Re: Liability on shareware

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#288

From: Michael Smith - Tera Tech
Date: Tue, 30 May 1995 00:00

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Ashley Niven (an228195@anon.penet.fi) wrote:
: I'm thinking of releasing one of my VB utilities as shareware. 
: Could somebody tell me what my liability would be if my 
: program, say, destroyed somebody's data (or worse burned 
: their computer to ashes). I've seen disclaimers like "...this 
: program comes 'as is'. Use at your own risk...". Is that enough 
: to protect myself from lawsuits? With these million dollar settlements 
: for burnt crotches one can never be too careful. Thanks 
: in advance for any responses.

To play it safe just copy one of these disclaimers into your program and
docs. It will protect you. You might also compare it to the one MicroSoft
uses - you can be sure that they got the language "right"  (getting it
right will not protect you fully). Although to be honest I have never
heard of any one suing a shareware author for liability - people only sue
big companies, because they can pay the "million dollar" settlements. It
does them no good to sue you, when you can only pay them a few thousands of
dollars max, which would all go to pay their lawyer's fee! 

 --
            Michael Smith, TeraTech Inc - Tools for Programmmers(tm)
   Basic, C++, ASM and Visual Basic/Win programming tools & consulting for PC
       ***>>> Call, write or Email for FREE catalog & demo disk <<<***
100 Park Ave Ste 360 Dept 500,Rockville MD 20852 USA Email:teratech@cpcug.org
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From: teratech@cpcug.digex.net (Michael Smith - Tera Tech)
Subject: Re: Liability on shareware
Date: 1995/05/30
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