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Mailing List Logs for ShadowRN

Message no. 1
From: Robert Watkins robert.watkins@******.com
Subject: [OT] Geocities website owners: read this!
Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1999 14:06:32 +1000
Rat writes:
> This might be old news, but it was new to me when I spotted
> it on a newsgroup I was cruising through. Potentially chilling
> possibilities for anyone who has a website on Geocities:
>
> http://www.wired.com/news/news/technology/story/20472.html
>
>
> (Gist of story in case link doesn't work: now that Yahoo
> has gobbled up Geocities, they're claiming they own all
> Web pages, articles, and images on member sites and have
> irrevocable rights to them for all time.)

Correction: they do not have rights to property put up before they announced
the change in the user clauses, as they did not have the rights at the time
of purchase.

Any new stuff posted on a Geocities website (as of Monday, 28 June, 1999),
however, they do own, as that is now in the user agreement (which is
implicitly agreed to by continuing to use Geocities). Note that if you make
a minor change to a page, the whole page is owned. If you upload a file,
even without changing it, Yahoo owns the file.

Strictly speaking, they don't "own" the files. What they do have is the
right to do whatever they feel like with them, without you having a say in
it. Here's the applicable part of the relevant clause (Clause 8 of the
Yahoo! user terms):
"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."

While Yahoo! does need some of the rights claimed further on in Clause 8
(namely, the right to take down offensive material, and no liability for
misleading information presented on a Yahoo site), they do not need the
right to do whatever they feel like doing with your home page.
As an example of what they can do: Let's say you put up a picture of
yourself on your GeoCities home page. They can alter that photo in any way
they wish (I'll let you use your imagination, but keep it clean, okay?), and
put that in place on your home page, and you have no right of recourse
(including the right to sue for defamation), as you gave them the express
permission to both modify the image, and modify your home page.

I would advise anyone with a GeoCities home page to move to another
provider.

--
.sig deleted to conserve electrons. robert.watkins@******.com
Message no. 2
From: Robert Watkins robert.watkins@******.com
Subject: [OT] Geocities website owners: read this!
Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1999 14:30:45 +1000
> (Gist of story in case link doesn't work: now that Yahoo
> has gobbled up Geocities, they're claiming they own all
> Web pages, articles, and images on member sites and have
> irrevocable rights to them for all time.)

Oh, one point I neglected to mention before:

Yahoo is not the only "community" site that has this clause. Tripod, for
example, has an extensive user community, and has a similar clause. In
Tripod's case, however, the clause was always there (buried in the fine
print), and so didn't get the media attention the way the inclusion of the
clause in Yahoo's agreement did.

If you use any sort of free web-site hosting, I would suggest that you
closely examine the user agreement. Even if you use a paid site, check.

--
.sig deleted to conserve electrons. robert.watkins@******.com
Message no. 3
From: Sommers sommers@*****.edu
Subject: [OT] Geocities website owners: read this!
Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1999 08:07:15 -0400
At 02:30 PM 6/30/99 +1000, you wrote:
>> (Gist of story in case link doesn't work: now that Yahoo
>> has gobbled up Geocities, they're claiming they own all
>> Web pages, articles, and images on member sites and have
>> irrevocable rights to them for all time.)
>
>Oh, one point I neglected to mention before:
>
>Yahoo is not the only "community" site that has this clause. Tripod, for
>example, has an extensive user community, and has a similar clause. In
>Tripod's case, however, the clause was always there (buried in the fine
>print), and so didn't get the media attention the way the inclusion of the
>clause in Yahoo's agreement did.
>
>If you use any sort of free web-site hosting, I would suggest that you
>closely examine the user agreement. Even if you use a paid site, check.

That's why I set up my own web server at work. I had this Pentium Pro 200
with a 100 mbit connection that wasn't doing anything, so...

Sommers
Insert witty quote here.
Message no. 4
From: A Halliwell u5a77@***.keele.ac.uk
Subject: [OT] Geocities website owners: read this!
Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1999 15:25:29 +0100 (BST)
|I would advise anyone with a GeoCities home page to move to another
|provider.

Now that the full legal repercussions have been "outed" I might just do
that.
(Or at least, open another free web account, and only link to the files from
my Geocities page... Then they'd only have rights on the index.html page, as
all other pages and files were posted up before they announced the change.)

--
|u5a77@*****.cs.keele.ac.uk| |
| Andrew Halliwell | "The day Microsoft makes something that doesn't |
| Finallist in:- | suck is probably the day they start making |
| Computer science | vacuum cleaners" - Ernst Jan Plugge |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|GCv3.1 GCS/EL>$ d---(dpu) s+/- a- C++ U N++ o+ K- w-- M+/++ PS+++ PE- Y t+ |
|5++ X+/++ R+ tv+ b+ D G e>PhD h/h+ !r! !y-|I can't say F**K either now! :( |

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