The folks in the snap at the top of this post are able to be jolly because they have so completely demonized their victims...much as today we demonize the folks in the snap.

The moral is that it can always happen here, with a possible corollary that the best prevention is to affirm the humanity of all, even the monsters.

Peace,
phaedral

Link isn't dead for me, but I made the mistake of trying to sign up for the alpha...only to get an "Internal Server Error." Did ya pull off the sheet too soon? Anyway, very excited about what little I see. I am very interested in what looks like it could be the best intersection of the open ended experiences of Second Life while better supporting structured experiences found in games.

Justin,

I had to pull down my 1l casebook on contracts and was about to log into lexis to support disagreeing with the person Cory is quoting (presumably Tim Vernor, but the link is to a Randall Newton of AECnews.com.) You beat me to it.

Generally, courts have the power to deny enforcement of "contracts of adhesion," which are contracts lacking a true negotiation, where terms are "stuck to the deal" on a take-it-or-leave it basis. This is the source of a fair amount of consumer protection law in the retail world; as there hasn't been anything like a dickering or bargaining process in most retail cases it's hard to justify holding a customer to an agreement they never made.

However, in the world of software shrink wrap and click-through "contracts" courts currently overlook the "adhesion" aspect of the matter. There is no charitable explanation for why this is the case. At present courts typically do enforce contracts of adhesion where the subject matter is software. Which is a shame and an embarrassment for our legal system.