That is amazing. Doofodes has only three hits on google steaming from the same post in a math usenet forum. Cal you and lary should get together.
I have never seen a word get only one hit.
I disagree. The idiotic disclaimers are there not because of the idiots that sue, but because of an idiotic legal system that allows it. The people suing are actually quite smart to take advantage of the idiotic system that is currently in place.
My original question, though, was, given the idiotic system we have,
Basically, why is the “don’t try this at home” thing mostly for TV?
Is it simply because no one has yet sued a book publisher or a circus for things he tried to copy from them and got hurt?
And when that day inevitably comes, will we start seeing “don’t try this at home” on book covers, magazine covers, on your circus ticket, etc?
Or is there something fundamentally different, from a legal standpoint, about TV and the obligations of TV show owners?
But what if you try it outside your home?
But to install the SW you must go over the EULA step (whether you decide to read it or not)
For a TV show, if you are just channel surfing it is very likely that you will miss the disclaimer of the show you just tuned in to.
So, these are different cases.
For them to have been the same, the SW install process would have to involve the SW splashing the EULA on the screen while the installation was happening, and the installation would finish whether or not you read the EULA. Then, you could legitimately say that you neither read the EULA nor agreed to its terms.
As it stands now, you have to actively acknowledge that you accept the terms of the EULA (whether you read it or not) for the installation to go forward.
“I’m an Amateur. Don’t Try This At Work.”
— Old CalMeacham sig line.
I agree that the analogy isn’t perfect. That’s why the show (at least Mythbusters) repeats the disclaimer several times an episode. They also break each “myth” into segments interspersed with breaks that contain the disclaimer, to lessen the chances that you could watch an entire “myth” all the way through without seeing the disclaimer.
The disclaimer is still part of the show. It’s not the show’s fault you didn’t watch the entire thing. If the case went to court and the producers submitted a copy of the show, the disclaimer is still in there.
And you’re just going to walk off with the chain???
What if there was a train that, at every major station, gave passengers the warning “Do not use the electrical outlets because you may be electrocuted”.
But, passengers could still get on and off the train at minor stations.
So, a passenger could get on at a minor station, and then later get off at a minor station before reaching the next major station. This passenger would not hear the warning.
If this passenger got electrocuted from using the electrical outlets, and he toook them to court, could the railway owners say that “well, we do warn them at every major station”? Would that hold up in court?
In case it is not obvious:
- train = TV show
- major train stations = commercial breaks
- minor train stations = any time you tune in or out of a TV show
OK, you win. It’s obvious that all things that could be emulated by the public need to be taken off TV.
Without slogging through a jillion searches, I’m fairly certain I’ve heard of people doing stupid things because they saw it on TV. How many of the shows emulated had a disclaimer? I don’t recall many. I saw a guy on a cop show jump from building to building. No disclaimer. If I break my neck jumping to the next building, I rate my chances of using “I saw it on TV and he didn’t break his neck” as a basis for a lawsuit to be pretty iffy.
As to the train analogy. Since the “ride” is broken up so that it is impossible to get to “your destination” without passing a “warning station”, you will be exposed to one unless you “get off and walk around it” and “get back on”. Even then, you might be reading with noise cancelling headphones on. What then? Slap you with the warning sign?
Ultimately various questions about what is reasonable, what is forseeable etc are put to a jury and the jury decides, in the US as I understand it. In my experience, smart, logical laypeople can have difficulty (as you appear to be having) grasping the extent to which flexibility based on a jury’s attitude is a cornerstone of the system.
Quite simply, it’s probably more likely that you’ll convince a jury to skewer a wealthy TV company for showing people how to (say) make thermite at home than it is that you’ll convince a jury to skewer some guy with no money who rides his bike no hands down the street, or a TV show that is obvious fiction.
I wonder if part of the rationale for the disclaimer is that there are shows where the viewer is encouraged to “try this at home”. Think of all the home improvement or cooking shows out there, especially on the Discovery family of channels. If someone sees Mythbusters (without warnings) between a show that gives step by step instructions on how to tile a bathroom, and another show that gives similar instructions on how to cook a turkey, there’s a bit of ambiguity about what things the viewer should and should not attempt. An absolutely minuscule amount of ambiguity, true, but perhaps enough to be exploited in court.