Read carefully if you are of a feline persuasion

Yes that was one of the nine terms the site didn't have.

Why do you say that?

> 4. Nothing here is guaranteed, including availability, correctness, continuity, or fitness for any purpose.

There you go.

I like the [Basecamp policies](https://github.com/basecamp/policies). Explicitly open source, limited legalese.

I don’t know, but it’s kind of boring to speculate since computers easily beat us at chess and go.

unintended condition: cloudflare

p.s. quick fix is "stop being lazy and move the single html off cloudflare"

Right? Why include that? The law automatically applies. Including it in the license is just redundant.

Had it simply read "You may use this site for any purpose." or "You may use this site." or "You may use this" or "This can be used." it would have the same level actual restriciton in that you obviously aren't allowed to use it to break the law regardless of what it actually says.

And, having typed all that, I realize that there is another restriction in that it presumes that there is a 'you' using it. Things that are not 'you' cannot use it given that it specifically lists 'you' in the referenced parties. "This can be used" would be more permissive.

"Alternative Terms" was the giveaway.

It's common for non-lawyers to write terms and conditions, and other contracts.

My mind when to the same thing. Great song.

> > Access is not conditioned on approval

I practice law in California. I've written terms of service that many, many people here on HN will have agreed to. I read this line and didn't know what it meant, or what it intended to mean.

That said:

> If you are actually a lawyer then it'd be interesting to hear your guidance, which I very much understand is not legal advice. If you're not a lawyer then I'm not.

There's no good way to validate lawyerdom on public social media like HN. And while the average lawyer probably remembers enough from law school or bar exams to know slightly more about Web terms of service and legal drafting than the average person, there's nothing to stop non-lawyers from reading up and learning. Eric Goldman's Technology & Marketing Law Blog is a great, public source covering cases on ToS and other issues, for example.

The Bar monopolizes representation within legal institutions. Don't cede the law itself to lawyers.

use at your own risk

> 8. You are responsible for what you do, what you build, and what follows from either.

> I will not argue with you about how obvious it is.

Good. Don't. Because it is exceedingly plain, if concise, English.

Sounds like a smart strategy then. Use an amateur license. People who just want to do stuff know they have your blessing. Corporations will stay away or pay up, not because you made them, but of their own volition. Everyone is happy.

Of course even better is to simply have no explicit license, especially for something like code. Normal people can assume they can do whatever they'd like (basically, public domain). Lawyers will assume they cannot. The only thing stopping someone is their own belief in their self restrictions. i.e. you can use the thing if and only if you don't believe in my authority on the matter.

Nobody cares what you typed in your hallucination machine

yeah - thats why we just ignore the EU

Thanks! Basecamp's and Github's were a few of the open source ones I came across

---

If anyone knows that rules exist to be broken, it's Jorji. Glory to Cobrastan.

Right. The cake is a lie.

Should have gone for the WTFPL

        DO WHAT THE FUCK YOU WANT TO PUBLIC LICENSE

        TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION

            0. You just DO WHAT THE FUCK YOU WANT TO.

I’m not lazy, I’m just tired of the fucking AI crawlers trashing my bandwidth.

Preventing computer-based cheating in competitive chess is a big deal (and I assume go also), because spectators tend not to want to watch two computers playing against each other.

"NoTermsNoConditions"... Proceeds to list 9 terms and conditions.

It should be called bare-termsandconditions or minimal-termsandconditions.

This is the real salient point in this post in my opinion;

It unintentionally demonstrates the limits of individual agency to avoid legal embroilments

That is to say: it doesn’t really matter what this person puts on their website because there is a judge and a sheriff somewhere that can force you to do something that would violate the things you wrote down because the things you wrote are subordinate to jurisdictional law (which is invoked as you point out)

It’s actually pretty poetic when you think about it because the page effectively says nothing because it doesn’t have content that the license applies to

If it’s a art piece intended to show something about licensure all it does is demonstrate the degree to which licensure is predicated on jurisdiction

Why? For what?

> Right? Why include that? The law automatically applies. Including it in the license is just redundant.

Perhaps not. The law, as automatically applied, often include implied warranties.

You can be competent without being a lawyer, sure. But if you see the other replies to my comment, you see why I would use this as a filter.

The dumbest person can be right, but as a lawyer, your guess is much better.

I don't cede the law. It's just that if I find this unclear, then J Random Hn commenter's opinion wouldn't reduce my risk.

I won't be acting based on your opinion either, of course, but the quality of your reply is clearly in a different class from the other two.

I'm guessing it means that your use of the website is not contingent on you accepting (approving of) the terms presented. But there are plenty of other ways it could be reasonably interpreted. For instance, your access of the website is not contingent on the website operator approving said access.

As far as I'm concerned this doesn't mean anything legally unless I missed something. Aren't you already responsible for what you do or build anyways?

Or is this somehow meant to mean something else but worded so badly it can't be understood.

