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Post by LaFille on May 2, 2010 3:57:44 GMT
They're not small changes... Last I read them it was a short & sweet, easy to understand blurb but it now switched to a huge page with terms a la Microsoft. There's a warning on top of the board's main page when you log-in: (Effective date is today, May 1st.)
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Post by Ubereil on May 2, 2010 7:34:20 GMT
That one's eleven pages long... And what's up with all the capital text? Edit: Having skimmed to point 20 it seems like the only thing you'd might do by mistake (what, I'm not allowed to hack Pro Boards, send out viruses or disassemble their source code?) is to use an ad-blocker, which isn't allowed. Point 18 and 19 are probably worth reading, the rest is pretty much saying that ProBoards isn't responsible for what it's users does and you have to accept what you could not have not accepted and still be a member of the board. Übereil
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Post by Elliot Kane on May 2, 2010 9:48:44 GMT
Yeah. I'll be very impressed if anyone can fully understand all of that and be certain they've interpreted it all correctly. Far too much legalese and far too little plain English.
Apparently, anything we post can now be used by them to promote ProBoards, which I can't say I am keen on as it comes VERY close to them claiming intellectual copyright over anything we put here. As that's one of the least open and most legalese passages, it took me three reads to THINK I interpreted it right. I'm still not sure.
Either way, I'm really not happy with this as most of it is incomprehensible without the help of a lawyer, which is completely wrong and deeply unfair.
The way I see it, we have a number of options:
1. Ignore it, go on as we are, and see what comes. Risky, unless anyone here is really great at legalese.
2. Delete the Your Art, Stories & Poetry and Art & Graphics Creation sections. This would seem like a sensible idea if they really ARE claiming copyright over everything we put here. Much of Humanology would also need deleting and possibly other areas, too.
3. Move Chaos to another place. The extreme option, yes, as it means starting again from scratch. I'm not keen on this, for obvious reasons, but if the choice is moving or having to not post an awful lot of stuff for fear we are surredering copyright, it may be worth the inconvenience.
Your thoughts people, please.
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Post by Lews on May 2, 2010 10:02:28 GMT
Proboards doesn't own what you post, however:
They can show it off, edit it, translate it, use it, etc, however they wish, without being charged by you or telling you.
In all honesty, this will probably never happen. I believe google chrome had a similar set up with their EULA originally. You could take them to court if they tried to do something with your stuff beyond just advertising it as like 'hey, look at what people do on pro-boards!'
I wouldn't move or delete anything.
Lews
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Post by The Sonar Chicken on May 2, 2010 12:08:09 GMT
Hmmm... if you want to really move the board, i think there must be a way of getting hold of all that data and importing it. I wonder if Proboards allows you to download the database?
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Post by SPS on May 2, 2010 15:02:55 GMT
IIRC Facebook does the same thing now. No hair off my chest really.
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Post by rockergrl on May 2, 2010 15:32:05 GMT
So now I have to go through and find and delete any poetry or pictures I made
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Post by Elliot Kane on May 2, 2010 15:45:19 GMT
Not yet, K. We have a couple weeks yet to work out exactly what this all means - if anything. If it's the pain it looks like, I'll be deleting the entire section anyway. But that seems to be in some doubt. Lews & SPS obviously think it's a storm in a teacup, and they may be right. This is why I want to get all opinions BEFORE doing anything precipitous
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Post by rockergrl on May 2, 2010 15:46:49 GMT
Oh ok I already did delete some lol I will stop now
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Post by Elliot Kane on May 2, 2010 15:53:53 GMT
Thing is, the language is so opaque it could mean anything or nothing. If we DO end up with the worst case scenario, Chaos will be moving. Pain in the butt or not, it beats everyone's stuff being pirated. However, it would appear there is some precedent (Thanks, Lews & SPS and it may not be a real problem. I figure it's best to gain everyone's opinions before deciding on what to do
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Post by Dark Phoenix Rising on May 2, 2010 18:24:12 GMT
Also the EULA can't trump copyright, so I agree with Lews. Don't worry about it. All that's happened is that they've hired a lawyer to look at their T's and C's, who has attached some boiler plate legalise to their stuff, but not taken any laws in countries outside the US.
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Post by Flix on May 2, 2010 23:01:04 GMT
These are just observations from a second year law student who's taken Contracts and Intellectual Property (NOT a legal opinion or advice of any kind!!)
