Today, Joe DiLascio spake to the list:
> According to that, the clause exists for the purpose of web mirroring.
It probably is -- there's no reason to believe that Yahoo! had or does
have any intention of stealing anyone's stuff. However, good intentions
stand for nothing. The issue is with the language of the end user
license, which doesn't limit the usage to just those good intentions.
Good intentions and morality tend to be forgotten when a company sees
green: "fair" isn't in the vocabulary of ultracapitalists.
> If they -still- tried to claim material 'submitted to any Yahoo
> property', given the statements made and the nature of the license,
Note that they aren't taking away your copyright: you still own the
property, but by "submitting to any any Yahoo! property" you are granting
them free, unrestricted license to use your content.
> I'd say it wouldn't hold up in court.. and if it did, the Yahoo
> userbase would drastically atrophy.
I see no reason why it wouldn't, unless the court also wanted to
invalidate shrink-wrap licenses, MUD licenses, etc., and Microsoft and
other companies have pockets far too deep to let any ruling that
threatens their IP (intellectual property, whatever that connotes) stand.
> Besides, "everyone else is doing it" :p (see article)
However, not everyone is leaving their intentions outside of the legally
binding document. I wouldn't shrug it off as, "No big deal," quite as
easily as you do.
-dak : Where have all the interesting threads gone?
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