With tongue totally planted in his cheek, our Curmudgeon-in-Residence re-imagines Contracts 101.
Blogmeister’s Note: In light of on-going developments in the law of privacy and users’ rights, our current Curmudgeon-in-Residence, Don Evans, has prepared the following sample list of Terms and Conditions. These should be suitable for most, if not all, business arrangements in which one side (ideally, you) is holding all the cards. The reproduction below is, for the limited purpose of making them legible to you this one time only, magnified approximately ten times beyond the recommended type size. Once you have read them, they should never be presented to any third party in a type size of more than one point.
Terms and Conditions
Please review the following terms and conditions carefully before your use of the Service. These constitute a legally enforceable Agreement between you and the Company which will govern our mutual rights and responsibilities.
1. Your Privacy. Your privacy rights are important to us. While we cannot guarantee that the Private Information we become aware of in connection with the Service will not be hacked by Unauthorized Third Parties, we commit that we will not intentionally supply your Private Information to anyone other than (i) persons who duly pay us for the information, (ii) Governmental Authorities or persons purporting to be Governmental Authorities, (iii) our friends, and (iv) lawyers. We may make use of your Private Information for marketing purposes, to develop new products, to locate your assets in the event we ever have to sue you, to examine your tax returns, or for any other purpose.
2. Intellectual Property. The content you supply us in connection with the Service is called “Intellectual Property” (IP). Once you enter it into our database, you abandon all rights to the IP and irrevocably assign all of your right and title in the IP to us. We may re-publish it, revise it, punch it up, substitute other people in your photographs, or simply sell the IP as our own. Thank you. To the extent there is any liability for defamation resulting from your IP, you will remain the “author” of the IP and agree to indemnify for us for any damages we suffer from your carelessness or intentional misconduct.
3. Free Use. As advertised, your initial use of the Service is provided free of charge. We do reserve the right, however, to change this policy in the future at any time without notice or warning to you. In that event, you authorize us to make small monthly withdrawals from your checking and savings accounts which will appear on your bank statements as “service charges” that you will probably never notice or question. We may make such withdrawals in perpetuity.
4. Your Rights in the Event of a Dispute Regarding this Agreement. The purpose of this Agreement is to ensure that you have no rights under this Agreement, but should you choose to assert rights, you will be responsible for paying all of our legal fees, regardless of whether we are found to be in the wrong.
5. Limitation on Damages. In no case shall you be entitled to any damages greater than
25 cents, which, together with an additional two dollars, may get you a cup of coffee. On the other hand, in the event that you are found liable, we may elect to be compensated by either (i) money damages, including punitive, special, consequential, direct and indirect damages, or (ii) your first born child.
6. Waiver of Rights. To the full extent permitted by law, you hereby waive all rights you can possibly waive, including, without limitation, the right to a trial by jury, the right to habeas corpus, the right to remain silent, and the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
7. Governing Law. The law governing this Agreement shall be the law of the Island Commonwealth of Togo, which happens to be an investor in the Company.
8. Acceptance. By clicking “I accept” below, you are certifying that you have carefully read this Agreement in its entirety, that you have gone over it in detail with your personal attorney, that you fully understand its consequences, and that you think it is perfectly fair. You will not later claim to have just clicked on the “I accept” button without actually having read this, and if you do so claim, you agree that in addition to other remedies available to us, we or our agents may inflict physical punishment upon you, up to and including the fracture of limbs.
[__] I accept!
