Again, a "license" is merely a grant of permission to you. The EULA is the agreement that governs that grant of permission, and specifies the terms and conditions under which the license is given to you.
The point is that you refuse to accept standard definitions of contract and license.
I think not. The point is apparently morphing into your refusal to consider the EULA a binding contract. Good luck with that in court.
Offer, consideration, acceptance, promise to perform, valuable consideration (payment), fulfillment requirements, and terms and conditions for performance.
I'm sorry, but the three elements I listed are the standard parts of a valid contract - everything else you've got is already subsumed under one or all of those three elements. And a grant of a license is itself a "business relationship" - you are entering into a business relationshop with a software company when you agree to accept the license in exchange for the license fee. It is not granted to you unconditionally and in perpetuity, and it is not sold to you to do with as you see fit - it is granted per the terms of the agreement that governs the grant, the contract commonly known as the end user license agreement.
You will notice that after your implied contract with Best Buy for the purchase, none of these conditions are met by the Microsoft license itself, as you have no contract, express or implied, with Microsoft itself.
You most certainly do, the terms of which are spelled out in your EULA. You agree to pay the license fee and not redistribute the software, et cetera et cetera, and in exchange you are granted a use license for their software. You do not "own" the software, you are granted a license, and bound by contract for that license to be valid.
If the license were a contract, it is extremely one-sided -- all in favor of Microsoft.
You are free to reject it at any time - I don't recall the folks at Best Buy putting a gun to anyone's head and forcing them to part with license fees. I very much doubt that you can find even one single case where a license agreement was tossed out because of its one-sidedness - the best you'll find is that agreements have been voided because they're unclear.
Under the terms of the license. Look at the GPL -- it doesn't even say it's an agreement, it's a license with terms. The BSD license doesn't even contain the word "agreement." The fact that Microsoft stuck the word "agreement" in theirs means nothing.
The point is apparently morphing into your refusal to consider the EULA a binding contract.
Of course I refuse, because it isn't a contract. That doesn't make violating it any less punishable though.
You agree to pay the license fee and not redistribute the software, et cetera et cetera, and in exchange you are granted a use license for their software. You do not "own" the software, you are granted a license, and bound by contract for that license to be valid.
Actually, I paid the license fee before I even saw the EULA, before I opened the box and installed the software. My implied contract with Best Buy was where the money changed hands. After that, you were doing well until you said "bound by contract." You are not, you are simply in violation of copyright law if you do something not allowed in the license.
That's bad enough, given that statutory damages are now up to $150,000 per willful infringement (you read the EULA and disregarded, or did something obviously infringing like copying) and $30,000 per negligent infringement (you didn't know reverse-engineering was prohibited in the EULA because you didn't read it). And unlike a contract case, it would be very easy for Microsoft to win because the law is stacked in favor of the copyright holder.
I very much doubt that you can find even one single case where a license agreement was tossed out because of its one-sidedness - the best you'll find is that agreements have been voided because they're unclear.
Of course not. A license can be as one-sided as the author wishes. You have no right to use the copyrighted work, and acceptance of the license under any conditions is the only thing allowing you to use it. It is only contracts that cannot be one-sided.
Let's say I'm a very poor guy who goes to the library and looks up some books in the catalog, running Windows -- Windows is my only choice, that library is my only source of books. I play with the system and violate the EULA ("End User License Agreement", and I'm an end-user). Microsoft decides to sue under breach of contract instead of copyright violation. I can show the judge how tiny little me is being sued by gigantic corporation, and that the EULA consists almost entirely of clauses limiting my rights and waiving any liability for Microsoft. Any judge would see that as an adhesion contract and break it. The resulting precedent would be devastating for Microsoft, and indeed any software license/contract.
The same thing can be done with poor little me wanting certain government documents only available in PDF, and violating a PDF reader license. I didn't realistically have the option of avoiding a license.
You seem to be stuck back in the 60s when pretty much all licenses were done under contract. The contracts have gone away in the mass software market because the companies can't afford to make a contract with each of the millions of users, and most users aren't ready to hire lawyers to negotiate that contract. Yes, negotiation, part of an enforceable express contract and something plainly missing from EULAs.