Shrinkwrap licence
Licence terms sealed inside a software box and deemed accepted the moment the plastic comes off.
The form grew up in the 1980s, when software was sold on floppies in shops and vendors wanted control to survive the sale. The legal problem is obvious: the buyer has paid before the terms are even readable. American courts were sceptical for years. Vault v. Quaid (1988) struck down a Louisiana statute meant to make such terms enforceable, and Step-Saver v. Wyse (1991) held that the note in the box was not part of the deal.
The turn came with ProCD v. Zeidenberg in 1996, where Judge Frank Easterbrook reasoned that a right to return the product was enough. Hill v. Gateway the following year stretched the same logic to terms shipped inside a PC carton. Once software moved to downloads, the construction migrated to a button and became clickwrap. The cellophane is gone; the idea that unwrapping means agreeing is not.