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Yahoo/Geocities IP Trouble
Doug Muth writes "There's an
article in Wired about Yahoo taking over Geocities and how they now claim to
own the intellectual rights to all webpages that users have on there.
That's scary, since under this contract, anyone who has a page on Geocities no longer has the rights to what they have created. "
We'd be much better off if we banned lawyers from using computers.
I do not dispute that the new agreement is unacceptable and odious, but I don't think it is motiviated by malice. It may well be underlayed with laziness though.
Their lawyers's aren't stupid and they almost certainly saying a lot of what they should have said in order to come up with an enforcable agreement. The more clauses they insterted the greater their vulnerability in the courts.
Unfortunately, their management should have realized that such a conservative approach wouldn't cut it. They have risked alienating their contributors instead of taking a risk in a lawsuit. Their business would probably be better off if they tried the latter. This frontier of copyright law needs homesteaders!
...and therefore Geocities. Since Yahoo was developed by two students while at Stanford.
I mean, let's be fair.
Been there, done that. All my stuff is gone, and nothing remains but a greyout page (available from the Boycott Yahoo Home Page).
4 092/
http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Station/
I can't believe the nerve of those jerks. I used to have a great deal of respect for them, but that sure has ended abruptly!
I also emailed Yahoo with my complaint.
If it sounds too good to be true... Free... We're here for you... Go ahead and create and post without those annoying monthly bills. We get what we pay for and we pay for what we get. Thank you for listening to my diatribe.
Cheers,
I've written some articles / FAQs that I have published on my Geocities website, each with a Copyright (year) by (me) note. Apart from this, only GPL'd code, my HTML code and a few images without copyright infringements are there, nothing to worry about.
My questions:
1) What can they do with my writings, can they sell them?
2) Where can I get a free account with about 2 megs of space that does not have any restrictions?
NOT doubtful, totally true. You can't give anyone unlimited sublicensible rights to GPL'd software, unless you hold the copyright on 100 percent of its code. So, agreeing to the Yahoo agreement and posting GPL'd code on their servers would violate the GPL in most cases. The exception would be if you had written all of the code, in which case it would be legal, but Yahoo could also sell your work as proprietary while you were distributing it as GPL.
It is also true that you wouldn't be able to post another person's copyrighted material on their servers unless you had the same perpetual sublicensable modification and distribution rights as Yahoo is asking for (same issue, really.. because GPL only allows sublicensing under the terms of the GPL, which are more restrictive than Yahoo's agreement)
Let's be practical about the terms in that disclaimer. "Prior notice" usually means a letter to a registered mailing address, possibly a certified letter if the sender needs proof that the letter was actually delivered. You might be able to contractually specify that "notice" can be sent via e-mail, but what do you do with bounced messages?
"Prior consent" is even worse - it means, at the least, that the person sends back a postcard indicating aggrement. Even if nobody gave you a false address, what do you do with people who don't respond? Or who disagree, since this isn't a situation where a quorum decides the issue for everyone?
The only practical solution is to use this clause and honor a extra-legal period where customers can yank their pages if the new terms aren't acceptable. If you don't like the terms, yank your pages *today*. If your pages are still up in two weeks, they can reasonably assume that you do agree to the new terms.
It's not perfect, but it seems better than the alternatives.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
XOOM sucks. they autodelete your site if you dont login for 60 days or something/
What you put on the web is a picture of your brain. Do you really want that picture to be a pretty dog?
First of all, who says that the web has to be a picture of anybodies brain? It can be more than that. It can be pretty dogs as well. I mean -- why not?!!
Let's all stand up for pretty dogs!
If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go register prettydog.com now. Bye.
>Ya know, in someone else's perception you are an 'average schmoe', too...
I'm a fscking genius in my own mind and I don't really give a crap about your opinions of me. Or your opinions of my operational reality.
>does not give you the right to piss on those souls who aren't as well-connected
Since when did bandwidth and disk space become a right? I'll give you a hint: They're not. And, actually, my lawyers tell me that the law (an the money I have at my disposal to USE the law) gives me quite a bit of latitude to piss on quite a few people. You seem to ignorant, not only of reality, but some of it's major sub-plots.
> internet is STILL AN INFANT
Actually, the Internet is probably middle age, and in the next 7+ years will be phased out for something better. But, hey go ahead and keep thinking linerally...
>...you think everyone was born...
You seem to think you know an awful lot about what I think. You're wrong.
HTML? Peice of cake.
Good HTML? Easy, if you work at it.
"Design"-ing a website. Gotta work a little at it. Anyone can write HTML, but.. can you make it LOOK good.
Content? Hard.
Dynamic Content? Even harder.
After you learn HTML, learn something like ASP or Cold Fusion or PERL-CGI and give your brain a whirl at dynamic stuff. That's a challenge. I find myself after four months of doing dynamic stuff having a hard time coming up with a static webpage. Once you get into a dynamic mode, your brain seems to be like.. oh, wouldn't it be cool if, etc. Static pages just seem boring after having your eyes opened.
Nuff said,
~Sandman
IDT tried to do this when it took over GEnie: that is, assert copyright ownership. It had been clear for a long time that GEnie owned compilation copyright of the text of message boards. However, IDT tried to own the works' copyrights themselves, they were taken to court (I believe), and it became clear that the original agreement between GEnie and users - maintaining individuals' copyright over individuals' posts, but allowing compilation copyright to reside with GEnie - would govern disposition of the GEnie round tables' text.
That said, I perceive both IDT's and Yahoo's actions to be swinish. Each is a cheap and crude attempt to screw people out of IP.
I believe no such agreement, imposed on you without giving you a chance to say "no" and remove your copyrighted works, will stand up for a minute. (IANAL, but this is the second time around for me in such a situation.)
When you have enough clowns, you have a circus.
XOOM sucks. they autodelete your site if you dont login for 60 days or something/
Not true. I deleted my site and asked xoom to delete my account over 3 months ago, but it's still there (just checked).
I rooted thru the paragraph in question, and far as I can decipher the legalse, what it boils down to is this: Yahoo owns the content usage FOR THE PURPOSE OF USING IT TO PROMOTE anything they choose to advertise. Not the actual content, but the USE of the content.
BTW if you use ICQ, be aware they have the right to parse thru your messages and sell your identity to selected advertisers based on your message content.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
This only applies if you use the company's resources in the development of your invention. If you work at a computer firm, and your invention is a new method of brewing beer at home, it's unlikely the company has any claim, unless you used the company's CAD system or something.
So in this case Geocities resources were used and the intellectual property belongs to Yahoo.
Yahoo now owns 17.9 gigabytes of crappy, angst-filled teenage poetry.
"Oh, how dark my life is.
Let's all embrace the Night.
I wish I were a vampire."
Lucky bastards.
Turn off Javascript, and the popup windows will cease to annoy you. I haven't seen one in months. :)
Tripod used to have one that wouldn't close until you used one of the links in it to go to their main page. Until I discovered the "no js, no popup" trick, I didn't go to Tripod sites at all.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
--
"I find it ironic that people screaming about their IP rights when their sites are chock full of copyrighted images they scanned in, audio files they recorded off of videos and TV, and often buttons and other images they ripped off of other sites"
I find it insulting that you assume the people screaming about IP rights have been stealing IP themselves. I had a web page on geocities (for over 2 years) with nearly ten meg of drawings, paintings, comics, articles and tutorials, all of which I created myself. (Note I say "had" - I might decide to go back to geocities if they fix up their TOS.)
The following is in the "subscription agreement" for my really fast Mediaone cable modem service.
14.2. You hereby grant MediaOne and ServiceCo. and hereby represent and warrant that You have all necessary rights to so grant, the
worldwide, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive right and license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate,
distribute, perform and display all material posted on the public areas of the Road Runner Service via Your account and/or to incorporate
the same in other works in any form, media or technology whether now known or hereafter developed.
If I'm reading this straight it means that anything I post to Mediaone's usenet server becomes their property. I'd think this applies to the web space they offer me too. Can anyone comment?
Maybe not for IP - I don't know. Real estate, for instance, _is_ a package of rights - that is the definition of ownership. But, the point is moot. If you accept Yahoo's agreement you make a contract and you give them those rights (something of value) in exchange for a web presence (something of value). It's a lousy deal if you value your creations, but certainly not a violation of public policy.
No sig
Ripping stuff off for use on your own personal website is a far cry different from a company usurping control over their user's content and republishing it for a profit beyond the agreement initially formed.
