Grad student translates iTunes Terms of Service into something more readable

Apple makes some beautiful products, doesn't it? From the second you unbox that new iDevice, to the moment when you plug it in to your perfectly engineered MacBook and open up iTunes with the great OS X operating system -- and then you see the iTunes Legal Agreement pop up, ugly as sin and a lot less interesting. Grad student Gregg Bernstein has put a little work into doing something that Apple hasn't yet done: Make that clickthrough terms of service window a little more appealing and a little less like legal boilerplate. For his master's thesis he went through Apple's license agreement (all 4,137 words of it) and designed something that looked a lot more clean and beautiful, and actually meant something. Things like how many copies you can make of each item, and what you're actually agreeing to when you click "Agree" are spelled out much more clearly.

So many of these user agreements are just noise, crafted by lawyers in a room somewhere, and put in by coders for companies who aren't really interested in using them as anything but a big, bland legal shield (and clicked on by consumers who aren't paying attention anyway). That's why Bernstein's idea is so great. Why not embrace beautiful design everywhere, even in the legal nonsense?

Of course, there are probably legal reasons (duh) that Apple's license is implemented the way it is. But it would be nice for some company, any company, to step up and make this stuff easier and better for all involved.

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Source: http://www.thedaily.com/page/2011/09/06/090611-tech-technews…

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Apple makes some beautiful products, doesn't it? From the second you unbox that new iDevice, to the moment when you plug it in to your...

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rpoland6

It would be greatly appreciated if some enterprising soul could do the same for the Applescript Dictionaries.

September 08 2011 at 10:10 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Jeremy

The problem, unfortunately, is that EULA's are unreadable because they're there for purely legal reasons. If there was a second 'readable' EULA it would have questionable legal implications. Which is just indicative of America's lawsuit happy culture more-so than anything else. Really, the logical next step, is just getting rid of it completely.

September 07 2011 at 1:27 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Joe

Nice. How do I read the actual thing?

September 07 2011 at 12:41 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

1 reply to Joe's comment

Joe

nm, someone posted below.

September 07 2011 at 12:42 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

abbyk

Nice! Now if somebody would just streamline the bloated mess that is iTunes,...

September 07 2011 at 12:25 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Mike Barriault

Wow. That makes my just-finished Master's thesis on a new method to enforce orthogonality of the electromagnetic fields in a numerical simulation look... well, mostly unrelated, but somewhat less useful to society.

September 07 2011 at 8:45 AM Report abuse Permalink +1 rate up rate down Reply

1 reply to Mike Barriault's comment

Colin Kirkley

Nerd Alert!

Just kidding. But you totally set that one up.

September 08 2011 at 11:57 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Jonas G

Penny Arcade's new iPhone app "Decide-o-tron" has a License Agreement that begins with the standard legalese and then ends with the "Simple EULA" for normal readers. The last paragraph of the normal EULA notes, however, that the Simple EULA isn't legally binding ...

September 07 2011 at 6:22 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Robert E. Debowski

"Users are required to type their initials to agree to the terms of each page.." (6 pages). Fail.

September 07 2011 at 6:22 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

1 reply to Robert E. Debowski's comment

Joe

Ehn. Debatable. If the text field is active, not requiring you to use the mouse at all, its rather trivial. Type initials and press enter x 6.

September 07 2011 at 12:44 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Dagaz

If all licence agreements read like that people might actually, you know, read them. As it is, about the only EULA I ever read was for Jer's Novel Writer - it was verging on ROFL. I don't know if it's still like that, but it was pretty awesome back in the day (I switched to Scrivener ages ago and haven't kept up with Jer's since then).

September 07 2011 at 5:06 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Campaign Insider

"Why not embrace beautiful design everywhere, even in the legal nonsense?"

Probably because the language used needs to meet objective, "reasonable person" standards and not subjective, "did Joe Blow actually understand it" standards.

September 07 2011 at 1:45 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply