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Grex > Coop11 > #174: A motion to protect Grex from copyright infringement suits. | |
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other
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A motion to protect Grex from copyright infringement suits.
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May 31 07:08 UTC 2000 |
A motion, for the legal protection of Grex, as follows:
"Let there be implemented a Terms of Use agreement between Grex
and its users which gives Cyberspace Communications Incorporated,
its agents and assigns permanent non-exclusive license to any
text posted in Grex's BBS or public Party channels, as a
condition of use of Grex."
This would protect Grex from legal liability in the practice of its current
policy of retaining and publishing any text posted for public consumption.
I would suggest that should this motion pass, the Terms of Use agreement would
become a part of the newuser program, and in order to include already
established users, it would be restated in the MOTD for some period of time.
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| 78 responses total. |
albaugh
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response 1 of 78:
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May 31 15:51 UTC 2000 |
Would this discourage participation in the public forums? Would people most
likely just blow by such a terms of use statement? I'd like to hear from the
legal minds on grex what their thoughts are on this.
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jmsaul
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response 2 of 78:
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May 31 16:49 UTC 2000 |
Were this to happen, I would leave Grex forever. Some might consider that
a good thing, of course, but I probably wouldn't be alone.
That is, by the way, a very broad license.
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aaron
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response 3 of 78:
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May 31 17:37 UTC 2000 |
So, rather than letting people control their own words, Grex demands
an ownership interest? Nothing "big brotherish" about this....
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other
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response 4 of 78:
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May 31 18:10 UTC 2000 |
On the contrary.
There is no implication of ownership, and i'd be happy to modify the proposal
to limit the scope of the license so as to restrict the publication rights
to within Grex. Of course, what the users do with the text, and where they
choose to repost, if they choose to repost it, is not Grex's concern.
I think that as an adjunct policy to this one, allowing a brief period (2-7
days) during which postings can be permanently deleted by the posters would
make sense. After that specified period, the postings would become a
permanent part of Grex BBS history.
My point is to try to reach a compromise between two absolute and
non-compatible positions on this issue. Of course there will be some
shakeout, and it is guaranteed that not everyone will be happy, but the
goal is to make a situation which has resulted in a lot of noise being
made into one that works for the largest proportion of the users of Grex.
(Of course, since only the votes of members count toward the result, that
may not happen, but we can hope.)
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aruba
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response 5 of 78:
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May 31 18:15 UTC 2000 |
How about staff just acts like reasonable human beings, and we don't try to
come up with rules to cover every situation? It's worked for us so far.
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goroke
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response 6 of 78:
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May 31 18:23 UTC 2000 |
I will also exit stage right from the BBS section of Grex.
As with Joe, I am sure there are several who think this would be a good thing.
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other
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response 7 of 78:
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May 31 18:38 UTC 2000 |
So what part of codifying in policy the current practice is so offputting that
you'd stop being a part of the BBS community rather than agree?
I am not being facetious. Your honest responses help frame this and give me
the perspective I need to see if this is as good an idea as it now seems to
me to be.
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jep
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response 8 of 78:
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May 31 18:51 UTC 2000 |
I'd like to hear more about the objections of those who have them.
I've generally considered anything I posted to be public domain, there
to annoy or to be appreciated by any and all who come by to see it.
That is to say, I expect it has no marketable value. I don't care if
anyone gathers my various postings and includes them on a CD, the
Internet, or into a book. Why should I?
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other
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response 9 of 78:
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May 31 19:34 UTC 2000 |
After giving this a lot of thought, and being more pissed off the more I think
about it, I am withdrawing the above motion and proposing the following
instead:
It is moved that:
The hide/expurgate command in Backtalk/BBS shall continue to function
as it now does, but shall be either modified or supplemented so as to more
effectively inform users how to view hidden/expurgated text;
The erase/scribble command in Backtalk/BBS shall continue to function
as it now does, except that the command shall be modified so that it is
only available for any given response for not more than one week after the
response is posted;
The logfile of erased/scribbled posts shall be repermitted so that it
is only readable by staff, including cfadm;
Usage and/or publication of the contents of the erase/scribble logfile
shall be done at the sole judgement of the staff of Grex, in accordance
with the high standards of ethics and community upon which Grex is
founded.
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jmsaul
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response 10 of 78:
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May 31 20:22 UTC 2000 |
Re #8: I don't consider my postings to be public domain -- and they aren't,
because I haven't explicitly put them there. I do occasionally write
for publication, and plan to keep doing it, and wouldn't casually
sign something away anyway.
My objection to the specific earlier language is that it was way too broad;
language that enumerated the specific uses expected in BBS and party would
have been better, but much longer -- and I still feel I ought to be able to
remove my own text, so there's no way I'm signing that right away.
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orinoco
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response 11 of 78:
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May 31 20:52 UTC 2000 |
I don't know much about copyright law. Could this motion be implemented in
such a way that people who post creative works here -- I'm thinking of the
Poetry conference in particular -- can retain teh rights to them?