When it's in the contract, then it means that when you break the law you both break the law and the contract. SHould it be necessary? Perhaps not, but in some places that makes a meaningful difference.

I recently had to confirm to a brokerage that I won’t be using the money I’m withdrawing for any illegal activities.

A sure sign of a legal team or possibly an entire legal system having lost the plot. Hopefully only the former.

> Right? Why include that? The law automatically applies.

Because the law applies - by that I mean if you don't put a disclaimer in then the law takes the view that you do provide a warranty, etc.

It's almost like the most effective way to publish without T&Cs is to just, you know, omit the section and publish what you want without T&Cs.

This is exactly the kind of comment I politely asked people not to make.

Did you see the actual lawyer saying they don't know what it means?

You are essentially saying that shoplifting is legal because as a civilian you are unlikely to get caught.

This is a terrible take. All it takes is a litigious jerk, and you could get bankrupt. And that jerk will be legally in the right.

No explicit license is not basically public domain. In most jurisdictions it means the default is full copyright, so permission is less clear, not more. The practical effect is usually to increase ambiguity rather than grant freedom.

It depends, not everything requires explicit consent. Where it doesn’t, it’s sufficient if the terms are clear, understandable, and transparent. The last criterion means that the terms must be prominently advertised in the locations where they apply.

> I won’t be using the money I’m withdrawing for any illegal activities.

My guess is that this is so they can ban any drug dealers from their site without consequence. "They violated our terms of service your honour!"

That’s simple CYA, and also ensures you’ve not only done the illegal activity, you’ve defrauded the brokerage and breached your contract with them, and they get a weak KYC defense as well.

Similar to the “Al Capone” instructions from the IRS:

>Income from illegal activities, such as money from dealing illegal drugs, must be included in your income on Schedule 1 (Form 1040), line 8z, or on Schedule C (Form 1040) if from your self-employment activity.

On the other hand, if you want to talk about these stickers all over Seattle saying you’re not allowed to conduct illegal activities on the premises…

Now I'm paranoid. To your knowledge, which places does it make a difference, and what difference does it make?

Interesting question. I wonder what the default (implied) T&C would be if nothing has been explicitly stated. For example, publishing a source code without an explicit license doesn't make it open source.

This is probably a meek attempt at demonstrating compliance with Anti-Money-Laundering (AML) laws and regulations. Lawyers will often suggest this sort of thing, because the only cost is a slight inconvenience to the client, and it might suggest 'good faith' in the case of a prosecution or enforcement action.

For Good, not Evil, unless you're IBM™

https://gist.github.com/kemitchell/fdc179d60dc88f0c9b76e5d38...

A statement that "If you're not a lawyer then I'm not." is blunt, not particularly polite or not.

In any case, (a) it's not a request, and (b) if you truly want to control the narrative, then perhaps you should just do that from your own blog.

I'm not. In saying people who want to share their work should just do so. If your goal is to not have terms, don't have terms. Don't lend credibility to the idea that you need to by default.

Consider the war on drugs. Recreational marijuana is still highly illegal everywhere in the US, but there's businesses selling it that operate in plain view. How did we get there? Because people continued to point out how the law delegitimized itself until enforcement has started to become impossible.

That's the point: it's a rejection of the premise that you need these sorts of terms. You treat the law as the farce it has turned itself into. If people reject the farce, they can use it. If they support the farce, they can't (well, they can, but they think they can't). In a sense, an anarchist's viral FOSS license.

Does it take the view that I encourage/facilitate illegal use of my product unless I state otherwise in the T&C?

You are essentially saying that walking is safe because as a civilian you are unlikely to get robbed.

This is a terrible take. All it takes is an angry mugger, and you could get killed.

I still don’t understand the CYA though.

For the majority of banks, they do not want people to conduct illegal activity via their bank. For the minority of banks which don’t mind it, nothing stops them from adding the clause anyways. A cartel bank probably cannot use the existence of the clause as a defense if they’re still allowing illegal activity.

If the purpose is to allow the bank to terminate accounts suspected of illegal activity, my assumption is they can already terminate for much less than that.

Legal matters are almost never black and white. If someone does something illegal using my service, and some other 3rd party sues me as party to that illegal behavior, from a legal perspective having a clause like "no criminal behavior allowed" in there makes it easier for your lawyers to argue "my client clearly didn't intend to authorize/facilitate such behavior". This argument is of course made much stronger if it is paired with behavior, like banning (or attempting to ban) the criminal user as soon as the activity was identified.

But if you are paranoid you should speak with a lawyer in your jurisdiction.

So, the entire legal system.

I guess it’d be whatever the other party’s lawyer can persuade the judge into.

Ask every account that has ever released information on drug use, lock picking, explosives manufacture, or "hacking" - they all say "for educational purposes only" for a damned good reason

Walking is not illegal.

That's why your analogy doesn't work.