:-) kind of a strange one though :-)
When someone gets a geocities account, they know that geocities/yahoo will advertise on their site... that's the obvious deal.. they do not know, that yahoo is going to take their content, and resell it independantly.
I think yahoo selling a collection of geocities stuff would merit a class action suit..
Yahoo owns all rights to use it anyway they feel like and to resell it but YOU are responsible for any slanderous material and the consequences... When did Yahoo stop being a cool Internet start-up company and start being Microsoft?
There are a number of sites, or at least there WERE a number of hosted pages for GPL'ed projects on Geocities in the past. I'd advise anyone with a project in such a situation to move to another provider.
Keeping your open-source/GPL stuff hosted on Geocities could very well violate the GPL.
By posting on a now Yahoo web page you now:
"By submitting Content to any Yahoo property, you automatically grant, or warrant that the owner of such Content has expressly granted, Yahoo the royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive and fully sublicensable right and license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform and display such Content (in whole or part) worldwide and/or to incorporate it in other works in any form, media, or technology now known or later developed."
Translation: If it is something you came up with: ie. a new song, and idea for a product, some type of code. Yahoo can do whatever it feels like with it, even if that means loss of income or potential income for you.
It does not mean that Yahoo is taking responceability for what you do, but it is a clause so that they can pirate anything you put on your web page.
NOTE: The Most Fundamental Particles in This Product Are Held Together by a "Gluing" Force About Which Little is Curr
I'm outraged by it, and have removed all my stuff from geocities/yahoo. But on your link, you recommend Tripod, which has the same *terms of service* than Yahoo... It's about time we start reading those boring lawyers' mumbo-jumbo..
And I'm wondering what happens to guys who save their Open Source, Free Software and stuff there...
My 0.02
-- It's always darker before it goes pitch black.
This is not accurate at all. I went to Geocities to remove my site, and I cannot even access it unless I agree to their new usage terms. Do Not Accept these terms. You will no longer have a legal foot to stand on.
I have material on Geocities that has been Copyrighted (got my Library of Congress forms and everything). I am in the process of contacting a lawyer. I will keep the community updated.
Yahoo can do what they want with their site...just not with my work.
Yahoo defends the terms in the contract, saying it's trying to prevent itself from being sued over copyright infringements and wants the ability to promote its service.
Hrmmmm.....
Really, what ever happened to saying "We host your content, we make money off of the ads." Claiming the content is theirs to do with as they please is wrong. Their agreement is more likely to CREATE trouble for yahoo, because with a little bit of wordplay you could say Yahoo owns the content to kiddie-porn on such site and warez on another....
More than anything, I believe what we all should learn from this is that 99% of the lawyers out there are clueless, stupid, selfish people who have no disregard for anyone outside of their client.... Until their client learns that they are screwing over the people that they service.
Yep. I don't believe it's possible to state you own all rights, but have no responsibility, to the content of electronic/printed media. Sounds to me like they just opened up their deep pockets to an attack.
Although I recently purchased a domain name from NSI in my view there is not much that is better on the web than Geocities, Fortunecity and other web hosting outfits that give you free pages and without popup adds (boo, Tripod).
As far as Geocities getting the right to sell the content of my pages, good luck to them if they can sell my jottings. I am reminded of the Shakespeare quote, "He who steals my purse, steals trash."
Marjo Wycam, Master of the Programming Arts
Thank you! It rather bothered me to read the 'pretty dog' post. I don't have one at the moment, but I have--in the past--had sites could be considered 'pretty dog' sites. I like them, and I like those of others.
People have pictures of their family on their desks at work. I would consider putting a picture of my dog here. A web site pursuing that same end is, IMO, nearly the same thing.
Maybe I will throw together a page for my dog when I get home.
-awc
Posted by FascDot Killed My Previous Use:
/. about NCs and storing your data/programs at the ISP. I object to that concept and this story is an excellent example of why.
A couple weeks ago there was a discussion on
---
Put Hemos through English 101!
That's kinda like saying Sharpie has the rights to my artwork, though.
--
First. I'm not an anonymous coward. I tried to create an account but got a wretched "URL requested couldn't be retrieved" message. I am happy to say who I am.
Second. I was a Geocities web site owner - until they merged with Yahoo! and demanded rights to MY intellectual property. I've already had one run in with someone who stole a page from my site and stuck it on theirs without so much as a "by your leave". Yesterday I moved my web site from Y!G to Demon (who give me more space anyway). I wasn't dumb to sign up with Geocities. When I first came online 18 months ago, I only had Net access from my workplace and I did not know I would be building a site like the one I now have. After I left my job, I signed up with Demon but decided to leave the site where it was because I could see no reason to move it. I didn't expect Y!G to give me a reason.
Michele Fry (michele@sassoonery.demon.co.uk)
We assume ownership of and all rights to material which is linked to from our search engine or database.
Also, a question: Do libraries assume copyright ownership and all intellectual rights to the contents of the books on their shelves? Of course not. There is no reasonable excuse for the need for these insulting clauses popping-up everywhere other than sheer greed and the hope to exploit the material, thoughts, and work of other people without compensation.
Of course, Geocities is, I believe, owned by Microsoft. I'm sure once they were acquired, they quickly learned this lesson of 'take what isn't yours and profit from it'.
I wonder what would happen if you host your site at Yahoo, Geocities, and Tripod? They all assume full ownership of your material. I'd like to see all three fight each other for the right to your content.
---
seumas.com
I was particularly amused by the fact the contract makes it so Yahoo isn't responsible for the content of the page...
...but they still have the rights to the content.
So somewhere somebody makes a contract that says: "We get everything, and you get five MB of free web space." Fantastic.
How many other people can't wait for the day when everyone with Linux can host their own fully-capable web site right from their desktop?
You can have all the cgi programs you want, all the mailboxes, all the space, all the bandwidth, etc. That will be really cool.
Just a thought.
Seeing this disturbing news, I think everyone who is worried about this should go check out the Boycott Yahoo Home Page and see what we can do about it.
http://www.sitepowerup.com/toofar.htm
If they claim all the rights, then I guess they're claiming to have all the responsibility for anything posted there, too, eh? Somehow I doubt it.
"By submitting Content to any Yahoo property, you automatically grant, or warrant that the owner of such Content has expressly granted, Yahoo the royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive and fully sublicensable right and license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform and display such Content (in whole or part) yadda yadda yadda"
Of course, I'm as shocked as you are that this site got it right, given their track record. Seriously. I'm not even trolling here.
Posted by self assembled structure:
if you read the terms and the article in wired real carefully you'll notice that anyhting currently on there does not fall under these guidelines, you just can't modify any of the information on your site. this is still pretty dumb, but at least they're not claiming ownership over things that already exist.
like those aol guys did. if they make money off of your site, you should demand payment. without the members there would be no draw. more popular sites should get payment too.
"The lie, Mr. Mulder, is most convincingly hidden between two truths."
--
And Justice for None
I've already nuked my site and put up a protest one in its place:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/8984
So much for free space (now at the low, low cost of ownership of your work).
"We're sorry, but the website you're trying to reach has been disconnected."
"GeoCities is now part of the Yahoo! family. Before you can use all of Yahoo!'s services you'll
need to go through our re-registration process."
I do not have the option of not using Yahoo's services and just staying with Geocities. I must now join Yahoo in order to edit or, in my case, remove my Geocities page.
If anybody finds a way around this, could they email me here?
On a side note, when the internet originally came out, it strongly resembled the laissez-faire model of economics. Now it's starting to resemble a mixed market economy too much - the governemnt supports the big businesses who pay for election funds. Maybe socialism is next with the government regulating everything.. But, on the other hand, I haven't been to Australia lately..
Feel the fear and do it anyway.
Read the fine print on the GeoCities contract (if there is one) if they owned it before, then they own it now, but they can't just change it on people in midstream.
What if you put an bootleg copy of somebodys song in mp3 on your site, do they own it?? NO WAY!
What if you are talking about a Ford automobile? Do they own the Ford name?
As a contract, you agree to let them put adds on your site, they agree to povide space for a site as long as their adds are allowed to display. Okay, where is the compensation for the content you put up?
Photo magazines have been running contests for years that say all entrys become property of the sponser, but you agree to that in hopes of getting the prize.
GeoCities may be able to repost or redisplay your content, but for them to make a profit on it, mmmm, sounds like it could be LawyerCities to me.
E-mail everyone you know about this problem, citing yahoo's TOS and urging them to withdraw their page and pass the message on. I know I already have...
