rights and wrongs
When I read Section 5 of the
Draft Everything2 Terms of Service, I was gobsmacked. I had always understood that E2 respected and honoured writers' rights. These new
Proprietary Content Rights*, however, were the precise opposite, claiming the right to use, sell, sub-licence, and otherwise exploit noders' words. On top of that, they included the right to sell and sublicence your personal information. Very very not good is about the politest thing I can say about that.
A couple of conversations with
clampe reassured me that this was not the intention, that there really was no intention of claiming these very extensive rights. (In other words, it seems to have been assembled from bits and pieces, and the explanatory gloss shows clearly that there is no real understanding of the rights being asked for.)
I've come across pretty much every flavour of rights grabbing terms within photography, so offered to take a bash at rewording this section so that it matches what I believe E2-as-an-organisation and E2-as-noders would be comfortable with. Something that gives E2 the right to publish your words within E2, but not run off and sell, reuse, or take control of anything you publish here.
How's this?
E2 does not claim ownership or copyright of any content you make available to include in E2.
By submitting, posting or displaying content which is intended to be available to the public on E2, you grant E2 a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence to publish, distribute, and reproduce this content for the sole purpose of displaying and distributing E2. This licence terminates when you or E2 removes the content from the service.
By submitting content for publication within E2, you warrant that you have the necessary rights and permissions to do so.
in other words:
- You still own your work, and control your rights over it
- You can still assign or sell the majority of your rights to other people, or not, as you choose (except granting an exclusive licence to another person while it's published on E2)
- E2 will not pay you for your work
- E2 does not restrict you from using your material elsewhere.
- Your material can be published anywhere in the world, as part of E2.
- E2 can only publish and use your stuff as part of E2, and not for any other purpose (no books, no tshirts, no movies of the week).
- When you take your stuff away, E2 can't use your stuff any more.
- You can only publish things you have the rights for (ownership, public domain, rights granted by others, etc). You can't grant E2 a licence if it's not your right to do so
- This is on the assumption that E2 is defined earlier in the ToS as the website and the website alone. Satellite projects in other media, such as podcasts, adverts, and all are not covered, and require additional permissions.
Does anything else need to be included?
edited to add: Just in case anyone is wondering, I think the rest of the draft ToS are a problem too--some parts contradict others, for starters--but the rights section was the priority for me. I'd not sign up to them as they stand, even if the rights section was fixed.
* in case there is any confusion, and because I've been asked to clarify...this is the section I am suggesting we swap out (other parts too, but, for now, this is the bit I've been working to suggest a fix for):
"Everything2 does not claim any ownership rights in the text, files, images, photos, works of authorship, or any other materials (collectively, "Content") that you post to the Everything2 Services. After posting your Content to the Everything2 Services, you continue to retain all ownership rights in such Content, and you continue to have the right to use your Content in any way you choose. By publishing or posting content, uploading files, inputting data, or engaging in any other form of communication through the Site, you grant us a royalty-free, perpetual, non-exclusive, unrestricted, worldwide license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, translate, enhance, transmit, distribute, publicly perform, display, or sublicense any such communication (including your identity and information about you, e.g. contact information, demographics, etc.) in any medium (now in existence or hereinafter developed) and for any purpose, including commercial purposes, and to authorize others to do so.
Without this license, Everything2 would be unable to provide the Everything2 Services. The license you grant to Everything2 is:
- non-exclusive, meaning you are free to license your Content to anyone else in addition to Everything2;
- fully-paid and royalty-free, meaning that Everything2 is not required to pay you for the use on the Everything2 Services of the Content that you post;
- sublicensable, so that Everything2.com is able to use its affiliates and subcontractors such as Internet content delivery networks to provide the Everything2 Services; and
- worldwide, because the Internet and the Everything2 Services are global in reach.
You represent and warrant that:
- You own the Content posted by you on or through the Everything2 Services or otherwise have the right to grant the license set forth in this section, and
- The posting of your Content on or through the Everything2 Services does not violate the privacy rights, publicity rights, copyrights, contract rights or any other rights of any person. You agree to pay for all royalties, fees, and any other moneys owing any person by reason of any Content posted by you to or through the Everything2 Services.
Everything2 Content is protected by copyright, trademark, patent, trade secret and other laws, and Everything2 owns and retains all rights in the Everything2 Content and the Everything2 Services."