Is the contract restricted to the buyers, or to the "any 3rd party" of the GPL?

Posted Jan 9, 2026 12:27 UTC (Fri) by nivedita76 (subscriber, #121790)
In reply to: Is the contract restricted to the buyers, or to the "any 3rd party" of the GPL? by milesrout
Parent article: SFC v. VIZIO: who can enforce the GPL?

You shouldn’t need a direct purchase, otherwise how would manufacturer warranties work?

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Is the contract restricted to the buyers, or to the "any 3rd party" of the GPL?

Posted Jan 9, 2026 13:07 UTC (Fri) by farnz (subscriber, #17727) [Link]

Manufacturer warranties are not always enforceable, depending on jurisdiction. And when they are enforceable, they're not always contract terms.

In places where they're not enforceable, they are legally good-will gestures from the manufacturer to the consumer; the manufacturer chooses to do something because they believe that the cost of fixing faults is outweighed by the reputational benefit of having consumers believe that the manufacturer will fix any faults they find.

Is the contract restricted to the buyers, or to the "any 3rd party" of the GPL?

Posted Jan 9, 2026 16:06 UTC (Fri) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (3 responses)

Many warranties only apply to the original purchaser, and require proof-of-purchase.

Many warranties are also now worthless, as being a subset of consumer protection rights (other than consumer convenience of being to able to say "this is a warranty issue", as I've had cause to do occasionally).

Cheers,
Wol

Is the contract restricted to the buyers, or to the "any 3rd party" of the GPL?

Posted Jan 10, 2026 10:06 UTC (Sat) by nivedita76 (subscriber, #121790) [Link] (2 responses)

Well, yes, but as the “original purchaser” of, say, a Sony TV, your proof of purchase shows a payment to Best Buy or amazon or some other retailer, not Sony.

Is the contract restricted to the buyers, or to the "any 3rd party" of the GPL?

Posted Jan 10, 2026 12:56 UTC (Sat) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (1 responses)

Yes.

But the legal obligations placed on Best Buy or Amazon usually trump the self-imposed guarantee from Sony. I can get my TV fixed by either. Shops will normally (I have an instance where they didn't) replace a faulty new TV on the spot. I'll never buy that brand of TV again, because apparently it was their terms with the shop that made the shop refuse to just swap :-(

If the shop doesn't replace it on the spot (after a few months, that's unlikely) they can send it back to the manufacturer, or I can, and it's a toss-up whether I take it back to the shop or send it back to the manufacturer, but it's my choice. From my PoV, I'd usually prefer the shop to take the hassle.

And on the one occasion I did have real trouble, I simply said to the shop assistant (John Lewis, of all places !!!) "You're in effect charging me for a warranty repair - you need to go and speak to a manager!" (My phone had broken, and the only offer he would make was refund the sale price and expect me to buy a new one full price. The law says repair/refund/replace whatever is acceptable to ME. And having to pay for a replacement was NOT acceptable. :-)

And if I give the TV as a present the manufacturer guarantee is worthless to the recipient. The shop guarantee MAY transfer to the giftee.

Cheers,
Wol

Is the contract restricted to the buyers, or to the "any 3rd party" of the GPL?

Posted Jan 11, 2026 2:04 UTC (Sun) by milesrout (subscriber, #126894) [Link]

This is a separate issue. The reason we have consumer law is that the common law didn't cover these scenarios. So if you bought something from a retailer, you only had rights in contract with the retailer, and generally most of the rights you might expect to have could be contracted out of. If you wanted to make a claim against the manufacturer it would need to be something like a claim in negligence, which was much harder to establish.

In New Zealand, consumer warranties can always be pursued against both retailer and manufacturer, except for a few specific warranties which are only available against the retailer. And it covers gifts as well. They're not contractual rights but statutory rights and it's covered specifically in the Act. But this is just a matter of statute - it has really nothing to do with contract law.