A while back I read about Disney’s dismissal attempt against a court case concerning someone’s death due to an allergic reaction after they ate at a restaurant in a Disney theme park.

Their justification for this? The person bringing the case had previously signed up for Disney+ and, in doing so, had agreed to waive their right to sue Disney. (Yes, this is somehow often legally binding in the USA.)

Perhaps it would be good for large corporations to remember that they also benefit significantly from existing in a society that treats them fairly.

In any case, I present to you a new, potentially legally-inadvisable, licence for open source software.

MIT License with Disney Clause

Copyright (c) [Year] [Author Name]

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the “Software”), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED “AS IS”, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

As an express condition of using this Software, all directors, officers, and members of the board of The Walt Disney Company and its subsidiary or constituent companies shall surrender the entirety of their personal assets annually to a charitable organization designated by the author(s) of this Software. Failure to comply with this clause constitutes a violation of the license terms, rendering this license null and void for the aforementioned individuals and entities.

(It should be noted that, after significant public pressure, Disney did decide to backtrack on their attempt to have the case dismissed.)