Wow...chain mail with a purpose, who woulda thunk it?
natedawg to the rescue of all scum-sucking bottom-dwellers...
A scant few of us (lawyer types) actually can use unix/bsd/linux.
I do not agree with the current state of affairs in the on-line world. The problem is not lawyer domination; rather, it is corporate-lawyer domination.
The internet is evolving into a haven for big-biz,and the little-folks are being converted into commodities.
Lawyers are not evil en toto. We all are happy for our lawyers that do a good job to protect our interests.
In the Geocities cases, there is Geocities represented by Yahoo's lawyers, and the other side (the homesteaders) do not have representation (yet). This presents a power imbalance.
Perhaps a new kind of governmental model may help home users to close the power gap.
Never before have so many average people come into direct or indirect contact with lawyers, contracts, and licenses. There must be a way for these people to learn about and receive advice as to courses of action.
Enter the ICP owned by [a] lawyer/s. (Don't get all pissed off yet...) I know that for most people contact with lawyers is anethema. What if the you had a contract with a lawyer for representation in internet related issues; your website and all it's content was housed on the lawyer's servers; and your email etc was also housed there.
By doing this, you can keep or release as much control over your content as you like. You will be covered by the attorney/client privilege and you can waive that privilege to the extent you like. Even the NSA's own tactics will work for you!
This sounds a little far fetched because lawyers are clueless for the most part about computers. But this model will protect content. Hypothetically the lawyer/ICP could charge minimally for the cost because a large volume of people could be serviced. So exorbitant lawyer fees could be a thing of the past.
Well, it is just a dream. And I AM just a law student... But, I'm thoroughly convinced that if the average user doesn't receive legal representation in their everday meanderings on the net, we will all be owned by corporations and corporate lawyers.
Until then... encrypted everything. Set up VPNs. Think security and ownership in everything you do on the internet.
The day may come when your driver's licence number is the property of X.com...
So, they expect people to just 'start donating' their IP, with the hope that Yahoo will agree with it, and not modify it to suite their needs? They honestly think that they can get away with this, with so many of the free web space providers out there without this stipulation?
;-P
I say we all start setting up porn and Warez sites now, thousands at a time.. Let's see how fast they change their minds about owning rights to it all..
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
The point was they weren't offering it for free. You joined up with them for the price of them using your site to advertise (in an annoying way).
First: This does not mean that "... anyone who has a page on Geocities no longer
has the rights to what they have created. "
It grants yahoo a perpetual, transferable & non-exclusive, sublicensable right to the content. This does not mean that the original author is not free to use or sell their content, though it means that in theory, yahoo, or one of their partners could sell the content themselves.
Second: Yahoo maintains that their intent is not to deprive authors of their rights, but rather to avoid lawsuits in the future. I am inclined to believe them and I think others should take them at their word as well.
This is not to say that people shouldn't complain vociferously to Yahoo about this new policy. It is sufficiently broad that it leaves the door open to future abuse and it needs amendmant.
Unfortunatly, even if they want to do the right thing, there is a long road ahead. This verbiage exists because current copyright conventions are not a good fit for the modern age.
The latest revision of the copyright conventions was supposed to take into account the realities of this modern age, but it is clearly a failure. It may or may not represent the interests of large copyright holders. It clearly fails to represent the interests of small copyright holders and the publising industry that has sprung up around them.
So, instead of antagonizing Yahoo, and their ilk, treat them as allies. They have the resources & economic interest to make a positive change.
Now that's scary.
- A.P.
--
"One World, One Web, One Program" - Microsoft Promotional Ad
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
-alan
The hour of noon has passed. Let us go and get some Kentucky Fried Chicken.
> By submitting Content to any Yahoo property, you automatically grant, or warrant that the owner of such Content has expressly granted, Yahoo the royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive and fully sublicensable right and license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform and display such Content (in whole or part) worldwide and/or to incorporate it in other works in any form, media, or technology now known or later developed.
This I suspect is a little too broad for what Yahoo is at the moment (a catalog service). I would argue on an individual level that Yahoo is a publishing house and therefore the only rights that it should receive are a right to reproduce (cache) and republsh (serve web pages to the public). If it is a multimedia studio, then it should at least have the professional courtesy to define the services it is providing to the customers (someone else can argue about the legitimacy of those services).
The scary part is the "technology now known or later developed". This effectively extinguishes all future rights to derivative products. Hypothetically if someone is the next da Vinci who started say a new trendy artform, then Yahoo can put a claim to that. I wonder what law courts would say about implicit contracts imposed by a knowledgeble party to create a lien on future income. Capitalism is one thing but selling out your future life-earnings for a pittance is another!
LL
I think its time to make a new internet, one where crap like this doesn't happen. By keeping things seperate (eg: one nation wide network for video+voice, one for commerce, one for industry communications, one for research, and one for the individuals) everyone could end up happy.
:)
One for commerce? Almost begs the question "What if we threw a party and nobody came?".... I personally would never want anything to do with junkmailnet
There is even a quote in the wired story saying that this will probably change when user protests reach hurricane level. Expect that to happen within a few days.
Yahoo suits have to react in the next day or two. If not, users of geocities who post material that is truly dear to them will start yanking their sites as fast as they can. What will remain will be a bunch of useless wannabe pages, and various picts of grandchildren and dogs.
They shot themselves in the head with this one, lets sit back and watch the power of online communities smack them back into a proper line of thinking. Is anyone else getting a little tired of watching these reactions to bone-headed moves, since we know the outcome will always be to the advantage of the mass of offended people.
the AC
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
Just in case someone moderated it....
Disturbing
by sophisto (slutty_pants@yourmomshouse.og) on Tuesday June 29, @01:23PM EDT (#)
(User Info) http://www.ungabunga.com
If yahoo get away with stealing users IP, they are in essence stealing the users ID.
I hope that other ISP's don't follow this & create a terrifying trend.
IP in this instance means INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY . Why don't you try reading a little bit more than the title of the article BEFORE POSTING. People like you are the reason I look both ways before crossing a greened intersection.
Catch a ride on the clue train, man. Please don't do this again.
-rah
Your analogy is a bit off. The difference here is that with a company they are paying you for your work. Geocities is not paying you. They are already using your IP as a conduit for ad money (that is how they can give "free" web space) but now they want to own your IP too. (or sublicense whatever, IANAL)
TC
The Wired article on the Yahoo/Geocities merger (there's a link to it in this Slashdot story) quoted a professor of intellectual property law, who theorizes that Yahoo is probably most interested in covering their own asses, and that it isn't their intent to hijack large amounts of intellectual property.
Still, reading those new terms of service made me nervous enough that I didn't want to take any chances of losing rights to intellectual property that I've worked hard on. I immediately tried to sign onto ftp.geocities.com to clean out my site, only to find that I was locked out of my ftp account, with a notice to visit the yahoo.geocities.com help page for all the latest info.
I arrive there to find that in order to access my geocities page, I was now required to create a Yahoo account for myself in addition to my existing Geocities account. In order to create a Yahoo account, I first had to agree to the terms of service that I found objectionable to begin with. No thank you!
After several minutes of further searching for a contact email address, I found one (support@geocities.com), and emailed them with a polite request to axe my account, explaining what I found objectionable.
Remember when the Internet used to not suck?
They have a purpose too sometimes. My site could be called that, but I would make a real one, it's just I dont' know what to make it on. So, I just make a "this is my web page, look" site, and hopefully use the skills I've learned when it really counts. I'm fixing to get hired to make a web site for one of my dad's organizations, and thanks to my "pretty dog" site, I can do it since I know how to code HTML.
First: I think you people need to read the yahoo policy before you go off. Yahoo is not claiming ownership. They are claiming broad rights to use works posted to their site (too broad, I would argue, but not motivated by malice)
Second: When did Slashdotters become so proprietary about IP?
Stanford is very clear about how new ventures are treated. They would make no such claim to ownership, otherwise they would have already owned Sun and SGI, and a few others.
OK - so I don't like what they did. It makes me VERY angry - but I've flamed them and now I feel MUCH better.
So, as I understand it, the files I have on there right now still belong entirely to me so long as I don't modify them.
OK - so I want to remove them. I sign in with my old userid and it says Do you agree to these conditions? Hell No! Then it says Are you sure you don't agree with them? You got it buster! So it says' OK, so we locked you out of your account!!
So how the heck do I remove them?
I sent a letter to their email saying "please remove all my stuff"....within 14 days or else.
