Q: Can someone sign away rights in an agreement over the internet without actually "signing" something?
[This question is much broader than it seems, and it would take hours to respond to all of the various ins and outs of contract and copyright law. Each specific situation must be examined by an attorney because each case is fact-specific. However, a couple of general comments: In internet law, the Courts are currently wrestling with the issue of what constitutes a signature; In copyright law, some form of writing is required to convey rights. There is generally no specific requirement for what constitutes a "signature" to the agreement. There is case law that conveys rights when one party writes a letter to the other confirming the agreement. Courts have, in the past, interpreted certain failures to object to writings as being the same as an agreement (in other words, the second party knew from the writing what the first party expected the agreement to be, and it would be misleading for the second party not to have objected); The court will generally determine the issues of contracts and agreements on the basis of evidence of the intentions of the parties. The Court seeks to determine whether there was a "meeting of the minds" or whether there was conduct by one party which would be wrongfully misleading to the other party. If a party is wrongfully mislead and the second party is shown to have relied upon the misleading conduct to his/her/its detriment, the Court may impose a penalty in the form of enforcing the expected agreement; when contest rules are provided to the entrant, the entrant is assumed to be consenting to the contest rules when the entry is submitted. Especially where the contest literature states "by submitting your entry you agree to the contest rules."; There is still the issue of "unjust enrichment" in which the Court seeks to balance the equities between the parties, however, as you can imagine, it's a difficult uphill battle in which the contest company usually has the resources while the contest entrant does not].


Q2: We've (both Stu and I) have suggested that it's quite possible these contests and websites etc. have no actual ill intent. So my question for Stu is do you see these types of lopsided contracts more to simply protect the contests/sites/networks themselves from getting sued rather than from any consideration of taking/pursuing action against the other party?
[The contest rules are made to protect the contest company. Unfortunately, as you know, objectives seem to change when money is involved. You can't depend on the munificence of a corporate executive to compensate you by re-writing the contest rules after the money starts coming in. Just because you think you aren't being treated fairly doesn't mean you should expect the company to take money owed to its stockholders and give it to you instead, if the contest rules were clear].