🚀 go-pugleaf

Since the original article was incoherent and the URL maimed,
I thought it might be useful to followup with something I finally
found about the story that is understandable, from

http://www.sitepowerup.com/mb/view.asp?Action=Reply&BoardID=107348&Repl
=126

[note: this is not specifically an endorsement of the campaign,
as I personally do not believe in the copyright system at ALL,
(and for that matter I've always loathed GeoCensors' policies
on other matters) but it certainly sheds some light on this.]


Yahoo does the Right Thing (thanks!) 
by Mark J. Welch, Esq. (Adbility.com) 
posted 7/7/99 1:41:55 AM 

Today, Yahoo finally did the Right Thing, creating and posting
new "Terms of Service" for its GeoCities web sites. 

Yahoo has finally removed the unnecessarily broad license 
language it had earlier sought to trick "homesteaders" into 
accepting. The new terms of service are posted at 
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/geoterms.html

-----

Background: 

Ten days ago, on June 25, after combining the GeoCities web
sites into its own "family," Yahoo abruptly imposed a new 
"re-registration" requirement on all its GeoCities homesteaders,
telling them that it was because "We JUST want to make sure 
all your member information is safe and secure after we 
combine our two databases" (emphasis added; see 
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/geoterms.html).

But in fact, the re-registration was NOT "just" about 
combining databases: Yahoo sought to impose a 
dramatic change to the relationship with the GeoCities 
"homesteaders."

The new Terms of Service required GeoCities homesteaders to
grant to Yahoo, "the royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable,
non-exclusive and fully sublicensable right and license to use, 
reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative 
works from, distribute, perform and display such Content (in 
whole or part) worldwide and/or to incorporate it in other works 
in any form, media, or technology now known or later developed."
(http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/geoterms.html, section 8)

This amounted to a multi-billion dollar "rights grab" (or in the
homesteading parlance, a "land grab") by Yahoo, made even 
more offensive because the company tricked its "GeoCitizens"
into accepting the new TOS without ever knowing that it
represented a huge transfer of their legal rights. 

In response to this obscene "rights grab," many GeoCities 
homesteaders and consumer advocates condemned Yahoo
and called for a boycott of the company. (You can see a time
line of the boycott-related events at http://come.to/boycottyahoo)

In response to the public outcry, on Wednesday, June 30, 
Yahoo added two sentences to Section 8 of the Yahoo terms 
of service, but these changes did not alter the broad license 
in any meaningful way. 

Then, late on Friday, July 2, Yahoo posted a fascinating "side
letter" announcement about its Terms of Service, at 
http://docs.yahoo.com/docs/info/toshelp.html, in which the
company purported to waive or release any claims in the TOS
that exceeded the license it actually needed in order to display
homesteaders' content. But this side letter was legally not
binding on Yahoo, and this duplicity served only to insult the
former "GeoCitizens" who were upset at Yahoo. At the same
time, Yahoo told journalists that the boycott, which by then
included thousands of GeoCities homesteaders, consisted only
of "one or two" individuals. It seemed that the company just 
didn't "get it." 

Today (Tuesday, July 6), in response to a request for an
interview with CNBC, Yahoo told CNBC that the company 
would make no further changes to its terms of service, 
and that Yahoo refused to allow its employees to appear 
on-camera in any news story in which any former GeoCitizen
spoke in favor of the Yahoo/GeoCities boycott.

NEW TOS:

This evening, Yahoo changed its mind, and posted a new
and separate "GeoCities Terms of Service" at 
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/geoterms.html

The new terms of service eliminate all of the "rights grab"
language that was included in the original terms of service,
and includes language that actually does limit Yahoo's 
claims to its homesteaders' intellectual property rights.
(In fact, I think that Yahoo's new GeoCities Terms of 
Service might not actually expressly grant to GeoCities 
all the legal rights that it may actually need to operate
the service in the way it said it does, over the past week.)

EVERYONE WINS:

So, in the end, everyone wins. Yahoo has responded to
its customers' reasonable requests, and has modified its
terms to only obtain the legal rights it needs to operate
its GeoCities service in essentially the same way that the
service operated before the merger. Consumers win
because they won't lose important intellection property
rights to the creative works they may choose to display
at the GeoCities web site. 

CAVEAT:

I won't pretend that Yahoo's new terms of service are
perfect, and I have not reviewed the entire new Terms
of Service (this is not an "endorsement" of the new TOS).

And I am not comfortable that non-GeoCities
content submitted to Yahoo are still covered by the
broad, sweeping "rights grab" language still included
in the separate Yahoo Terms of Service. 

Nor do I think that Yahoo should be proud that it
finally acceded to reasonable consumer demands only
after failing to quash complaints through trickery, 
deceit, and delay.

But in the end, Yahoo finally did the Right Thing. 
I am withdrawing my call for a boycott of the company.

I am pleased that consumers will now, once again, 
have one more reasonable choice of a free place to 
display original web pages for the world to see.

-- Mark J. Welch, Editor & Publisher
-- Adbility's Web Publishers' Advertising Guide
-- http://www.Adbility.com/WPAG/ 
-- (925) 462-8483 voice - Pleasanton, California