Betcha it's still there in two weeks time!
Many of the files there are GPL'ed - it would be totally unacceptable for YAHOO to have any rights to them whatsoever.
BTW: Someone said something like: Who Cares? Most of the sites on GeoCities are of the Cute Doggie pictures variety.
But THAT'S OK! I don't happen to find them useful, interesting or worthwhile - but then owners of cute doggies probably don't find portable matrix math libraries too useful interesting or worthwhile either. We should be fighting for their rights too - they are the SAME rights.
Wrong. The consideration for my "gratis server space" is the presence of the popup ads and watermarks which Geocities requires.
c) By submitting a Member Web Page to Tripod, you grant Tripod and its affiliates a royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, nonexclusive, worldwide, unrestricted license to use, copy, modify, transmit, distribute, and publicly perform or display the submitted Member Web Page, as well as portions thereof and content and material thereon.
;)
Taken from the Tripod TOS. If this is posted lower... forgive me, or just flame me. I'm wearing my asbestos armor still.
Anyway, the point is, it's not just geocities.
It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion. set my mind in motion.
It is by the beans of Java that thoughts acquire speed.
Blah I can't get my sig to work, it won't fit.
i thought the GPL made programmers "give up" their right to own the software...
Please get a clue, people. The sites are giving you hosting space at no up front cost, for the sake of attracting surfers to their advertising. They also don't want trouble with people violating commercial copyrights so they draft these agreements. Of course the sidelight to this is that Yahoo and Tripod could, if they wanted to, take your material and use it any way they wish to. This goes for Yahoo/Geocities, Tripod and probably more than a few other 'free' hosting services. They aren't free in any real sense. They allow your material on their hosts to attract surfers to see their customer's advertising. And they ask you to agree to their terms, which will always leave them blameless for your actions. That's the way it is and the way it has to be for them to make money off your IP.
Lesson one: Read the fine print
Never sign anything until you've read all of it. I suprised everyone in the waiting room at a doctor's office a few months ago by refusing to sign a release that would have made my medical records open to anyone who wanted to see them and absolved the doctor from any responsibility for the security of the info. It was, of course, just a release to cover his personal ass in case something leaked and I threatened to sue. Of course, I didn't sign this release and wasn't compelled to.
The receptionist said that she had never seen anyone refuse to sign it or even ask what it was about. The other people there were just as suprised that anyone would refuse to sign a release. I did sign other releases relating to procedures themselves but not this one relating to the security of my medical records.
Lesson two: As Heinlein said, there's no such thing as a free lunch
Does anything more need to be said about this one?
I'm sure they will revise this agreement somewhat to quell the outraged users. To do otherwise would be bad for business. And, just as certainly, this will happen all over again with some other service. Free hosting is worth as much as you pay for it.
- Ixbalam =^.^=
I think the "right to edit" thing stems from the fact that they append all of the annoying Javascript code to the end of the HTML files they serve that gives us the banner ads and watermarks.
But as any sensible person knows, you should always look at how such agreements can be misused...
Jay (=
don't use yahoo. Use AltaVista, or even better, www.google.com (a Linux based search engine). I don't use geocities (most of the pages I've seen have been crap, and those adds are plain annoying), but until yahoo makes some changes to the contract or they can justify themselvs I will search elsewere.
\forall code \in C, \frac{\Delta readability(code)}{\Delta t} < 0
It would seem to, if I read, 'Our Server, Our Info, Our Use.'
It has the underpinnings of something quite evil, not just innocent jargon. Suppose 'they' wanted to SELL your emails(not your IP anymore), for their purposes. What's to stop them? Name me the law! I thought snail mail had that built in as a Federal offence. And, at best, laws only come into play AFTER the fact, if they are ever enforced, or used =(
Would any of us correspond/use yahoo mail? Not on your life!
A for sale list profile of Games you like? Methinks spammish, but annoying none the less.
It's really simple. If its good, they own it and can sell it. If its bad you are responsible, but since they own they can delete it.
TC
Not that this is a good thing... you probably don't want to agree to this kind of contract, and if you use Geocities you should definitely let Yahoo know that you will not accept this language. But let's not misstate the issues, as unfotunately happens all too often with IP-related stories on Slashdot.
> But total owndership (if that's the case) of web pages and content Yahoo/Geo did not create is another thing.
No it's not.
People who CHOOSE to agree to their stipulations do so willingly. Users exist within the legal environment the provider of the service creates for them.
Users should have started getting a clue when watermarking web pages at "free" thrid party sites started. Why would someone watermark images and web pages posted to a "free" site? God damned, how stupid are people? I guess there's always the old addage that 49.9999% are below average.
If somone is stupid enough to post their attempt at the next great american novel to Yahoo/Geocities, they get what they deserve and if Yahoo Books (tm) puts it out on the street the next day, so what.
> If people raise a stink about it then we'll see who's the boss.
The average schmoe isn't going to give a shit. The average schmoe doesn't have and isn't capable of creating any intellectual property worth protecting. Fsck the average schmoe. What's wrong with that? It's one of the most Glorious parts of America's Legacy.
Some forms of net.activasm are *SO* misdirected...
..American corporation. Taking everything yet giving nothing and always having the law on their side since that's the way they shaped it. It's time to make corporate lobbying and campaign contributions illegal. That would be great for the people of the US but it will never happen. It's so ridiculous how a person can work his ass off to do something and then get fucked by some corporation with all their patent, copyright, etc bullshit lawyers who do nothing but make the country even more worthless than it already is. Just make sure not to use Yahoo or Geocities, they don't deserve the right to do business. Sorry for preaching up a jihad here, but that's what it has become.
Some of us -- the smart ones, i guess -- don't use these "services" for this, and many other reasons.
Seriously, just give geocities to the s/RiPt/iDd13z, they deserve each other.
There is a big difference between owning an object and owning commercial rights to it. As I read the liscense, they were not claiming ownership, but were claiming the right to reproduce your product.
In other words, they aren't liable if you post something someone doesn't like, but anything you post can be reproduced freely by yahoo for their own purposes.
An analogy: you buy an artwork at an auction. You have bought the object, but that doesn't mean you can reproduce it freely. This is the inverse situation. Yahoo is just claiming the commercial rights, not ownership.
Note that the agreement specifically says "non-exclusive." This means that you still have the right to liscense your IP however you want, as long as yahoo has the right to use it. However, yahoo claims the right to subliscense their rights, so in theory you could be in competion with them for liscensing fees. If, however, they enacted that clause, their customers would be unhappy and probably would flock to other webspace providers.
#define F(x) int main(){printf(#x,10,#x);}
F(#define F(x) int main(){printf(#x,10,#x);}%cF(%s))
Funny, most people here spend most of their time railing against IP when it concerns someone else's content (music, books, software, etc), but when its their own, all of a sudden IP is the sacred cow.
First of all you are incorrect in stating that "with a little bit of wordplay you could say Yahoo owns the content to kiddie-porn on such site and warez on another...." This is not true. They never claim to own or take responsibility for anything on their webpages. Quite the opposite actually. They explicitly state that they DO NOT own or take responsibility for ANYTHING. They simply state that if they so desire or if they feel that it is beneficial to do so, they can sell, license, alter, reproduce, or do anything else to the content of the pages that they want. While this is not exactly moral and ethical there is nothing ILLEGAL whatsoever about this agreement. And I also object to your ignorant rantings about lawyers. As a student well on my way towards a career in IP Law, I would take offense at your comments if their absurdity did not so obviously illustrate you as a an ignoramus. ;-)
Have a nice day
i can buy the local public library, then claim ;)
intellectual property rights of everything it contains? cool, now wheres my visa
Static pages are fast and get to the point without a bunch of junk floating around (try the cartier.com site for a taste).
Posted by saintmae:
I had a Geocities page. After I found out about this bullshit, I deleted the whole damn thing. I reccomend a boycott of all Yahoo and Geocities sites.
I don't know the answer to this question, so I pose it to the /. community:
What would happen (legally) if a Geocities/Yahoo user were to agree to this contract, and then post something which has a more restrictive license?
Consider the following (hypothetical) situation: I agree to the license and then post a GPL'd program (source and binaries). What if Yahoo then decides to compile a "best of GeoCities programs CD" without the source. Do they violate the GPL (if they don't make the code available)? Maybe I'm at fault for providing Geocities with the program when I know that they might do this?
Any lawyers out there who know the answer?
I, for one, plan on not updating my old Geocities page.
