I stumbled across our local internet service provider Eastlink's terms of service yesterday and noticed some confusing and maybe disturbing points in it. I can understand them wanting to ensure people aren't sharing copyrighted material to reduce the company's liability, but does point 'e' not give them unlimited posession of anything you put online? Is this kind of thing actually legally binding?
(c) You shall not use EastLink to solicit users to become subscribers of other Internet access or online information services competitive with EastLink.
(e) You shall not upload, post or otherwise make available on EastLink any material protected by copyright, trademark or other proprietary right without the express permission of the owner of the copyright, trademark or other proprietary right. You hereby grant EastLink the right to edit, copy, publish and distribute any material made available on EastLink by you, and grant EastLink a non-exclusive, royalty free, world-wide, perpetual license, with the right to sublicense, to use in any way any ideas or materials submitted to EastLink.
Comments
Alan - April 16, 2004 11:03 am
Those are very strong but somewhat wacky legal statements. Does this mean that they have control over the e-commerce they convey or the e-commerce web sites? You cannot, by the way, have intellectual property in an idea (only an expression of the idea) but it would appear to say that they have an unrestricted license to content posted on their internet services. Could they publish a book called the Best of Eastlink Blogs 2003 and keep every one of the 12 pennies they would reap in profit? Could be.
Mike - April 16, 2004 7:00 pm
"to use in any way any ideas or materials submitted to EastLink."
Depends on what they mean by "submitted." At first blush, this would seem to indicate only that if you send them an email saying one of the following:
"Eastlink, you're great! I would recommend you to anyone!" or
"Eastlink, I've got a great idea for something you should offer your customers!"
...they would be able to do what they want with your idea or comment without having to pay you for it.
Of course, better safe than sorry. If you have a question about their TOS, ask them and hope for a clear, written response.