On 8 Aug 99, at 20:10, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> I'm considering moving my list of 500+ folks to eGroup. But I'm
> concerned about the first message in the attached clause of their legal
> agreement. Does this basically sign the list over to them?
> YOUR PROPRIETARY RIGHTS
> You agree that upon posting any material within a group open to the
> public on the Service, you grant eGroups, and its successors and
> assigns, a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty free, perpetual,
> non-revocable license under your copyrights or other intellectual
> property rights, if any, in such material, to use, distribute, display,
> reproduce, and create derivative works from such material in any and
> all media, in any manner, in whole or part, without any duty to account
> to you. ...
This looks like the stuff that was in the new GeoCities agreement when
Yahoo took it over. I think your intutition is correct: IMO it is
**WAY** overbroad and gives them **WAY** too many rights [for example,
they have the right to select stuff from your list and publish it in a
book without your permission].
The other thing is that this implies your granting to them rights you
don't have [since the authors of the individual messages would still hold
copyrights to their stuff] and so it would look like you would have to
inform everyone who subscribes to your list of this aspect of the
agreement and their acceding to join the list would be considered
agreeing to those terms...
If it were me, I wouldn't play their game [and I'd complain to them about
it]. If they made a really attractive offer, then I'd seek a better-
informed opinion either by consulting a lawyer directly or at the least
checking out on the intellectual-propery newsgroup...
/Bernie\
You further agree that upon posting any material within a
> private, members-only group on the Service, you grant eGroups, and its
> successors and assigns, a non-exclusive worldwide, royalty free,
> perpetual, non-revocable license under your copyrights or other
> intellectual property rights, if any, in such material to distribute,
> display, and reproduce such material to other members of that group.
> You also grant eGroups the right to authorize the downloading and
> printing in whole or in part of any material that you have posted to a
> group on the Service, by endusers for their personal use.
>
>
>
--
Bernie Cosell Fantasy Farm Fibers
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Pearisburg, VA
--> Too many people, too few sheep <--
