Hey, Macro­me­dia! What’s up with the Flash EULA?

Per­haps after the party cel­e­brat­ing the approval of the Adobe-​​Macromedia merger, some three-​​quarters smashed legal intern got their hands on the EULA draft and played around. On first glance it seems that:

  • you can’t install the Flash Player soft­ware on a portable com­puter (s 2(a))
  • you agree implic­itly to allow Macro­me­dia to audit your com­puter and slug you with a bill if they’re unhappy about the way you choose to use Flash Player (s 2(b))

These are prob­a­bly lib­eral mis­in­ter­pre­ta­tions, but even so, they show that who­ever was respon­si­ble for the EULA didn’t do their home­work, and cer­tainly didn’t pass the draft over enough sets of eyes before pub­li­ca­tion. Some of these state­ments are just dumb. Oth­ers, well… It would seem, read­ing the com­men­tary at Slash­dot (which at times is astound­ingly unre­li­able, and at oth­ers, spot on), that at the very least, the EULA requires users to sur­ren­der rights which are not sur­ren­der­able under European/​UK law. At best, Macro­me­dia are guilty of inad­e­quate research and incom­plete due dili­gence. At worst, it appears that con­sumer– and user-​​base-​​friendly Macro­me­dia is try­ing to become the new EULA play­ground bully.

Since when can’t I install Flash Player on my note­book PC (it is, and it’s stay­ing there, and be bug­gered if Macro­me­dia are going to audit anything!)?

Another case of a soft­ware com­pany get­ting too big for its boots? I’ve met and talked with enough Macro­me­dia staffers to know this isn’t their intent, but I’d be inter­ested to hear from the prover­bial horse’s mouth just what the story is.

Over to you, Macromedia…