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Yes, some of these TOS have clear copyright notices. Are these valid?
by uvdiv 14y ago
Yes, some of these TOS have clear copyright notices. Are these valid?
- pents90 14y ago[I work at Docracy] We believe that if everybody who visits and uses the company's site is implicitly held to these terms, then they should be able to have a copy of the terms. We would be very surprised if a company asked us to stop tracking these policies, and nobody has yet.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- pents90 14y agoYou are right, and we believe that what we are doing represents "fair use", as per _delirium above.
- matt2000 14y ago[I work at Docracy] The first part here isn't necessarily true. Many sites don't keep previous versions of their terms online, so the version of the terms you agreed to might no longer be available.
- Drakim 14y agoThe looming threat would be if a company declared copyright infringement to get rid of an embarrassing earlier version of a ToS from your website.
- _delirium 14y agoThe copyright notices are valid, but fair-use exceptions still apply, and fair-use tends to be read fairly broadly with this kind of document, compared to, say, lengthy excerpts from a novel. I'm not aware if there's any solid caselaw specifically on quoting excerpts from contracts or licenses, though.
- wisty 14y agoIANAL, but I think a big factor would be whether it acts as a substitute. Since they aren't being used as a TOS on docracy, then it shouldn't be an issue. If you copy a TOS and use it on your own site, then it could be a problem.