EULA for the little ones

Hi Habr GT! As part of the division of Habr into Habr and GT, it seems to me, the time has come to get the materials written on another remote account out of the dead so that they do not disappear into the furnace of the move. Yes, and the themes of the new resource, they are more than. Well, let's go!

Once reading articles and comments to them even on Habré, I was faced with the fact that many people do not understand the mechanisms of the EULA (User Agreement). Very often, even the most intelligent and competent people do not delve into the subtleties of the relationship between them and the company, the software which they use. Most often, conflicts arise just on the basis of computer games with the possibility of donation, as well as in matters of blocking accounts. First of all, these provisions concern, of course, game accounts, however, similar methods are applicable to any EULA, including software.

I can say with confidence that I understand the intricacies of resolving issues in terms of communicating a support user on the User Agreement, as I was on both sides of the barricades. Want to know a little more about some of the intricacies of juggling PS formulations?

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Unfortunately, not everyone "understands and accepts" what is written in the PS, at least when faced with it. Immediately I draw your attention that the EULA is not written for users, but for the company-developer of the product, including to cover all the holes and opportunities to make claims to the developer / copyright holder.

In this publication I will briefly review some points and points of the PS of several large game projects, as it was connected, directly, with support in the game industry. Also, the main friction just arise around the games, namely FreeToPlay projects. For convenience, in the search for Russian versions, we take three domestic projects with the FreeToPlay system:

1. Prime World from Nival.
2. War Thunder from Gaijin.
3. World Of Tanks from Wargaming.net.

So!

EULA # 1. Prime World.

Immediately I would like to note that the company approached the writing of the PS in a human way, making life easier for himself and for the people here with this big inscription in the cap:



I'll explain why. Many users, when faced with the fact that they allegedly agreed to the terms of the PS, retorted by downloading the client from a friend, brother, matchmaker, or taking it somewhere else in an unpacked form, thereby not clicking any check marks. I agree when installing. Let's just say, this functionality of the “consent button” is just a tribute to tradition and nothing more than to explicitly indicate that a person signs under the rights of a developer and his duties to him. Implicitly, the PS most often has a separate line and small print of the same as shown in the screenshot above, however, the guys from Nival went further and carried it directly to the cap of their PS, in order to avoid "smutty" for support in the future. For what they honor, respect and +1 in karma if I could vote (: . Basically, the wording I described sounds as follows, if averaged:

“By registering our product account, using the provided functionality, participating in our project in any way and using its client / software part, you agree to the terms of this PS. Otherwise, you agree to uninstall the client \ software and stop its full use. ”

It is very important that Nival immediately indicated the following point about article 428 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation:



Pay attention to the third paragraph of Article 428 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, namely:

... the requirement to terminate or amend the contract ... shall not be satisfied if the acceding party knew or should have known under what conditions the contract is concluded

Considering that when using the product according to PS Prime World

YOU CONFIRM YOUR AGREEMENT TO THE TERMS OF THIS AGREEMENT.

The user, in fact, automatically agrees with all the conditions and is put by the developer into a corner from which he can not dig himself if he is not released voluntarily. Those. Automatically any claims regarding the text of the PS are canceled by this very text of the PS. Elegant, isn't it?

A little more frightening is the prospect of using this item, But, nevertheless, the PS describes the points of adjustment of controversial issues using the legislation of the Russian Federation, if this is not specified in the PS However, there are a few subtle points:

7.5. Either of the Parties has the right to terminate this Agreement at any time unilaterally (extrajudicially).

7.6. In case of termination of this Agreement for any reason, the Licensee is obliged to stop using the Game and remove the Client part of the Game from the PC’s memory. At the same time, the amount of license remuneration for DPEs, the license for the use of which was obtained by the Licensee, as well as the game currency in the Licensee’s personal account, are not converted into cash and are not returned to the Licensee under any circumstances.

So everything is simple and beautiful. The only miscalculation of Nival, in my opinion, is this point:

8.6. Disputes under this Agreement shall be considered in the Khoroshevsky District Court of Moscow, the applicable law: the substantive and procedural law of the Russian Federation.

