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Yahoo/Geocities IP Trouble

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the this-is-gonna-be-messy dept.

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. "

2 of 221 comments (clear)

  1. Take it easy! by Gumber · · Score: 4

    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.

  2. Re:I'm not buying it.... by Croaker · · Score: 4
    if they owned it before, then they own it now, but they can't just change it on people in midstream.

    Not unless they state that the contract between the user and GeoCities can be amended at any time, which they probably do (and usualy saying that no notice has to be offered). I'm not sure how enforceable this is, in RL, but I suspect it would be difficult to even get them to court.

    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?

    Of course not. Basically, they state that you are responsible for any copyright/trademark/whatever infringement. Anything left after that they own. Sweet, innit?

    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.

    Err... what do you think they are doing now? Giving out webpages out of the kindness of their hearts? Nope, they are selling ad space around your content. That's making a profit.

    What they are saying now is that they can repackage that content into, say "a best of GeoCities" CD or something.

    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.

    Whenever graphics artists complain that someone is ripping off their stuff, someone inevitably says "dude, take it as a compliment." Well, maybe you should take it as a compliment that Yahoo thinks they can make money off of your web page... What comes around, goes around.