[sdiy] legalities?

[Richard Wentk]

At 05:37 27/01/2005, Batz Goodfortune wrote:
>Y-ellow Fellow Mutants.
>         Here's a question for those who are publishing and/or fabricating.
>
>I'm recently concerned about a legal issue with regards to publishing my 
>switch-mode quasi-project. I had read recently that just because you place 
>a disclaimer on something, doesn't mean you can't be held liable. From 
>what I can gather, it works like this.
>
>Unless the disclaimer is written in law, it's not actually legally binding.

What do you mean 'written in law'? Every disclaimer I've seen looks like 
99% legal boilerplate, so there's nothing to stop you doing a bit of cut 'n 
paste.

>Therefore if someone killed their gold fish with one of your projects and 
>they just happened to be sufficiently angry about it, they COULD cause you 
>grief. The challenge would probably not go the distance but it would still 
>cost you money to defend. You'd have to contend that...

I'm sorry to say the only way you'll get a definitive answer to this is by 
hiring a lawyer. The whole things looks more like a US issue ('Why didn't 
you tell me that sticking my finger into the mains was a bad thing, you 
evil man'?) and less of a problem elsewhere. Australia looks from here like 
too much of a common sense country to go in for too much of this kind of 
thing.

Bottom line would suggest that if you put in the usual boilerplate in big 
letters there's little anyone can do. If someone *wants* to make life 
difficult they'll find ways to do it. But there are plenty of DIY sites of 
all sorts online, and very few cases that I know of where they've had legal 
hassles because of idiots.

There's always a first time, but unless you're exceptionally unlucky it's 
unlikely that first time will be you.

>"The guy is an idiot for trying to use his gold fish as a load resistor in 
>the first place."

Yowza! Performance art! :)

Richard