The capital text is there to protect against the legal argument that ProBoards slipped in terms (a la fine print) in bad faith. Usually, through litigation, courts hold that certain contract provisions have to be prominent and obvious for public policy reasons. Even still, courts could disregard boilerplate terms if it's established no one ever reads them.
Frankly, any provisions that say "you hereby grant a perpetual...irrevocable license" and "you hereby waive any and all claims" should throw up big red warning signs. All of section 15 looks like crap I would not want applied were I running a forum, that, say, was all about sharing personal creations. The indemnity and required arbitration provisions pretty much guarantee you would never be able to go forward with a claim if ProBoards started, I don't know, using your pictures for advertising.
But, when applied practically to CC, what are we talking about? Some photos? I don't think, realistically, ProBoards is ever going to find any use for our stuff. Could they? Sure. But I wouldn't worry about it. I certainly wouldn't pack up Chaos and move somewhere else.
Oh yeah, and the "we can use your stuff for the website business or related business" stuff in section 15 definitely does not amount to copyright.
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Post by Elliot Kane on May 2, 2010 23:09:14 GMT
We're talking mainly about stories, poetry & artwork, Flix, though photos would be covered, too. According to my reading of it, they are pretty much granting themselves the right to take anything we post here and use it as they see fit. Or am I wrong?
I know little enough about Brit law and certainly less about US law, so your viewpoint is certainly vastly more informed than my own. Would they, for example, be able to publish a book of 'ProBoards Fiction' incorporating stories posted on their forums?
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Post by Elliot Kane on May 3, 2010 7:17:08 GMT
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Post by SPS on May 3, 2010 14:55:35 GMT
Since I use a school computer it is impossible to mess with the settings to allow me to not block ads. It seems like 50/50. So we'll see...
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Post by Cat on May 3, 2010 17:27:40 GMT
Well, anything said here ProBoards could look at, but meh
If according to some ''Patrick'' dude; using an AdBlock is stealing a service, tbf, not using an AdBlock would help the site financially, and then overall we'd have better developments. That's finnneee. They then can't expect to be ''stealin' '' photos and user generated content for their own use, they do have limits anyway, what with personal rights. As privacy goes, I'm not too bothered, people an hunt me down in a matter of minutes, (though I'm not disclosing my bank details ;D) In terms of their right over user generated content, they only have right to use it, and not to claim it as their own. Artist's perogative, it's still our own intellectual property. In short. I don't really care what they change their terms of service to, I'mma carry on doing my own thing. I also think, if you want to protect things, like pictures and poems and stuff, host them on another site, and link it back, therefore it will remain under the rights of the other site.
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Post by Elliot Kane on May 3, 2010 17:34:14 GMT
That would be one option, Cat, yes. A right pain, but an option. Running two interlinked forums is not something I'd really want to end up doing, though, to be honest. Too annoying for everyone.
I entirely echo your sentiments regarding the adblock vrs their own new ToS thing.
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Post by Dark Phoenix Rising on May 3, 2010 19:42:17 GMT
With the ad block stuff, if they make too much of a fuss with people using ad blocking software, then as with most things in the internet, their reputation is going to go down the pan, and people are going to migrate away from them to a company that's more friendly to ad blockers/users in general. Lets' face it, how many users are actually going to realise that the reason they can't see the site/got banned, is because people didn't show their ads?
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Post by LaFille on May 4, 2010 5:37:39 GMT
Also note that the language restriction was removed. As such, English-only is no longer obligatory unless the administrators decide to make it a rule of their forums in particular.
Regarding section 15 of the new ToS, my understanding of it is pretty much along the line of what Lews and Flix described. That said, while I believe that none of our stuff here will end up being used by Proboads in the way that we fear that the new terms allow them to, I do have a moral issue with the fact that they make us possibly grant them the right to do it even if they most likely never will.
The sections about ad-blocking and definition of Public Content (plus Community Guidelines) are other ones that leave me uneasy.
Those new terms make Proboards feel much less user-friendly and more like an aggressive mercantile organization to me.
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Post by Hand-E-Food on May 4, 2010 5:44:53 GMT
Generally, when public sites say they have the right to reproduce your work, it's because search engines technically reproduce your work in their results. Given they're a free site, they're hardly going to go to any lengths to restrict Google from returning the Proboards site in their search results. That's potential income down the drain.
There have been cases in the past of news sites having a go at Google. Google's news site was essentially a collection of plagiarised work from various online news sites. This removed the need for people to visit the news site, hence they lost hits and advertising revenue.
Remember, you get what you pay for.
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