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Re:Ask HN: Is the EULA on my new $30k RED cinema camera legal? by pessimizer on Friday April 29, 2022 @04:18PM (#31210143)
> "fit for purpose" - essentially that it "will work like you expect it to"

These two aren't the same thing. That the hammer works as most expect a hammer to work isn't the same as that the hammer works as I expect it to work. If I try to take my hammer back because I thought hammers also worked on screws, I'm pretty sure they aren't obligated to take it back. It would be very hard to argue that your new RED camera isn't "fit for purpose" due to its onerous EULA, because plenty of people successfully make films with RED cameras.

Re:Ask HN: Is the EULA on my new $30k RED cinema camera legal? by paulmd on Friday April 29, 2022 @04:41PM (#31210346)
To be a bit brusque - the law is technical, but it's also written by humans and interpreted by humans, and programmers who spend all day working on computers and broadly trend towards the autistic side always try to come up with clever end-runs around the law that will never actually work in reality. See also: every time securities law or KYC/AML is brought up in crypto threads. Your "clever exploit" of the law is not going to work, and is going to land you in jail.

If you buy a hammer and get mad that it doesn't make pizzas, the merchant isn't going to accept that, nor is a judge in small claims court going to be remotely amused. It's a hammer. Stop wasting my time, plaintiff pays all court fees and time for the defendant. They deal with bullshitters all day and they generally tend to be completely unamused by it.

If you ask the merchant nicely they will probably take it back, most retailers have return policies and most of them will stretch them even further to keep the business of a repeat customer. But merchantability is a thing, and they can't sell you a thing labeled as a hammer that doesn't work in the way an ordinary reasonable person would expect a hammer to work. One person being an unreasonable person doesn't really change that.

If you try and abuse it then the judge is gonna slap you down, but if they try and fuck you around about how a toaster is kind of a hammer in some ways then the judge is gonna slap them down.