And once again, Tom Smith hits one out of the park…

Remember when I was complaining last week about the rootkit that Sony CDs install on your Windows machine? Well, it gets better. Not only does the licensing agreement say that they can do that, but it also says that Sony is not liable to you for more than $5 (less than the cost of the CD) if it ruins your machine, that you can’t listen to the CD at work, and that if you file for bankruptcy, you have to delete the music off your computer.

Thanks to various people for following this, but most recently Ed Foster.

What in the world do you have to sign away to stay there?

Ed Foster thinks that VFP is a “very worthy write-in candidate” for the position of “worst EULA“.

On a recommendation from Scoble, I checked out Skype.net, which is a P2P telephony service. It looks interesting, and appears to work well, but I made the mistake of reading the EULA before installing it. It just has too many clauses in it that made me go “Hey, wait a second…”

11.1 Upgrades. To use a version of the Software identified as an upgrade, you must first be licensed for the software identified by Microsoft as eligible for the upgrade. After upgrading, you may no longer use the software that formed the basis for your upgrade eligibility.

In other words, if you buy the full version of VFP8, you’re covered, and you can use whatever other versions you have licenses for.