Solution to blink tags: wrap them in another blink tag, with a javascript delay loop, so they cancel each other out
I wrote some programs (they're pretty much worthless, but they do exist) half a year ago and uploaded them to my geocities thingy as tarballs under GPL. I don't believe they actually have any control over them, either. They've got a copyright in my name plastered all over every source file and explicit licensing terms included (in the cannonical fashion). What's a fat ass company to do?
I like to play children's songs in minor keys.
"We're all sons of bitches now." --J. Robert Oppenheimer
I don't know, I think a picture of a cool looking dog sure beats the hell out of some geek blathering on and on and on about how much he hates Microsoft or how keen his Linux box is.
Thanks to the web, we can all share with others things that are important and exciting to us, whether it be a brilliant manifesto or a cocker spaniel.
Its not theft! You are handing out copies of it to everyone anyways. Hell, everyone browsing the website gets a copy!
Its giving them the rights to 'duplicate' your work, this does not give you any fewer rights to the sale of your work than you had before.
If it can be duplicated freely, how can it be property? If its not property, how can duplicating be theft?
If you want to keep your personal web pages your personal web pages, the only way to be sure is to run your own web site. But not on @home cable or they'll pull the plug on you. And you can't have a T1 run into your house because that's not a "Residential" service. Your best bet is 128K dedicated ISDN. You can usually find someone to sell you access and static IP's for in the neighborhood of $200 a month. How much of that banner revenue could defray would, I suppose, depend on how much traffic you got (Couldn't be a lot at 128K)
On a side not, I have not been to Yahoo in years and I avoid geocities links like the plague (And get pissed off when I fail to notice I'm going to geocities until I get there.) Them and their annoying pop up advertising. I'm sure they could find a less obtrusive method of getting their adverts in, but they want to be right there in your face (Disabling javascript goes a long way toward making Geocities less annoying when you accidentally go there.)
If you want to keep your personal web pages your personal web pages, the only way to be sure is to run your own web site. But not on @home cable or they'll pull the plug on you. And you can't have a T1 run into your house because that's not a "Residential" service. Your best bet is 128K dedicated ISDN. You can usually find someone to sell you access and static IP's for in the neighborhood of $200 a month. How much of that banner revenue could defray would, I suppose, depend on how much traffic you got (Couldn't be a lot at 128K)
On a side note, I have not been to Yahoo in years and I avoid geocities links like the plague (And get pissed off when I fail to notice I'm going to geocities until I get there.) Them and their annoying pop up advertising. I'm sure they could find a less obtrusive method of getting their adverts in, but they want to be right there in your face (Disabling javascript goes a long way toward making Geocities less annoying when you accidentally go there.)
Have you seen 99% of all Geocities pages? Frankly, there isn't any intelligence to take property of.
For more information, click here.
Moderators, please give the preceding post its due. Its an important question. I'm trying to get my stuff off there right now but can't remember my password/login. :(
...I'm wondering what happens to guys who save their Open Source, Free Software and stuff there...
Here's the important question:
_damnit_
It's my job to freeze you. -- Logan's Run
from WBS (http://wbs.net/wbs/rules.html)
8. You may upload software files, text, sounds or otherwise transmit on or through WBS only content ("Content") that is not subject to any patent, trademark, copyright or other proprietary rights ("Rights"), or Content in which any holder of Rights has given you express authorization for distribution on WBS. By submitting Content to any part of WBS, you automatically grant -- or warrant that the owner of such Content has expressly granted -- WebChat a royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, non-exclusive right and license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform, transmit and display such Content (in whole or part) and/or to incorporate it in other works in any form, media, or technology now known or later developed for the full term of any Rights that may exist in such Content.
First of all, yahoo does not automatically assume ownership of any geocities content, only that they have to rights to do with it as they see fit. As for most of the content on Geocities pages is personal homepages anyways, who really cares? Do I spend my nights worrying about Yahoo selling information on what I named my cats, or tips I've provided for my favorite hobby?
The fact of the matter is, this information was posted free of charge anyways, so Yahoo/Geocities has no financial advantage to attempt to sell such content. However, if they post a banner ad on your page (they do already) and make money from it, and some pissed off homepage owner decides they want a share of that money, this policy will effectively stop lawsuits.
And nobody uses Geocities for commercial purposes, and if they are, then they probably don't deserve to be doing business anyways.
I don't really see a problem here.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
My pages are covered by the GPL, which means that Geocities is entitled to claim what they like, but they can't do anything to actually restrict anyone from accessing my pages on Geocities. If they do, they are in breach of licence.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Wow... their stock price is low compared to what it used to be and now they're claiming that users pages are intellectual property?
They must really be getting desperate. I've seen some of those pages and there's nothing intellectual about it.
Sorry to those dozen people who actually have something useful there.
-- m
The decision to sublicense my content *IS* my intellectual property right. The Yahoo contract absolutely DOES "revoke your rights," in that it effectively denies me the ability to elect not to sublicense it to Yahoo. What I have lost is my ability to grant exclusive rights to my work!
Think about it. What if I write the next #1 blockbuster screenplay and post excerpts from it on my Yahoo web site? Suddently, I've lost the ability to sell it to a studio -- they'll (naturally enough) want to purchase exclusive rights to the entire content of the screenplay. Because my right to exclusivity was hijacked by Yahoo, I'm hosed.
Sorry, this is simply not true. Yahoo does not claim ownership of member pages. They only require that you give them a license to use it. In fact, they claim basically the same rights a book publisher does, so get the facts before you start getting upset.
Xoom.com is another company that provides free web pages (I have a web page there so I checked out their service agreement).
.. this is completely unacceptable.
This is from their service agreement (italics added):
"You grant to XOOM.com and its affiliates a royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, nonexclusive, worldwide, unrestricted license to use, copy, modify, transmit, distribute, and publicly perform or display the submitted pages or other content for the purposes of displaying such information on XOOM.com's sites and for the promotion and marketing of XOOM.com's services. XOOM.com disclaims ownership of member sites and will not resell or otherwise convey these rights to any third party."
Compare this with Yahoo/Geocities' service agreement:
"By submitting Content to any Yahoo property, you automatically grant, or warrant that the owner of such Content has expressly granted, Yahoo the royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive and fully sublicensable right and license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform and display such Content (in whole or part) worldwide and/or to incorporate it in other works in any form, media, or technology now known or later developed."
Yahoo's claim that their agreement is necessary to protect themselves against lawsuits doesn't hold water. If that were true, their agreement would be more like Xoom's, which sounds exactly like what is needed to protect themselves against lawsuits. Yahoo's agreement sounds like they intend to profit from the sale or resale of content posted on the webpages
I guess that means: You have to live by the rules but they're allowed to change the rules whenever they want to... but they don't have to tell you when the rules change.
Sounds like a crock to me!
Well, I run a small ISP (Sandwich.Net), and our Web hosting accounts start at $5.95/month ($1.95/month extra for shell), including e-mail access. I'm told we have good customer service - I do my best. :)
Wouldn't this be a good opportunity for competitors of GeoCities steal customers by offering a service that ensures that your content remains "your content"?
... Would Yahoo step in and say "Wow! Cool idea! Thanks for that - but we'll take it from here" ? (of course, with windows containing banner adds popping up every 10 seconds, it'd likely piss too many people off to get on a roll like that :)
After all, if it doesn't cost them anything to move, and the incentive is there, wouldn't it make sense to move - just in case you happen to hit upon a money-spinner down the track?
I wonder what the situation would be if a GeoCities user came up with a winner like slashdot
M@T
'sapientia potestas est'
*wave* yo- I'm the anonymous clean 'n sober drug addict dude again...
It gets better. I didn't even spot this at first. The search engine is a Yahoo property. If you submit a site to Yahoo, and write in descriptive things as a summary, your summary falls under these terms.
Not only that, I hadn't spotted the 'warrant that the owner' bit- this really slams us NA people, 'cos _we_ are the owners of our collective IP. We all own it in trust, legally.
So even with no pages on Geocities, if some poor slob submits a NA page to Yahoo and is unlucky enough to describe it as 'Narcotics Anonymous Purple Haze Area Web Page', then Yahoo is legally allowed to make a category and call it 'Narcotics Anonymous Approved Yahoo Pages' or even 'NA Rehabs' (if they got the notion for some reason that drug/alcohol recovery was now called 'NA'). This is so wrong it isn't even funny- we have traditions expressly in place to prevent just this sort of thing, this 'endorsement' of outside enterprises, and now there's a danger it could happen just by virtue of some poor bugger writing the wrong phrases in a description to Yahoo's search database (which is a Yahoo property).
