Click-wrap, EULA, whatever. Call it what you will but the fact remains; The EULA is a legal document intended to aid you in giving up your rights. You might think -- as we did -- that the EULA is a late 20th century manifestation but, here's a news flash... it's not.

Record collector Damon Burke shows this example of an early 20th century EULA, printed on the label of a 78 RPM record. The surprisingly modern sounding bit of legalease on the back demands that, unless you paid more than $1 for the record in your hand -- the equivalent of $21.65 in today's currency -- you have no license to listen.

Obviously this early 20th century relic and its outdated contract are (mostly) harmless these days but, will we find the same level of irony and comedic value in today's EULA agreements 100 years in the future?

Each one of us has faced a long dialog box full of legalese with the words "READ CAREFULLY" at the top. Admit it, like most of us you've shrugged and clicked "I Agree" before giving it much thought. By doing so, you've "signed" what is commonly referred to as a "clickwrap" agreement and, you'd be surprised to what you've agreed.

Boing Boing co-editor Cory Doctorow explains in InformationWeek some of the nastiness contained in End User License Agreements and warns of a coming storm of lawsuits that may be headed our way. Cory writes in part, " If you wanted to really be careful about this stuff, you'd prohibit every employee at your office from clicking on any link, installing any program, creating accounts, or signing for parcels. You wouldn't even let employees make a run to Best Buy for some CD blanks -- have you seen the fine print on their credit-card slips?"

At the very least, I'm going to think twice before clicking "I Agree" on a document which says "company X" can delete any file they don't like on my hard drive, install spyware, restrict my usage of a device I bought and paid for, or change the terms of what I'm about to sign at any time they wish.

Suprises Inside Microsoft Vista's EULA! Oh, sorry, that was supposed to be a sad frowny face, not an exclamation point. These are not surprises like the ones you find at the bottom of your Froot Loops. They're like the ones you find in, well, Microsoft licenses. The SecurityFocus article by Scott Granneman says that while Microsoft has tried to spit-polish Vista's license terms in recent weeks, they're still pretty draconian. Here are some of the delightful nuggets you can find: Benchmark gag order: You can only perform benchmarks on Vista, but only when you comply with Microsoft's conditions, which can change at any time. Virtualization limits: You can't run Vista Home Basic or Home Premium in a virtual machine, and if you use Vista Business or Ultimate in a virtual machine, you're not allowed to access any Microsoft DRM-protected content, including music and documents. Transfer to to other systems: You can transfer your Vista license to a second machine (provided you take it off the first machine), but after that you're done. No second transfer. Game over.

Okay, so not all of this is news. We've talked about some of this before. But all of it sucks. As I've said before, your average user isn't going to read the EULA, much less care overmuch about its clauses on virtualization and benchmarking. But people who make purchasing decisions and give advice--those users' techie friends, IT managers, and so forth--aren't blind to these things. Is Microsoft slowly killing itself by making its EULAs increasingly consumer-surly? Will the power-users eventually bail, and take their layman friends and family with them?

Update: It seems like maybe both I and Granneman are behind the times. Several users have pointed out that Microsoft has backtracked on the limitations on transferring a Vista license to a new machine after outcry from pretty much everybody.

Ah, EULAs. Can live with them, can't be bothered to read them. TechWeb has an illuminating overview of what's new in Windows Vista's end-user license agreement, i.e. that thing you never read before clicking "I Agree." Of course, there's plenty of new stuff that you can't do. To begin with, Microsoft forbids you from transferring the OS to another machine more than once. Whereas you could transfer your copy of XP to a new computer as often as you wanted (as long as you took it off the old one), Vista says no, after the second one you've got to buy a new license. Ergo, if you've built your own machine and plan on upgrading your motherboard regularly, prepare to shell out for a new copy of Vista the second time you do. Secondly, Microsoft has forbidden installing Vista Home or Vista Home Premium on a virtual machine like VMware or Parallels. If you want to do that you'll have to pay for Windows Vista Business or Ultimate, which will retail for $299 and $399, respectively, though I rather doubt Microsoft has any way to actually enforce this. Lastly, Vista's license spells out its right to "phone home" to Microsoft and require validation whenever it feels like it, and the ramifications if validation fails for any reason: "The software will from time to time validate the software, update or require download of the validation feature of the software. If after a validation check, the software is found not to be properly licensed, the functionality of the software may be affected."

To be honest, these ugly restrictions won't have much affect on the average home user, but could they be any more geek-unfriendly? Surly restrictions like this piss off power-users, who are the people those average Joes turn to when they want to know what kind of computer to buy. Microsoft is sure to make a pretty penny on Vista, but at what cost?

Update: This article at MacInTouch points out another wrinkle: If you use Vista Business or Ultimate inside a virtual machine, you are forbidden from accessing DRM-protected media: "You may use the software installed on the licensed device within a virtual (or otherwise emulated) hardware system. If you do so, you may not play or access content or use applications protected by any Microsoft digital, information or enterprise rights management technology or other Microsoft rights management services or use BitLocker." [Via Boing Boing]

Update 2: ZDNet's Ed Bott sheds some doubt on the Home virtualization issue, saying that TechWeb and others misinterpreted the license. He says, in short, that virtualization is perfectly fine for Vista Home, but you must have a license for each virtual machine just as with XP. However, if you shell out for Vista Ultimate or Business, "you can load another copy of that same OS, using the same product key, in a virtual machine on that same computer." Which would be a huge perk for power-users willing to put up the extra cash. Hopefully someone from Microsoft will chime in sooner or later with a difinitive clarification.