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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. "
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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
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
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.
Hopefully, a lot of people will look at this and see that a better alternative is available.
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 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?
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.