My take on the non-commercial side of the agreement is that MM or anyone else can do what they want with a non-commercial submission. My licensing terms are pretty broad: "Use and distribute freely. No warranties express or implied". If I upload freebie code it really is alright with me if someone uses it. It would be the decent thing to do to acknowledge the original author - although I am not so naïve as to believe everyone does that. Still, an up-front statement that "we aren't going to do the decent thing" is effectively a slap at the developer who is doing the upload.
The current wording may functionally get the job done but frankly it shows no class and an unambiguously aggressive intent in a resource whose central tenet is sharing and community assistance. Things like this generally happen when legal gets to do things without sufficient oversight. On the commercial side, if the right to distribute etc. only applies to works I *upload*, then this does not affect me as you cannot download something from the devex that I'm selling. This is implied in the final paragraph of the agreement but not expressly stated. This should be clarified promptly. It’s a distraction nobody on either side of the fence needs. -------------------------------------------- Matt Robertson [EMAIL PROTECTED] MSB Designs, Inc. http://mysecretbase.com -------------------------------------------- -----Original Message----- From: Kevin Graeme [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, March 10, 2003 7:53 AM To: CF-Talk Subject: RE: Subject: MM will OWN my Devex Submissions? I think you're right to be concerned. I remember when Apple did this with their online iDisk accounts and Yahoo with their Geocities accounts. In all these cases we can guess that the intent is that they just need to have the right to copy and redistribute the material which is the purpose of the DevEx. But the problems arise with the phrases "perpetual", "irrevocable", and "modify". I'll leave "create derivative works" up to the jury here though in my opinion it's pretty significant. A basic tenet of copyright law is that the creator is granted automatic copyright. The submission requirements you pointed out appear to do more than just grant a limited right to copy to Macromedia for the purposes of operating the DevEx. It appears that agreeing to them constitutes a complete signing over of copyright ownership to Macromedia. That means they can call it their own and resell it at a profit without recompensing you. They can even integrate it into their own products without recompense. The question is how much of that is the purpose of the DevEx? We all use it to help our own projects, and MM shouldn't be any different. However, it seems to me that MM is in a somewhat unique position by having the ability to integrate submissions into products like Dreamweaver. Is there a difference though between keeping the code and ownership intact and bundling it or the alternative of taking the code concepts and creating a derivative work they call their own and make a profit on? The community persuaded Apple to change their policy. It's up to the community to make Macromedia change theirs. I'm not a lawyer, but I suspect a lawyer would tell you to run, not walk, away from the DevEx based on the current terms. -Kevin > -----Original Message----- > From: Tom Sammons [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Friday, March 07, 2003 4:38 PM > To: CF-Talk > Subject: Subject: MM will OWN my Devex Submissions? > > > Jeez, I wasn't going to post anything regarding all the MM site changes > because there was so much traffic here about it, but I logged into the > CF DevEx and found that a few of my submissions were missing. > > So, I went a step further to see what the new submission areas looked > like, and there was the following in the submission agreement: > > (d) Commercial Submission Only: With respect to the Commercial > Submission only, You hereby grant Macromedia a perpetual, irrevocable, > royalty-free and worldwide license to use, test, copy, modify, create > derivative works of, publicly display, publicly perform or demonstrate > the Submission, and/or place a link to a website in connection with such > Submission. > > Non-commercial Submission was very similar, if not the same (my eyes > bugged out, I can't remember now 8-). > > I don't remember this before, but this sounds strikingly like the stuff > that MS pulled when they were pushing a centralized storage > product/service. > > Am I reading it wrong, or doesn't this say that I would be giving them > licensed ownership ("create derivative works of") whatever product or > tag I might submit? > > Please, please correct me and tell me I am reading it wrong. > > Tom > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Archives: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/index.cfm?forumid=4 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/index.cfm?method=subscribe&forumid=4 FAQ: http://www.thenetprofits.co.uk/coldfusion/faq Structure your ColdFusion code with Fusebox. Get the official book at http://www.fusionauthority.com/bkinfo.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.4