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davel
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response 12 of 78:
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May 31 21:10 UTC 2000 |
What Mark said in #5.
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jmsaul
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response 13 of 78:
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May 31 22:38 UTC 2000 |
Re #11: That depends on whether you consider the right to withdraw your
work from publication to be important.
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spooked
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response 14 of 78:
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Jun 1 00:13 UTC 2000 |
Vote - no. We're not too bad at the moment, except we allow a few stupid
commands (whatever their names hide/expurgate/scribble???) which I never
use, and strongly believe are troublesome.
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gypsi
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response 15 of 78:
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Jun 1 07:17 UTC 2000 |
I agree with Eric's new proposal. Sounds fair.
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jep
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response 16 of 78:
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Jun 1 15:44 UTC 2000 |
I think it's perfect except I don't like the 1-week limitation.
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mooncat
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response 17 of 78:
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Jun 1 16:24 UTC 2000 |
I think the one week limitation makes sense. Being that if it is a
case of someone losing their temper- they should cool off in a week
(probably less). This way at least the option to permanently delete is
there- if only for a short time. The text might be there long enough
to create a thread from it, but perhaps not.
Say someone enters a blistering response- INTENDING to delete it all
and not enter it, but just types it out to vent their frustrations. By
accident they hit return. Their horrible response is now in public-
and even scribbled is readable. This way they can remedy the
accidental posting and just get rid of it.
Yes, we should all be mature and responsible and take the brunt of our
mistakes. But something like that, that was never intended to be
public- are you REALLY going to tell me that it's so awful to
permanently delete it? We all slip up, we all make mistakes. If you
even TRY to sit there and tell me you haven't... well, we'll all know
you're a liar.
I like this idea- neither side is fully happy- but with an issue like
this they won't be. Postings can be gotten rid of for a week, but
after they're 'established' in the item they're there to stay.
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pfv
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response 18 of 78:
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Jun 1 16:34 UTC 2000 |
Ahh, the Art Of Compromise.. ;-)
I personally do not see the point <shrug> Either you CAN or you
CAN'T delete your "property".. It's that simple.
NOW.. on the side of "eww.. I was hacked!" - it MIGHT make sense
to NOT allow a RANGE to scribble.. or even to arbitrarily code
to permit no more than 'N' "scribbles-per-day".
As I've said before, staff/root has never been vindictive or
'personal'. So, fine - let 'em see the log if they need it to
recover from a twit: they'd do the same with mail if they could
help. Monthly waxing the censor-log may also be sensible - or at
least as often as BU are made.
BTW, I've rarely had to "go back" to a post to puzzle anything
out. Most responses are specific for a reason, and if I get
confused, I can typically "ask around" to see if I missed some
significant crapolla.
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jmsaul
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response 19 of 78:
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Jun 1 17:18 UTC 2000 |
I think the week is too short. I agree with Pete that, if people own their
posts, they should be able to delete them any time; I also agree that it
probably won't happen very often. But the option should be there.
I don't have much of a problem with having that log accessible to staff from
a user point of view, but I think it could lead to more hassles for Grex as
a coprporation, and the Grex staff, than simply nuking the stuff would.
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scg
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response 20 of 78:
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Jun 1 17:34 UTC 2000 |
I'm not a lawyer, and don't know how to words this in legalese, or whether
that's what Eric did in #0, but it seems to me that it would make sense for
Grex to be able to keep stuff posted in the Grex conferences in the Grex
conferences. If people post it there, I would assume they are willing to have
it there, and don't have so strong a copyright interest in it that they would
want to withdraw it from Grex before publishing it somewhere else. I don't
think Grex should have any right to stuff people post here beyond the right
to keep it in the conferences where it was posted.
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pfv
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response 21 of 78:
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Jun 1 17:48 UTC 2000 |
That end-runs deletion by the owner, soon or later.
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flem
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response 22 of 78:
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Jun 1 18:25 UTC 2000 |
resp:20 makes sense to me.
I'm still against the notion of a scribble command that actually scribbles
things (I'd be far more comfortable with a motion to disable the scribble
command), but it seems to me that if people really want this, resp:9 is a
much better proposal than any of the other motions I've seen so far.
I especially like the last paragraph of it.
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jmsaul
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response 23 of 78:
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Jun 1 19:04 UTC 2000 |
Meaning that the staff has the right to do whatever they want, including
restoring a scribbled post if they feel the person shouldn't have scribbled it?
I'll accept that if you change the senior staff title to Big Brother.
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other
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response 24 of 78:
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Jun 2 02:49 UTC 2000 |
Come ON, Joe. Show me precedent for that concern. On GREX. The point is that
the actions of the staff in regard to the contents of that file would reflect
the same values Grex has maintained all along. Staff simply do *not*
unscribble responses just because they feel like it, and I've yet to hear of
ANY instance of a response being restored to conferences once scribbled (by
anyone other than the scribbler).
resp:16 jep, can you be a little clearer on what it is you didn't like
about the proposal in resp:9.
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