Maybe that is too parochial a view to matter to most Slashdotters- but it's as real as a slap in the face to _me_, and this is getting more and more alarming- we have guidelines about not using Geocities (and I hope they've been followed!) but the usual understanding is that web pages are publicised by adding them to search engines and such things. Well, all of a sudden, those little blurbs are _sublicensable_ and derivative-workable. Most hackers don't have GPLed code in web search blurbs- but _we_ NA people might have fellowship IP in our search blurbs if we're not damn careful- and screwing that up is very bad.
Gah. Who came _up_ with all this? Every five minutes another even more horrible aspect comes up!
You know the answer to the second question. IP is something to be protected and its attendant rights are to be cherished when it is my stuff and IP is a load of crap that should be disregarded because property is theft when it is your stuff. What matters here is not the principle involved, just whether or not 'da man is trying to exploit you.
I'm sure that the remaining clauses can be justified as easily (I don't have them in front of me, so I can't come up with the justifications).
The one I don't understand is the "perpetual" part. The licence gives Geocities/Yahoo the right to distribute in perpetuity your content on any medium available now or in the future.
So let's say you have inaccurate information on your site, which Geocities/Yahoo distribute on CD (using the "perpetual" provision), after which you fix the inaccurate information and publish any necessary retractions, like a good Geocitizen. Someone then complains to Geocities/Yahoo about the inaccurate information on their CD. You did the right thing, but you wear the blame for Geocities/Yahoo's distribution of inaccurate information.
Scary.
sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
If I remember correctly Geocities is full of mp3's and eLiTe WaReZ (ak!)...
so by them declaring IP on all of those pages, does that finally give the RIAA and the SPA somebody to sue?
just an idea
=P
Here is the troublesome section:
8. CONTENT SUBMITTED TO YAHOO
By submitting Content to any Yahoo property, you automatically grant, or warrant that the owner of such Content has expressly granted, Yahoo the royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive and fully sublicensable right and license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform and display such Content (in whole or part) worldwide and/or to incorporate it in other works in any form, media, or technology now known or later developed. You acknowledge that Yahoo does not pre-screen Content, but that Yahoo and its designees shall have the right (but not the obligation) in their sole discretion to refuse, edit, move or remove any Content that is publicly available via the Service. Without limiting the foregoing, Yahoo and its designees shall have the right to remove any Content that violates the TOS or is otherwise objectionable. You agree that you must evaluate, and bear all risks associated with, the use of any Content, including any reliance on the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of such Content. In this regard, you acknowledge that you may not rely on any Content created by Yahoo or submitted to Yahoo, including without limitation information in Yahoo! Message Boards, Yahoo! Clubs, and in all other parts of the Service.
and we came to the same conclusion, about how bad the internet sucks. I sincerely doubt if Geo/Yahoo wants to reproduce kiddie pages with broken links, images, bad HTML, java apps all over, not to mention horrendous background images. Somehow people with those kinds of pages think they're cool, acccccck! I guess I should damper their enthusiasm, but oh pls!
I see the net now in terms of that Sprint commercial with Candace Bergen (oh how I long for the days of deregulation in Alberta!! I'd pay $2 a minute long distance if it meant I didn't have to see another Sprint ad three times in a row!) where everyone is looking into their screens and saying dumb things like "I'm surfing the net!".
Kind of bizarre really. I think Geo is a cult. If you try to say something bad about them (use "geocensored" in hotbot) all these people will come up and get mad at you and say how nice it is that Geo gives them all these things...but they don't realize what Geo is collecting about them and just using them as cheap advertising.
I had an acct there in 1996-1997. Got out while I could, when I was offered free space and no ads by some nice guys. It used to be OK. Then came the java ads, the pop up ads, ads, the watermark...good lord! If a surfer needs to be told that their in a Geo site, then they have to be pretty dumb! I worked so hard to put a site together and suddenly it seemed so hollow. It's not a community, it's a cesspool of psychographics and greed, playing off the hopes and dreams of real people.
Menlo Park doesn't have a mayor. It is a village of the city of Edison, NJ.
I create, I own, if they want to change my contract they ask me prior to the change. It looks like extortion to me as they have cut me off from my stuff. It doesn't matter if no one rates the quality of my site, I should have a choice. Yahoo have taken that choice from me. Pay up or .....
Say I manages to post a page on the new Yahoo! service containing in a completely anonymous manner (the details of how this would be done are really beside the point). What would be the expected outcome of this? Yahoo! might be denying responsibility, but then who is responsible?
Then in May 1998, Lenny asked if I would like to host it on his server. No strings attached. No licence, no contract, no ads, no nothing. And it's true.
A year later the site has grown to over 14MB and nothing's stopping us. I can use swear words instead of blanking them out, and use naughty photos and other things that would have definitely been no-nos in Geo.
The funny thing is, a week after moving to the tekknowledge server, I got a second free hosting offer by a guy in California. So now TGTH has a mirror to boot.
Both guys are gonzo fans. Both are the greatest net friends I could ever have. I get more visitors on a faster server. We three sit back and reap the rewards of having visitors who respect us and what we do for them.
They don't claim ownership of the web site, and they couldn't even if they wanted to without a written, signed piece of paper saying they own it. They require that you give them a license to use it, display it to your site's visitors, and modify it if you post something that could get them in legal trouble, plus the ability to sublicense these rights.
Sublicensing is when you give them permission to turn around and give a license to a third party, although I'm not sure why they think they need that part.
You, as both author and owner, would be held responsible. Yahoo does not claim to own any of it, they just insist on an unlimited license to use it.
I admit it! I didn't use the preview button! :( Ok, here's the (hopefully) correct version of my post:
Say I manage to post a page on the new Yahoo! service containing [insert any form of slander against assorted rich and powerful people here] in a completely anonymous manner (the details of how this would be done are really beside the point). What would be the expected outcome of this? Yahoo! might be denying responsibility, but then who is responsible?
If you own it, and you agree to the new terms, they can claim the unlimited right to use and modify it without being subject to the GPL. If you don't own the software, they'll still have the right to use/modify the site as a whole, but not that particular part of it.
Remember that they're not requiring you to give them ownership of the site, only permission to use it.
Try www.binary.net. $4.95 per month for shell access including your own CGI scripts, e-mail, etc.
This is based on the mistaken assumption that Yahoo claims ownership of the material. It doesn't.
Protecting themselves from lawsuits is one thing, but claiming complete rights over webpages? Sheer BS. I work in a Silicon Valley startup and my contract is less restrictive in regards to intellectual property than Yahoo's is (my company basically gets the right to use any ideas I come up with in any of its products, but does not claim the right to sell my ideas directly).
.net and .org address together with a .com purchase, in order to "triple your exposure". Back in my day, these suffixes actually meant something (eg: org = npo, com=commerical, net=network). It seems that logic and meaning has been tossed to the wind in order to make money.
:).
This Yahoo-Geocities thing is only the beginning of a bad trend. Has anyone looked at NSI's webpage lately? Or ordered a domain from them? They are trying to get customers to aquire the
The worst thing is, its all downhill from here. The governments are getting ready to dip their fingers into regulating the net. How long do you think they can stay away from the highly publicized and alluring money that is generated by e-commerce?
I think its time to make a new internet, one where crap like this doesn't happen. By keeping things seperate (eg: one nation wide network for video+voice, one for commerce, one for industry communications, one for research, and one for the individuals) everyone could end up happy.
So what does all this have to do with the original post or the first part of my message? Frankly, I'm not sure. I just realized that I have begun to ramble
Anyway, expect to see more shit like this happen in the future.
Thomas Edison lived in Menlo Park, NJ.
Therefore, the current Mayor of Menlo Park may take the rights to the light bulb, right?
--
Yahoo has already gotten in so much legal do-do over what people say on their financial message boards that you can only expect that in the future they will take a blanket approach to avoiding further litigation.
No one seems to have mentioned an IRONIC fact- YAHOO WILL NOT LIST GEOCITIES SITES!! This isn't mentioned by them in their policies, as far as I can tell, but I found this out at Search Engine Update. Yahoo has a huge backlog because it is a directory that relies on editors to decide which sites to list, and they haven't hired additional ones as the Web has grown. So one way of making their jobs easier is to just throw out all the submissions from the "free" sites.
Don't know if that policy will change now that they own GeoCities...