When as jur. The Nival address is the following: “Nival” (registration number: B 155806) located at: 75, Parc d'Activités, L-8308 Mamer / Kapel, Grand Duchy of Luxembourg

But we will look at this in more detail later.

The rest of the EULA Nival is very standard and very much like the rules of a forum, only written extensively.

EULA # 2. War Thunder Gaijin.

Snails also approached the writing of PS with fantasy. They did not so explicitly indicate in the cap an automatic agreement with the PS, but after describing the basic definitions, they added the following item:



This wording koryu cuts down what I described above in terms of "I did not sign anything and did not check the box anywhere." If you think about it, then you undertake to fulfill the conditions of the PS, even if you play from your brother \ s matchmaker account, although this violates elsewhere:

1. Property Rights and Non-Disclosure Obligations.

1.1. Ownership rights. You agree that the Product and authorship, systems, ideas, working methods, documentation and other information contained in the Product are the intellectual property and / or trade secret of Gaijin, and / or its licensors and suppliers, and are protected by civil and criminal law, as well as laws on copyright, trade secret, trademarks and patents of any countries, as well as international treaties. You may use the Licensor’s trademarks only to the extent that you identify the output created using the Product in accordance with the generally accepted practice of handling trademarks, including the identification of the trademark holder. The above use of the trademark does not give you any ownership rights to this trademark.

By the way, if you get a grasp of this wording between the lines, then all that was created with the help of the company's products, or there is part of it, is its property. Where do you register your account? Right. And to whom does he belong? Right again. According to the PS, you do not have any rights to “Your” account, gaming assets on it and to the money assigned to the project. All this is the property of the company-developer, which in turn allows you to use it.
That's the way things are in modern igrostroe.

Following:

This Agreement may be terminated unilaterally by Gaijin immediately and without notice if you do not comply with your obligations under this Agreement. Without limiting any other rights, this Agreement is terminated automatically if you do not comply with any of the restrictions or requirements described in this document.

Here the company is well done, prescribing that any violation of the PS leads to the automatic termination of the contract unilaterally, which subsequently leads to:

Upon termination of this Agreement, you will not be entitled to use the Product for any purpose.

Those. not that you do not “Undertake not to use the product”, but “you have no right” to use the product. Based on my personal opinion that we can dig up anything in the logs for everyone, and given that:

3.5 Compliance with the law. You agree that when using this Product, as well as any information related to its use, you will comply with all relevant international, state, regional and local laws, including, without limitation, rules regarding confidentiality, copyright, export controls, legal rules on liability for obscene behavior.

We get at the exit the situation when you wrote the word [eq in the chat, or you said hello to someone's mother and the license is automatically terminated and the use of the company’s product is prohibited. There is no point in contacting War Thunder support with such an approach to PS formulations, because in any case, you will find any violation of PS, given its size.

Thus, we can say that War Thunder’s de jure client base tends to zero and the administration simply closes its eyes to the fact that thousands of people play ILLEGALLY WITHOUT ANY RIGHT TO USE THE PRODUCT.

And here Gaijin turned out to be smarter than Nival, almost completely eliminating the possibility of a lawsuit from the Russian Federation from an inadequate user:

This Agreement is governed by, interpreted and executed in accordance with the laws of the State of Virginia, USA, without regard to the rules and principles of conflict of laws. The provisions of this Agreement prevail over any provisions of the Commercial Code (Uniform Commercial Code) in relation to the Product in any legal jurisdiction. This Agreement is not subject to the United Nations Convention on Contracts for International Trade (United Nations Convention on Contracts for International Sale of Goods).

Thus, the War Thunder PS can be called draconian, according to the terms of which you are a disobedient hamster on their servers. And when confirming the automatic rupture of the PS in accordance with its text above, even well-founded lawsuits, in theory, can be wrapped, because at the time of the situation creation, when the user got into any unpleasant situation due to the company's fault, he, de jure, had no right to use the product. Even in response to the money you get shot down for costs. Correct me lawyers if I'm wrong.

EULA # 3. World Of Tanks.

Not as noticeable as in Nival, but also in a hat, which does the honor of this PS in our hit parade of domestic agreements.

