Bruce Bertram writes:
>
> In a non-violent way, the havoc wrecked by self-help in the software
> sense can have impact far greater than either the vendor or non-paying
> vendee deserves. Should a vendee be put out of business for failure to
> pay the software vendor? Or should records containing important
> information about third parties (vendee's clients/customers) be lost? Or
> should someone's kid be denied his/her video game. No to the first two.
> A definitie yes to the last. (Who says I have to be consistent?)
This impact can be limited by the vendee knowing the consequences in advance - he is only put out of business because he chose to enter into a bargain that later he wishes to disregard. As a vendee I have choices - one of which is not to deal with software vendors who use self-help or to deal with those vendors and pay my bills and then sue.
The real issue is whether I want to risk the harm of self help or pay more for software because of increased collection costs. I prefer the former. However, I would rather pay lower rent and allow landlords to use self help to evict; lower consumer interest rates and allow merchants some latitude in self-help repossessions, etc. However, strong arguments exist on the other side and certainly our society has moved strongly against self help in many areas and restricting self help would be consistent with that movement. As I mentioned before, this means that lawyers get richer - which is not all that disturbing since I teach at a tuition driven law school.
Don Berman --
+--------------------------------------------------------+
| Donald H. Berman | (617) 373-3346 |
| Richardson Professor of Law | FAX: (617) 373-8793 |
| Northeastern University | Internet: |
| School of Law | berman[_at_]ccs.neu.edu |
| 400 Huntington Ave. | |
| Boston, MA 02115 | |
+--------------------------------------------------------+
Received on Sat Apr 23 1994 - 14:42:32 GMT
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