(Note that there are others with similar policies, because there are so many spam pages on the free sites. For instance, Infoseek no longer accepts submissions from AOL, GeoCities, Tripod, and "others" by the normal process, requiring an e-mail.)
I'm really not sure GeoCities pages suck so much more than average. In truth, most pages probably suck. But if you click to a page on "obscureisp.net" and it sucks, you won't form a general opinion because you probably won't have an occasion to visit their other sites regularly. I sometimes do put off clicking to GC pages, but due to the pop-ups rather than certainty of getting a lousy site.
I've been happy so far with Xoom. Originally they offered 11 Megs with no ads; then they added a modest "XoomBar" that is a lot better than those pop-ups, and in return offered unlimited web space. Xoom seems to load faster than GC, which often seemed slow. The general quality of sites on Xoom also seems higher.
There are downsides. You have to take e-mails from them with "special offers" for members. (They have offered Red Hat with the recommendation that they use it to run their own site.) You also may have problems getting on directories and search engines. You have no chance with Yahoo (though these days, getting listed with them is almost impossible anyway). Altavista will spider you, and Google, but apparently Infoseek includes Xoom among its blacklisted domains. They will supposedly check you out if you make an e-mail submission, but I've had no luck even though mine is a real, no-spam site. Lycos spidered after many tries, but not HotBot. If you're counting on search sites to tell people about you, realize this is a problem with free sites. If you're already listed, you may jeopardize that by switching.
Overall, though, I have been satisfied with Xoom, and it seemed like a better deal even before this Yahoo flap!
you can't yank your pages without agreeing to the new licencing terms, becasue that is a form of modification.
catch-22?
I thought it was contradictory. We cannot be help responsible yet they own it??
h ich scares off potential emacs users more? The trapped in feeling when they can't exit, or when they can't exit help after backspacing into it.
Also, don't use it to harm kids!?!
And, what is a sublicenceable right?
--------------------------------------------
W
Have you read my journal today?
If you are a user of Yahoo Mail, the new Terms of Service apply to this as well - meaning that your email is Yahoo's to sell, broadcast and exploit.
I seriously doubt that Yahoo would invade people's privacy this blatently, but technically, they do claim the right to do so if they wish.
The TOS needs some revisions.
Meldroc, Waster of Electrons
Your story says: "That's scary, since under this contract, anyone who has a page on Geocities no longer has the rights to what they have created."
That's wrong. The Yahoo! terms of service you linked to the article say that Yahoo! acquires a **non-exclusive** right to use of the content. Your article would only be accurate in saying that the site owner "no longer has the rights to what they have created" if the Yahoo! rights were **exclusive.**
In a non-exclusive grant of copyright, the original owner still retains their rights, but have only diminished it by the grant of a nonexclusive right. It doesn't eliminate the owners' rights against anyone else in the world.
Worry more about Yahoo!'s rights to transfer the rights it acquires under the contract. That's where the real vagueness is.
--An anonymous, cowardly lawyer.
Humm according to the contract. I am responsible for anything I upload/submit, and Yahoo owns it and can delete it. Hummm I'd better not change my Yahoo sucks page at all....
Maybe.
They explicitly state they don't have the obligation to modify content, but then they also claim the right to modify content then publish that modified content. If they ever modify content, then that modified content can be construed to be "blessed" by them. They now have legal obligations reguarding that content. By exerting editorial action on that content and publishing it, they have assumed responsibility for it. IMHO: If they want to change a page, about all they can do is delete it. If they modify a page and publish it, then they have exercised editorial control over the page. As such they now claim the resulting page is OK by them. As far as I'm concerned they have now given their blessing to all content left on that page. What a big trap if they ever try to exercise editorial control. It may even be big enough to leak over to those pages thay haven't changed.
As a side note: By changing I'm refering to pages that have been changed by direct human intevention. Not pages that have been automatically machine modified to add the ad popup.
Do send them a registered return receipt letter stating in polite terms that you don't like their new terms, and want them to remove your pages from their site. Refference your pages, and your prior user account id in the letter so there is no ambiguity about what account you are refering to. If they are smart, they will reply back saying that they have don't have reliable info confirming you are really you and the owner of the account, or they delete the pages. If they do reply as such, then you return a new reply requesting reenabling your account explicitly stating you don't agree to their new terms so you may remove your Intelectual Property from their site. If they don't grant you this access, then sue their pants off. You now should have done enough to establish that they have gone beyond the right originally granted to them by you, and they have refused to remidy the situation.
As always, consult a lawyer to find out your rights and obligations, but don't wait. Waiting to do this can be construed as tacit agreement to their new policy.
On a side note. When a company changes contracts like credit card agrements they are required to notify all parites involved. I see no reason why they shouldn't be required to do the same.
You're exactly the kind of friend I want! I wish I could work with people like you...
"Fsck the average shmoe"??? Just who the fuck do you think you are asshole?? Fsck you!! WTF is your definition of "average schmoe"?
The oxen are slow, but the earth is patient... - High Road to China
You're missing the point. I doubt many people here really care about IP, but someone else saying they OWN their IP is just completely wrong.
The oxen are slow, but the earth is patient... - High Road to China
Geez... am I the only one who can't even connect :)
to Wired now? One would expect Wired to have
enough computing resources to withstand the
Slashdot effect. (Oh, wait, maybe not... have
they turned a profit yet?
I have personally been a Pair customer for the past year and have had nothing but good service from them. I got a pair account so that I would have a stable domain ( academus.net) to store my website/resume and email address so when I change locations or ISPs I don't have to change everything that has to do with my ISP. I highly recommend pair. (And no, I am not getting paid off by them...though if I see a slight discount on my next invoice I'll know why ;-)
Tom Byrum
And read on. Part 6 of Yah??'s TOS, on "member conduct", immediately goes on to say:
So they claim the right to modify (damned Geocities popups and watermarks), sublicense your works in perpetuity, and create derivative works in any form until hell freezes over. They can sell ads on your "free" page. They can sell your original content to anyone they please, or they can change it and sell it. You need not be acknowledged as the author.
But if there's any legal trouble, you take the fall. Yah??!/Geocities is claiming to own your work but not to be liable for it.
What a deal, eh?
I don't know of a good free webhosting alternative offhand, but maybe people jumping ship could find something at The Free Webpage Provider Review .
As for directories, long live the ODP!
What part of "perpetual, irrevocable" is unclear? The retain a license to any version you posted on their servers. Later revisions, of course, aren't covered by this license.
Just look up Geocensored in hotbot...in fact, there's a GeoDelete and a GeoCensored webring out there...the last one Geo tried to get Webring to destroy (but seeing as how Yahoo and Geo now own Webring...)
All it takes is a complaint using their handy dandy nark form, innocently labelled "Neighbourhood Watch" or something.
It's a true story, I heard it from the webmaster of Crosswinds.net. A GeoQuitizen set up a GeoCensored page (I can't remember if it was the original or another one) and Geo threatened to sue
Crosswinds, a Cdn server. Holy cow eh?
Another guy, Bill, who does Snickers, got kicked off Xoom and had his email blocked by Geocities - he couldn't send to a geo address...
Oh, be sure to check out Hitlercities. I hope it's still around. That kid had to run from server to server as well.
The user agreement is bad enough without illiterate idiots making up stuff.
No problem.
:)
Just think of all the crummy web pages they've just inherited, not to mention all the sites that just serve as *illegal* buffers for files such as ROMS, MP3's or whatever. I'm sure that more than a few people have those on a geocities site...
If yahoo wants the responsibility (and perhaps lawsuits, since after all, it's THEIR intellectual property) that will come of it, let them do it. It'll be a problem they create for themselves!
Yahoo will become the largest set of links to warez ftps in the world!
yahoo, yipee, and hoorah
Ya know, in someone else's perception you are an 'average schmoe', too...
The fact is, GENIUS knows no financial boundaries. If Einstein hadn't been able to afford a decent site, like maybe buying groceries took precedence, then having a page on Geo$hitties may have been his only option.
Just because you may have an awesome site on a fast server with no banners does not give you the right to piss on those souls who aren't as well-connected (or as well-paid).
While I agree that most of what you find on free sites is crap, the internet is STILL AN INFANT, as are the majority of users!
Sheesh, you think everyone was born knowing HTML and everyone has a linux box in their basement?
Goddess help me seek the truth, but spare me the company of those who've found it.
