Putting EULAs in a New Light

We’ve seen a remarkable array of restrictive license agreement terms on hard goods over the years — a woodworking tool that only one person can use, ink jet cartridges that can’t be refilled, carbonated beverage canisters that must be returned to the manufacturer, even tropical fish that you have to keep from fooling around. Now comes one of the strangest yet — a camera with a EULA that allows only certain people to use it, and only to take certain kinds of pictures.

“Here is a completely new kind of EULA for you near the bottom of this page,” a reader wrote earlier today. “Certain cameras from Fuji contain EULA that say when you can and can’t take a picture!!”

The Fujifilm USA EULA reads:

Fujifilm UVIR Digital Camera USA End User License Agreement:

By breaking the packaging seal you acknowledge your understanding and acceptance of Fujifilm’s Ultraviolet (UV) and/or Infrared (IR) sensitive digital camera firmware End User License Agreement. The camera firmware contained in each system package is fully activated to engage the camera’s UV and/or IR capabilities and ready for use. No other firmware modifications are necessary in order to activate the camera’s UV and/or IR wavelength sensitive CCD. THIS LICENSE IS NON-TRANSFERABLE.

You hereby acknowledge and agree that your use of the camera’s UV and/or IR light energy sensitive capabilities, as enabled by Fujifilm’s camera firmware, will be purely to accomplish a legitimate business purpose in the medical, forensic, fire investigative, law enforcement, scientific, systems integrators, museum/antiquity, aerial photographic survey, astronomy, professional nature and fine art photography, photographic education and local and federal government markets.

In addition, you further agree not to use the camera’s hardware and firmware enabled capabilities to engage in unethical photographic conduct involving the violation of personal privacy, child endangerment, lewd photography, and or paparazzi like activities.

The reader points out that the EULA is followed by a link to a PDF “Purchase Request Questionnaire” form, so it’s possible that Fujifilm is serious about trying to enforce this. And no doubt some will applaud the company for trying to keep its technology out of the hands of perverts and paparazzi, or at least trying to cover its backside for when it does happen.

Hey, maybe next we’ll see gun manufacturers with EULAs that say you only shoot bad people with their weapons. There’s a very slippery slope when manufacturers use sneakwrap-type agreements to restrict how their products are used and by whom. One thing Fujifilm should keep in mind is that an end user license agreement in actuality is neither a real agreement nor a real license.

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