That works for technical reasons but not legal reasons. You can't "virtually" agree to the terms&conditions and then delete your agree-ment along with the VM. (Unless the terms or the law let you do so. Sometimes they do.)
What are the terms of the Flash EULA that you might violate while spinning up a VM to read something? You're not planning to copy it, publish it, etc, and since you're destroying the VM later you don't care about stability/etc -- outside of the reading event, you are not doing any actions with the product.
I'm genuinely curious. I can understand an argument from principle like RMS might use, but I am unsure what the difference is between agreeing on a VM and agreeing not-on-a-VM.
I'm really trying to see an edge case where doing it on a VM that you destroy later is in any way worse (or even different) than doing it on a laptop that you buy, use, and then later incinerate.
My point applies in the same way to a laptop you buy, use, then incinerate. Even after you incinerate it, you are still bound by the terms you agreed to (to the debatable extent to which [1] is enforcable at all, anyway).
[1] The download page states "By clicking the "Download now" button, you acknowledge that you have read and agree to the Adobe Software Licensing Agreement.". That statement is hundreds of pixels away from the actual download button.
Now I'm curious what part of the T&C makes it problematic to use Flash on a VM. What exactly is it that you're afraid would persist beyond a VM deletion?
Heh, it might be forbidden to spin it up in cloud VMs, though local VMs are okay as long as you don't run nginx on your laptop? "3.2 Server Use. This agreement does not permit you to install or Use the Software on a computer file
server." "4.1 Adobe Runtime Restrictions. You will not Use any Adobe Runtime on any non-PC device or with any
embedded or device version of any operating system" ...
This provision is really broad: "9.5 Indemnity. You agree to hold Adobe and any applicable Certification Authority (except as expressly provided in its terms and conditions) harmless from any and all liabilities, losses, actions, damages, or claims (including all reasonable expenses, costs, and attorneys fees) arising out of or relating to any use of, or reliance on, by you or any third party that receives a document from you with a digital certificate,
any service of such authority ..."
If you are acting on behalf of a business, you might not want to authorize Adobe to occupy your business's time telling them your business secrets: "15. Compliance with Licenses.
If you are a business or organization, you agree that upon request from Adobe or Adobe’s authorized representative, you will, within thirty (30) days, fully document and certify that use of any and all Software at the time of the request is in conformity with your valid licenses from Adobe."
I'm not sure whether this persists: "4.5 No Modification or Reverse Engineering. You shall not modify, adapt, translate, or create derivative works based upon the Software. You shall not reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble, or otherwise attempt to discover the source code of the Software.", where "“Software” means (a) all of the contents of the files (delivered electronically or on physical media), or disk(s) or other media with which this agreement is provided". I'm not sure whether "Software" includes bit-for-bit identical copies of the software obtained by other means at other times (see http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23 ).
> It used to be that Flash's terms forbade you from ever working on a competing Flash implementation.
...how have I never heard of that? That seems like a really easy thing to get thrown out in court. Wikipedia gives me something that sounds more reasonable:
> The file format specification document is offered only to developers who agree to a license agreement that permits them to use the specifications only to develop programs that can export to the Flash file format. The license forbids the use of the specifications to create programs that can be used for playback of Flash files.
Which is not an issue of accepting the EULA and running Flash, but of getting specs for Flash and, well, developing a competing product. Asinine, but less insane. That's more in the realm of "IP law, and attitude towards IP, sucks" than "accepting Flash EULA is wrongbad".
The intent of 3.2 sounds like it's to prevent stuff like internal company file servers from keeping a copy of Flash around. I could see it being bent to make the VM spin-up illegal, but that's it.
I could see 4.1 being an issue, since it seems to be a deliberate way to keep Flash from being run on VMs, but I've run Flash on development VMs for the purposes of debugging embeds before and it never came up. My instinct, despite IANAL, is that I'm interpreting it wrong and it has nothing to do with VMs and so is inapplicable.
9.5 isn't relevant unless watching a Livestream over Flash on a VM causes you harm...
15 isn't relevant unless you're a "business or organization", and I strongly doubt that a court would allow that to extend to an individual proprietor of any kind.
4.5 would be a good reason not to do it if you had any intention of ever reverse-engineering Flash. I can see that persisting, but I also have my doubts as to whether that's sneak's reasoning.
So, in short... I am guessing that there's no established precedence to prevent you from accepting a EULA on a VM that disallows running said software on said VM. That would be a fun court case to watch. Thus, the main legal hurdle is the possibility of reverse-engineering Flash.
(And yeah, I'm too lazy to read the T&C myself. Sorry.)
