Worth a thousand words: Terms & Conditions as pictures
Would you sign a contract consisting of a series of comic frames, rather than a few pages of carefully constructed conditions and clauses?
This is a question posed by a number of adventurous lawyers in Australia and South Africa. After all, if a picture is worth a thousand words, imagine what they could do for the Terms & Conditions in your iTunes account!
As reported by Radio National’s Law Report, two academics from the University of Western Australia are redefining what a legal contract looks like. Camilla Anderson, from the UWA Faculty of Law, and Adrian Keating (Engineering), have worked together to design a visual contract for non-disclosure of IP while working on a project.
According to Camilla, both the words and pictures make up the contract. By keeping the elements simple, it’s possible for the concept to be quickly understood by people not necessarily involved in engineering, or perhaps those who have trained in the profession overseas, but are no overly proficient in English.
This builds on the work being done by Robert de Rooy. A commercial Lawyer, de Rooy developed Comic Contracts for exactly these reasons, and has received extensive coverage for the efficiencies have been gained as a result of introducing the initiative to many low-paid workplaces in South Africa.
Eddie Mabo's original land claim
Looking back through Australian history, something similar has occurred before. Who can forget Eddie Mabo’s claim to his homeland that was endorsed by the High Court of Australia. It seems that we already have a legal system capable of dealing with images as a means of claim or contract, so the potential for visual explanation of complicated ideas and issues already has a precedent.