The House Between - Original Sci-Fi Series
Let them try that. They'll have more class action suits on their asses then they know what to do with. I for one - if I had material on their site would prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law for copyright and contract violations.
You understand that all information, data, text, software, music, sound, photographs, graphics, video, messages or other materials ("Content"), whether publicly posted or privately transmitted, are the sole responsibility of the person from which such Content originated. This means that you, and not Yahoo, are entirely responsible for all Content that you upload, post, email or otherwise transmit via the Service.
So, let's paraphrase:
"We're not responsible. It's all your fault. You did it all by yourself. Now it's ours."
Did someone miss the logic train? Is there a lawyer somewhere who can explain this?
If yahoo get away with stealing users IP, they are in essence stealing the users ID.
I hope that other ISP's don't follow this & create a terrifying trend.
Doea anybody have suggestions where we can get a good account for cheap?
I'd rather not use Yahoo's site with their yahoo lawyers. Five dollars sounds like a very resonable price to avoid them.
So, let me get this straight. Yahoo bought, merged, (whatever) with Geocities. Yahoo now owns all rights to anything on the Geocities servers. So... If we put up material that is deemed inappropriate, and somebody gets mad, the material is actually Yahoo's, not ours. So if we make sufficiently poor taste websites that result in a lawsuit, we, the user, can never be brought to court, because it is not ours. Yahoo would be the only defendant in a lawsuit, and all punitive damages would be their's to pay. Right? :)
Well, at least it sounds good in theory.
So - asusming I post something on my site on geocites. And I've agreed to that statement. They have said they can 'sublicence' any 'dirivateve works', and 'modify' it. Therefore they could then say "From the web page of schporto 'I really like my M$ windows.'" Even though what's on my page is "I run linux". scary isn't it. They even have the right to change my web page to reflect that so they aren't actually lying.
Does this cover their email service too? That's scary. Now you can't trust anything from a yahoo address cuz even if you know who the sender is yahoo now can claim the right to forge email basically. I don't think they nessecarily will, nor am I saying that they have. But they do have the right to do it if you agree to that. Yeesh.
-cpd
Could someone clarify what this means with regard to who is responsible for defamatory and/or libel. Does this mean that Yahoo is willing to hold itself responsible for comments and web pages that may cause legal trouble? For example If someone use geocities to con people into giving them credit card numbers who is responsible?
Famous Last Words:
i've got GPLised software on geocities -- can they now claim all rights to it ? This is a load of crap.
It's personal expression, and it doesn't cost a dime. I suppose in your perfect world all there would be is impersonal information sites, and commercial entities. Well, I for one will be a little sad when the everyman personality is removed from the web.
BTW, does anyone know if Slashdot's new owner owns all the content on Slashdot?
If Yahoo claims the rights to all of content on a Geocities page, doesn't that eliminate any possibility of common carrier status?
The primary requirement for a common carrier, as I understand it, is that they simply transmit the information of others without interest in the content. If the ISP claims ownership rights in the content, then they now are transmitting their own material.
Sure, they say that you are responsible for all infringement, but that won't cover allegedly libelous content written by the user -- Yahoo has now tacitly approved it by accepting IP rights to the text.
If I can see this argument, there has to be some lawyer out there waiting for a chance to try it out.
It now reads :
c)By submitting a Member Web Page to Tripod, you grant Tripod and its affiliates a royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, nonexclusive, worldwide, unrestricted license to use, copy, modify, transmit,and distribute the content for the limited purposes of displaying and promoting the user's personal homepage and for displaying the content of such personal homepages elsewhere within the Lycos Network.
...or, at least, it isn't if you agree to Yahoo's terms.
By agreeing to their terms, your work now has a dual license: one for Yahoo, and one for everyone else.
Say you have a Java applet with source under the GPL on the site. Guess what? If you agree, they can take your Java code, incorporate it into one of their applets, and not give any source out.
Here's how it works:
1. Person A writes some software, and distributes it under the GPL.
2. Person B thinks the software is cool and starts distributing the software from his/her GeoCities web page.
3. Person B logs on one day and finds that (s)he now has to get a Yahoo account and agree to license all of his/her content with an unrestrictive license to Yahoo. (S)he agrees.
At this point, Person B has granted rights to Yahoo for the software (owned by Person A) that (s)he did not have the right to grant. Yahoo now thinks it can incorporate portions of the code on the site into its own proprietary products.
And who does Person A have the right to sue if (s)he finds out? Person B, and Person B only, who is probably confused as to why just clicking "Yes" is getting him/her into so much trouble.
When you work at a large company and you invent something the company has first grabs at your intellectual property. That's because they're your host. This is probably a better example. All Yahoo is saying is that you're free to do whatever you want ("free" being the operative word), but they have first grab at the product.
... well, handy.
On any contract I've signed where that kind of stipulation has been put in, I've taken my pen and crossed it out, initialling the crossthrough before signing. I'll be damned if some corporate contract is gonna keep me from selling MY billion dollar idea on my own time.
If I come up with something on their time, that's one matter. But if I come up with it on the crapper of my in-law's cottage while on vacation, that idea's mine and mine only. And there ARE corporations who try to put this shit in your contract. Your current work, your future ideas, your firstborn.... That's where my handy dandy pen comes in
"You can review the most current version of the TOS at any time at: http//docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/. "
'The most current'? So the terms of service that you sign up under aren't the real ones that apply. Unless Yahoo makes an attempt to alert you of the new conditions. Which I doubt they will do.
You know, this is just screaming 'lawsuit.'
9. INDEMNITY
You agree to indemnify and hold Yahoo, and its subsidiaries, affiliates, officers, agents, co-branders or other partners, and employees, harmless from any claim or demand, including reasonable attorneys' fees, made by any third party due to or arising out of your Content, your use of the Service, your connection to the Service, your violation of the TOS, or your violation of any rights of another.
Give a man a match, you keep him warm for an evening.
Light him on fire, he's warm for the rest of his life
When you work at a large company and you invent something the company has first grabs at your intellectual property.
To a certain extent, this depends on the contract between you and your company, but...
This only applies if you use the company's resources in the development of your invention. If you work at a computer firm, and your invention is a new method of brewing beer at home, it's unlikely the company has any claim, unless you used the company's CAD system or something.
...phil
...phil
"For a list of the ways which technology has failed to improve our quality of life, press 3."
Actually, that may be true. Specifically, in most internet obscenity cases, the courts have ruled that ISPs are traditionally not responsible for obscenity on their sites only if they do explicitly do not monitor their writings (making them like, say, a repeater or a router) rather than search-and-remove (making them a publisher).
You see, if they are editing their site, than this means that they must be reading the stuff. If they are reading it, then they had to have chosen to not remove something obscene--which means they were choosing to post it.
If Yahoo! owns it all, that means that they clearly approve of it.
So what if you have a page with ? Do they own that content? Can they censor something that is not on their server? What if the IMG SRC returned a random gif that occaisonally was objectionable to Yahoo policy?
Sheesh. If I liked BS, wasn't really a very good programmer but liked computers anyhow, and loved pissing people off, I'd have gotten into internet law instead of computer programming. I bet it's a field that grows faster than the industry as a whole.
--
"I got it running, grabbed a rocket launcher, and fired down a hallway." --John Carmack
>> So what if you have a page with ?
-
So what if you have a page with
IMG SRC="http://someothersever.com/yahoosucks.gif"
-
"I got it running, grabbed a rocket launcher, and fired down a hallway." --John Carmack
...There Ain't No Such Thing As a Free Lunch!
Even Slashdot Knows This To Be TRUE!!!
It's nice to see reality collide with geeks' little fantasies of what the Internet is and is not.
Time to sell-out, grow up, join the team and opt in for the big win.
Tripod's ToS also states much the same thing.
Xoom's ToS looks like the old Geocities ToS - granting them rights to use the work royalty free for promotional purposes, but not for sale to 3rd parties.
Great, there go the patent rights for my flux capacitor, the complete plans of which were on my yahoo site. Oh well, now yahoo owns the methods for time travel.
On a similar note, I forgot to mention the inherent dangers of crossing the beams on my paranormal ghost eradicator energy beam weapons, the plans of which were on one of my different yahoo webpages. Ho hum, at least yahoo is absolved of any responsibility when the universe implodes.
When you work at a large company and you invent something the company has first grabs at your intellectual property. That's because they're your host. This is probably a better example. All Yahoo is saying is that you're free to do whatever you want ("free" being the operative word), but they have first grab at the product.
I think it's smart. Diabolical, but smart.