adobe's copyright and trademark rights, and the declaration that the software structure and organization of the code are Adobe's "valuable trade secrets." Fair enough.
Things started to get interesting again in section 3, titled "Restrictions," which contained the following language:
"You agree not to modify, adapt, translate, reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble, or otherwise attempt to discover the source code of the Software."
