Luminous Landscape Forum
Site & Board Matters => About This Site => Topic started by: PIsaacs on November 22, 2008, 06:45:49 pm
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Just curious. In the USA it's not legal to have a contest where you have to buy something to enter. So that's not true for Canada? And, it's still o.k. to have USA entrants even though it breaks USA law?
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Just curious. In the USA it's not legal to have a contest where you have to buy something to enter. So that's not true for Canada? And, it's still o.k. to have USA entrants even though it breaks USA law?
in the fine print:
And finally, to satisfy the law in some countries – no purchase is necessary. You will be entered into the competition by simply registering your name in our store. But, if you do this, while within the letter of the law you are of course defeating the purpose of the whole exercise. You must decide if that's really what you want to do.
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Perhaps you should surf back and read the whole page.
Dave Chew
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Perhaps you should surf back and read the whole page.
Dave Chew
Ooops! Sorry!
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But now after reading:
"And finally, to satisfy the law in some countries – no purchase is necessary. You will be entered into the competition by simply registering your name in our store. But, if you do this, while within the letter of the law you are of course defeating the purpose of the whole exercise. You must decide if that's really what you want to do."
I'm more than a little annoyed by this self-serving you must decide. It's either the law or not the law, rather than what we choose to do. I refuse to have a guilty conscience, ignoring the fact that I've bought quite a few of the LL videos in the past, and will enter anyway.
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If it is legal it is moral?
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If it is legal it is moral?
I'm not going to get into that can of worms. Obviously what is legal is not necessarily always moral. This is a law against coercion, though, to be honest, I'm not sure what the distinction is between a contest and a raffle.
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... It's either the law or not the law, rather than what we choose to do...
Well... the law is that you have to choose. And every time you have to choose something, your conscience is involved (hopefully).
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... This is a law against coercion, ...
Are you implying that the law applicable to sweepstakes is there to protect against coercion? Coercion defined as "persuading (an unwilling person) to do something by using force or threats"? If so, not sure what force or threats LL is using to persuade you to buy their products (other than high quality and interesting topics ). Unless, of course, you consider the appeal to your conscience to be a coercing threat.
The reality here is, as usual, much more prosaic. Laws applicable to sweepstakes are there to protect governments' exclusive privilege to run lotteries. Hence the no-purchase-necessary clause is there to distinguish a sweepstake from a lottery (i.e., ultimately to protect governments, not consumers).
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But now after reading:
"And finally, to satisfy the law in some countries – no purchase is necessary. You will be entered into the competition by simply registering your name in our store. But, if you do this, while within the letter of the law you are of course defeating the purpose of the whole exercise. You must decide if that's really what you want to do."
I'm more than a little annoyed by this self-serving you must decide. It's either the law or not the law, rather than what we choose to do. I refuse to have a guilty conscience, ignoring the fact that I've bought quite a few of the LL videos in the past, and will enter anyway.
This is really rather silly.
Michael is running what is in essence a small lottery. He's doing it partly for fun and partly to increase sales from this excellent site. The law insists that such lotteries must not make any purchase a prerequisite to entry, so he makes it perfectly clear that you can enter without buying anything.
But this isn't a public lottery: it's one that's made available to a small community (using the word in a pretty loose sense) of like-minded (usually) people. We come here to use the site because we like it and consider that Michael performs a service to us in general by making it available.
There's nothing "self-serving" about his last couple of sentences: he's just making his motivation crystal clear to anyone who hasn't already reached the obvious conclusion.
Of course you can choose to enter the competition without buying anything, just as you can use shareware without paying for it. As long as only a few stingy individuals act like that, no harm is done. But if the habit becomes widespread, we all lose. It's a modern version of the prisoner's dilemma.
If you act as you suggest you're going to, you'll have behaved dishonourably, albeit legally, and should feel thoroughly ashamed of yourself - particularly if you win.
Jeremy
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If you act as you suggest you're going to, you'll have behaved dishonourably, albeit legally, and should feel thoroughly ashamed of yourself - particularly if you win.
I disagree.
There is nothing dishonourable in my not making a new purchase from the LL store just because there is a lottery for all registered LL store customers.
There is no button to "register" for the lottery, but I'm in it anyway.
However, I do find your attitude morally suspect.
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Personally, I find it morally reprehensible to try and enter a contest on a technicality while violating the spirit of a giveaway that's designed to generate business for a site that could easily charge for access to all the content (for which I would gladly pay, but I don't want anyone to get any ideas!). If you try and put a price on the knowledge and entertainment gained from this site, I think most people would agree that buying a DVD or video tutorial for about 30 bucks is more than reasonable. But that's just me...
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I'm not going to get into that can of worms. Obviously what is legal is not necessarily always moral. This is a law against coercion, though, to be honest, I'm not sure what the distinction is between a contest and a raffle.
My understanding is that a raffle is basically a drawing where you do nothing after entering except hope your lot is drawn. A contest is, I think, contested by the entrants. I don't think this is really a contest.
But I could be wrong.
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Say goodnight Gracie.
Michael