12 Comments

• Daniel white 20th Jul '10 - 9:28am

  The terms are stupid but phones are definitely computers…

• Andrew Suffield 20th Jul '10 - 9:31am

  The real sillyness here is that they have rules at all. I know it’s become popular with certain lawyers, but there’s really no way they could be enforcible.

• David Claughton 20th Jul '10 - 10:33am

  This is, of course, another example of organisations that don’t really “get” the web. No-one reads term and conditions, at all, ever. Not even if you’re doing something important, like handing you’re credit card details over to buy something.

  Back on April Fools Day Gamestation.com slipped a clause into their terms and conditions that all visitors agreed to hand over their immortal souls if they purchased anything. 90% of customers didn’t notice!

  This case is almost as silly … in order to find out how you’re allowed the read the website you first have to, errm, read the website. I can’t see that standing up in court somehow…

• IanVisits 20th Jul '10 - 11:01am

  If I want to print onto vellum, then I think I should be allowed to.

  After all, if it’s good enough for Parliament, then it’s good enough for me!

• ejoftheweb 20th Jul '10 - 11:12am

  @Andrew Suffield er yes but – if there were no rules, you’d be limited to what copyright law permits by default, which is not a lot. Of course, they’re unenforceable, so the smart thing is to have reasonable and non-restrictive rules (“do what you like with this stuff but please acknowledge, link back and don’t misquote us”), which puts users both practically and technically in the clear.

• Paul 20th Jul '10 - 12:41pm

  Does this block braille terminals? What about screen-readers? Does it also mean I can’t access their site from work?

• Andrew Wimble 20th Jul '10 - 2:16pm

  I am not sure what the legal definition of computer actually is.

  Given that the average smart phone has more processing power than a computer would only a few years ago, and even a ‘dumb’ phone is not far behind do phones qualify as computers, or Cars, TVs, Washing Machines, etc, etc, all of which have the kind of processing power that early computer makers could only dream of.

• MatGB 20th Jul '10 - 10:46pm

  Mark, if a phone is capable of displaying a web page, it’s a computer. My washing machine has a computer in it, my phone most certainly is one.

  Utterly daft T&Cs, but it’s still a computer.

• Andrew Suffield 20th Jul '10 - 10:49pm

  if there were no rules, you’d be limited to what copyright law permits by default, which is not a lot

  Traditionally there’s a bit of legal handwaving here about “implied permission” – by posting a page on the web, you implicitly grant permission for people to do all the things they normally do with websites, including the very limited forms of personal copying needed to process or display the page.

• Mark Pack 20th Jul '10 - 11:09pm

  Mat: I think your washing machine example highlights how the legal issue is a bit more complicated: I don’t think it’s an open and shut case to say that what is inside a washing machine equals a computer and therefore it is a computer – hence too for mobile phones. Imagine you were forced to be a lawyer in court arguing that a mobile phone is not a computer; they’d be plenty of points you could make, starting from the obvious plain English use of the word “computer” as meaning something different from “mobile phone” because when people talk about buying or selling a computer they never mean a mobile phone.

• MatGB 20th Jul '10 - 11:33pm

  Oh, I know lawyers who can argue many many things. However:
  http://www.google.com/search?q=define%3Acomputer

  # a machine for performing calculations automatically
  # calculator: an expert at calculation (or at operating calculating machines)
  wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

  # A computer is a programmable machine that receives input, stores and manipulates data, and provides output in a useful format.
  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer

  When I programme my washing machine, I input some variables, including extra settings and similar, it calculates the washing time on the display and then when I press start it washes my clothes, while the display counts down the remaining time. Two useful outputs (clean clothes, remaining wash time), many different input variables. And it manipulates the data to give me a washing time in a digital LCD display.

  By the definition of the word, it’s a computer. Sure, common parlance would say “I buy a computer” to mean a desktop, netbook, laptop or similar device, but these days a lot of purchasers would be that specific.

  And Sharp launched an Android powered netbook today, it’s teeny tiny, definitely a phone, but also definitely a computer.

  I have no doubt that for the purposes of certain statues, computer can be defined in a much more tight manner. Just as carrots can be defined as fruits for the purpose of jam making. I understand both these cases, doesn’t make it right.

• David Wright 21st Jul '10 - 4:40pm

  I think you’ve all missed the point, including Mark. That paragraph says what you can do, but it doesn’t say you can’t do other things too – nowhere does it say you can’t view the web page on a mobile phone screen, (whether or not it’s a computer).

  The next paragraph says:
  Except as expressly set out above, you may not reproduce, modify or in any way commercially exploit any of the Content.

  Nothing there limits what you can “retrieve and display” for your own personal use, whatever technology you use to do so. It does restrict how you can “modify or reproduce” the material. There’s no explicit provision for “fair use”, but I believe that is allowed by copyright law anyway.

  I agree that T&Cs of this sort are a bit pointless – mainly there to keep the council’s legal officer happy I expect – but I don’t see them as worthy of warnings on LDV.