Dreaded Judges - How Digital Distribution Platforms Shape Their EULA To Combine The Powers of Police, Judge, Jury and Executioner

Abstract

This thesis is intended to be one of the first thorough analysis of the extent of how EULAs grant digital distribution platforms the freedom to govern the consumers of their products. The power and extent of the EULA in itself is a highly under-theorized subject. Therefore, the main purpose of this thesis is to provide an informed descriptive account of the main characteristics of the transformations within the traditional producer/consumer relationship through the analysis of three current EULAs used by digital distribution platforms and how they formulate these changes into a written agreement between service and consumer while exerting control over the consumer. In the first chapter, the regulatory nature of the EULA, its development into an active social program and its active digital enforcement within the legal structure of protecting intellectual property on digital distribution platforms will be introduced. The second chapter then further elaborates on the normative nature of the EULA and analyzes examples of how EULAs have already shown signs of reconfiguring the consumer, the product and even the platform itself. The following chapters three to five discuss how the EULA results in the reconfiguration of the three main actors in this study: the consumer, the product and the platform itself. The conclusion then offers a summary of the findings, discusses them and provides several recommendations for the further study of EULAs.