Why do some licenses have a clause stating that one can&#39;t violate the law? Example of such a clause in the Creative MLOpen RAIL-M dated August 22, 2022 used by runwayml/stable-diffusion-v1-5: You agree not to use the Model or Derivatives of the Model: In any way that violates any applicable national, federal, state, local or international law or regulation. I don't see the point of that clause. I.e., I don't see what would change if the clause were to be deleted. Why do some licenses have a clause stating that one can't violate the law?
Because breaking the law is not breach of contract (Necessarily). Were you to use the model to 3D-print a gun and rob banks with it, without this clause, you have not broken the contract. That would mean that the provider could neither sue you for any damages the use of their model in your crime spree might have caused them, nor can they legally terminate the licence with you.
Choice of law A contract can include a choice of law clause that states the laws that apply to the contract. For the USA this would usually be the laws of a particular state. Most courts in most jurisdictions respect the choice of law clause - that is, if say a suit is brought in a new-south-wales court on a contract with a choice of law of californina, the court will (probably) apply Californian law to the contract. However, a choice of law clause does not affect non-contract law like torts, equity, criminal law, consumer protection law, and &quot;no contracting out&quot; laws. So, for the above example, while the contract will be interpreted using California/USA law, other claims will be assessed under New South Wales/Australian law. For an example of how this works in practice, see ACCC v Valve Software. It was never in doubt that the contract was under Washington, USA law, however, the &quot;no refund&quot; term, while valid in Washington violated Australian Law and was unenforcable and, more critically for valve, was misleading and deceptive, costing them AUD 3 million in fines (plus legal costs). Choice of Forum In addition to specifying the relevant law, a contract can also suggest the appropriate forum: &quot;disputes shall be subject to the non-exclusive jurisdiction of Californian courts&quot;. A clause that oversteps the suggestion and states the forum categorically is likely to be void on public policy grounds: a contract cannot exclude courts that have jurisdiction. A choice of forum clause is one of the factors a court will consider if one of the parties petitions that it is the wrong forum and the case should be transferred to the right forum. They are influential but not determinative and go into the mix with all the other relevant factors. Arbitration A well-drafted binding arbitration agreement will almost always be effective if it complies with local law. Courts have a very strong bias in favour of enforcing arbitration clauses.
The artist and collager have a contract that states that the artist retains the copyright to the final collective work. To arrive at any other outcome, they both must agree to a new contract. One could argue that no new contract was agreed to for two separate reasons: Firstly, the request to &quot;approve by signing next to the copyright statement&quot; is not very specific, understandable contract language that unambiguously is intended to transfer the copyright to the collager. Whether the specific language the collager used to make the new proposal is indeed a contract is debatable. A contract requires &quot;mutual assent&quot;, which is tested legally by how a &quot;reasonable person&quot; would interpret the contract - it's far from guaranteed that most reasonable people would interpret the correspondence as a mutual decision intended to transfer copyright. Secondly, a contract requires consideration - one cannot enter into a contract where one side gets unilateral benefit and the other side gets nothing whatsoever. Even if the language used would constitute terms specific enough for a contract, there is certainly no consideration involved - the collager is proposing that they get the copyright to the collective work, while the artist gets nothing. Because there is no consideration for the artist, it is not a valid contract. For these two reasons (especially the second one), the artist has a strong case that they have not entered into any other contract or contract amendment other than what they originally agreed to, which states that the artist owns the copyrights to both the original and collective works. The legal argument is that collager never proposed a valid new contract, because they used ambiguous language that did not result in mutual assent, and did not offer anything in return.
Yes A software license is just a contract and parties to a contract are free to agree whatever terms they wish under the doctrine of freedom to contract. Government can restrict what terms can be used in a contract either in general (e.g. for being against public policy) or specifically (e.g. by requiring wages be paid in money). None of the terms you mention fall foul of any restrictions I know of.
Ballot photos Anti-ballot-photo laws may not be constitutional. Two of them have been struck down for violating the 1st Amendment. Rideout v Gardner Case 1:14-cv-00489-PB Indiana Civil Liberties Union Foundation, Inc., d/b/a American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana v. Indiana Secretary of State, et al., Case 1:15-cv-1356-SEB-DML California's has been amended by the legislature to allow disclosure of a filled-in ballot as long as it isn't part of violating some other law (like vote buying). Open container laws Open-container laws have never been held to be unconstitutional. These are state laws, and states have broad freedom to legislate as long as they don't violate their constitution or elements of the Federal Constitution that have been incorporated by the 14th Amendment. My guess is that they would be upheld because they would pass rational basis review: they are rationally related to a legitimate government interest. Here is an example of an open-container law surviving a constitutional challenge. State are encouraged to pass open-container laws by 23 USC 154. If a state does not have an open container law, they receive less federal highway funding. This kind of condition was upheld by South Dakota v. Dole.
The user gains the use of the software, the EULA issuer gains the limitations on how the user of the freeware will use it, that for example, prevent the freeware user from exploiting the issuer's labor by reusing it for profit. Consideration doesn't have to be monetary. As a practical matter, sometimes the business model is to give the software away as a loss leader and to have the issuer make their money with training and consulting on how to use it. Also, even in the absence of consideration, a promise upon which the person benefiting from the promise reasonably relies is enforceable under the doctrine of promissory estoppel. Further, EULA stands for &quot;end user license agreement&quot; and there are many times that license agreements aren't full fledged contracts. They are merely limited grants of permission to use something, often not even amounting to a full fledged property right or contract right. For example, if I let my neighbor walk into my living room while we talk and have tea, the right of the neighbor to be in my living room is called a license, even though it is not a contract. A license can be embedded in a contract, but it doesn't have to be.
Among other things, GDPR regulates what you may do with the data within your systems. You can use it for the contracted purpose, or in accordance to law, or with informed and revokable consent, or for some other enumerated purposes. Even with consent, you have to take security measures to avoid the misuse of the data. Remember the software shrink-wrap licenses? &quot;By opening the package, you agree to the terms inside.&quot; GDPR makes the equivalent in the cloud world impossible. You have to document exactly what you do with the data, and for any use that is not necessary to perform the service the customer can opt out. In the scenario you describe, it is possible that you are not the data controller under GDPR but the data processor, and that you have a duty to keep the data from separate controllers apart. And delete any batch at the end of contract. If you want to do this professionally, you need to consult a lawyer for your specific plans.
It is unclear whether WINE is infringing copyright or if it can rely on a fair use defense. The CAFC held that: that the declaring code and the structure, sequence, and organization of the API packages are entitled to copyright protection In that light, if WINE had original content in the structure, sequence, and organization of its API, the CAFC would likely also find that it is entitled to copyright protection. However, because this issue is outside the scope of the CAFC's exclusive jurisdiction (this is a copyright issue, not a patent issue), the holdings are not binding in any other circuit. Each circuit is free to review anew the copyrightability of APIs when such a case comes up. My guess is that this is the reason the Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal on CAFC's Oracle v. Google opinion. To address your fair use question would be simply speculation, because fair use is always assessed case-by-case, and even in WINE's closest analogy (Oracle v. Google), the CAFC remanded the fair use question back to the trial court, and that question hasn't been decided yet: we remand for further consideration of Google’s fair use defense in light of this decision