I like the beginning of the PS very much in wargaming, considering that a lot of minors play tanks:

The User guarantees that he is not subject to legal restrictions on the use of online services, that he has all the necessary powers to enter into this Agreement or has received the necessary permission in the form required by law from his parents or legal representatives.

By this line, the company removes any shoals with theft of juvenile money to buy a new tank, or other self-mutilation from young fans. Simple and elegant.

Clause 4.2 of Section 2 is also very pleasant for the company:

User uses the Game at his own risk and peril. The game is provided on an “as is” basis, that is, the User is not guaranteed that the Game, as well as the features, services and services provided within the Game:

4.1. will function smoothly, continuously, without errors;
4.2. will meet the requirements and expectations of the User.

If you translate into a human: Something I don’t like - don’t play.

The next item is already familiar, but if you mention it in conjunction with another point, you get an interesting picture:

If the User violates the current Agreement, the Administration has the right, without prior notice, unilaterally restrict partially or partially the functionality or access of the User to the Project, delete all data, Content and Materials of the User, as well as refuse the User to further provide services in the Project without being responsible for any harm, which may be caused to the User by such an action.

Namely:

For the sake of brevity, this Agreement is hereinafter referred to as the Agreement. All annexes to the Agreement are its integral part and are binding on the parties. Appendices to the Agreement are posted by the Administration on the Site and include the Game Rules, Forum Rules, User Support Center Rules and Privacy Policy.

This allows the administration in any violation, on any major resource of the project ecosystem, to break the substation with the user and send his account to the permoban. Of course, this is not as cool as that of the Snails, when the PS is torn automatically, i.e. if necessary, retroactively, but also very effective in some cases.

Disagreement (not to be confused with non-compliance) with the PS text is spelled out in an interesting enough form:

In case of disagreement of the User with the current Agreement, the User is obliged to terminate participation in the Project, including uninstall the Program.

Don't you like something? You must delete everything and forget about our game, because Initially you signed it and agreed to comply with all clauses of this agreement. Including this one. Here is such an interesting vicious circle.

Pay attention to this line:

All other rights not expressly specified in the Agreement are reserved for the Owner of the project.

To be honest, I do not understand what kind of "not explicitly stated rights" in question. It seems to me that this is the back gate for lawyers of the company.

In general, EULA Wargaming is very democratic regarding the same Gaijin, and there a lot of attention is paid to the forums and the rights of the administration specifically (representatives of the copyright holder in the project), and not the company itself. Community forces, as they say.

So how to juggle it?

- Read the text of the PS and the text of all applications to it, before making any claim to the organization. Find those points that your situation falls under, as well as analyze what for you can be broken with PS unilaterally (I am quite seriously).
- After reading, make sure that you do not have any rights and property in the project and realize this fully.
- Calm down. (:
- Collect the necessary data, start searching for precedents on the company's available resources (most often, there will be no argument power outside the project ecosystem)
- Do not try to demand and look for if not the most comfortable solution for yourself, then at least a compromise.
- Do not bring the correspondence to a corkscrew, which will allow you to break the PS with you, do not allow the wording "I do not agree with this (with the PS) and others," this will untie the administration hands and allow you to break the PS with you unilaterally.
- In general, do not express your disagreement with the text of the PS. If the relationship is governed by your own legislation (as is the case with Nival), try to find an article in it, or an extract supporting your position.
- Remember that in most cases, the PS is a public offer agreement and, if its text does not directly violate your civil rights, it prevails over the legislation in direct formulations.
- Often, disputes on PS, according to the text of the same PS are not regulated by the place of residence of the consumer, but by the place of registration of the company. Most often these are offshore legislative zones, or countries such as England and the United States. Be careful, because in this case, reading the codes and laws of your country will most likely not help you.
- And most importantly, the easiest way is not to shine, but in real problems (with the passage of a payment, loss of control over an account, and others), patiently ask for and wait for help. If you are clean, your problem will be solved subject to the authorization of the support and technical feasibility of the necessary actions.

Remember, the EULA is always directed against users and without a real serious precedent, or a hole in it, you will most likely just lose, and the gain requires lengthy preparation and an experienced international lawyer (most often).

With respect.