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Hack4Detroit's indemnification clause
41–48 of 48 posts
Re: Hack4Detroit's indemnification clause
#42Granted I've only participated in 3 hackathons but the times I went I just walked in and found a cool thing to work on. I didn't have to sign anything or pay a cent. Is this sort of legalese normal in the US for hackathons?
This sort of legalese and fear of any potential liability for anything is normal for everything in the US.
It's crazy.
Re: Hack4Detroit's indemnification clause
#43IANAL.. would this contract be enforceable? Because it seems the event org gets: $20, exclusive IP ownership, indemnification, etc and the participant gets: to do work (and one person gets $5k, and two people get gift cards) Where's the quid pro quo? Seems like there's no consideration for one side. Edit: the contract says that providing a place to work (which will be done at their direction, supervision, and for the…
The small size of the consideration is probably not a convincing argument in court. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peppercorn_%28legal%29 Fortunately there are other problems with this situation.
Re: Hack4Detroit's indemnification clause
#44IANAL.. would this contract be enforceable? Because it seems the event org gets: $20, exclusive IP ownership, indemnification, etc and the participant gets: to do work (and one person gets $5k, and two people get gift cards) Where's the quid pro quo? Seems like there's no consideration for one side. Edit: the contract says that providing a place to work (which will be done at their direction, supervision, and for the…
They're also likely to have to refund the entry fee if you refuse to sign the contract: even if they did mention having a secondary contract in the sales contract, they didn't make a good-faith effort to provide reasonable terms (for the reasons mentioned above about legality and compensation), so they failed to uphold any part of their end of the contract and should refund the money; if they didn't mention the second contract in the one you made to pay them, then they absolute owe you a refund for refusing to do the work they promised in exchange for your money unless you agree to a unilateral modification of the terms -- they're probably liable for the losses you incurred by assuming they'd follow their end of the agreement, since a unilateral insistence on changing the terms of the agreement once execution has begun is not an attempt to uphold your side of it; finally, in the case that they want to claim the sale was pending your agreement to those terms, their continuing to hold pending funds now that the sale fell through is simple theft.
No matter how the city of Detroit wants to spin their terms contract, they owe the people who decline to sign it a refund on their entry fee.
Re: Hack4Detroit's indemnification clause
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hackathons are not free to run at any significant scale. (especially when prizes are involved) Usually, the costs are covered by sponsors, and I can't find any indication that there were sponsors for this event. EDIT: Comment is incorrect; there were sponsors, see child comment.
The event was sponsored. Local folks and some national brands like Comcast and 5-hour energy. Winner gets a $5k prize. Here is the event detail. http://www.automationalley.com/Events/Calendar/Event-Detail....
And the organizers have deleted the event details here (10pm EST)
Re: Hack4Detroit's indemnification clause
#46The contract was bad. It was very bad that they never revealed it until you got there. It was really bad that a Party tried to persuade you into signing the document knowing you don't understand it (and they probably don't either). Under these circumstances, it would be appropriate to submit an invoice for a refund of the registration fee (which I assume was pre-paid), reimbursement for your travel costs, and time pa…
I don't think bickering over registration fee would be a reasonable thing to do. It just promotes the overall litigious atmosphere. The next thing we will see in such contracts is something like 'under no circumstances are participant's costs associated with event refundable, including but not limited to registration fees, travel costs, bla bla bla.' Or maybe it is already there. Much better make the whole thing publ…
I don't think you understand why this is unacceptable, as evidenced by what you propose "they" will "do next".
> The next thing we will see in such contracts is something like 'under no circumstances are participant's costs associated with event refundable, including but not limited to registration fees, travel costs, bla bla bla.'
This misses the point entirely.
Presenting a contract after the purchase is not acceptable, period. You do not have to agree to anything after the point of sale, and the vendor cannot make the use of your purchase conditional on any such agreement. If they expect any contract to be valid in court it must be presented before sale, full stop.
For more information please see First Sale Doctrine.
Re: Hack4Detroit's indemnification clause
#47Detroit CIO Beth Niblock has publicly acknowledged the issue with plans to do it differently in the future.
Re: Hack4Detroit's indemnification clause
#48I participated in Automation Alley's #HackDPL last year (which was free) and in the last hour of the event, they sent out an email saying all submissions required a copy of the app's source code. Our team submitted ours since I was the only member of my team opposed to it, but it was a scummy move. Since this hackathon had a cover charge, I decided not to go. This doesn't surprise me and I hope Automation Alley gets it together.