...this puts the idea of having a forum for member's writings in a bit of skew.  I wouldn't post anything up if it was going to belong to someone else...

Unless you stick in a specific clause saying 'cept that stuff'.

Hmmm...that needs thought.

But other than that, I get it and it's fine with me.

Jendaiya: The reason we're going to do it the way we've planned is that we don't want to make everyone re-register to pass through the license (just blanking the message board data and starting over would be the easiest way.)  We're going at it in a bit more time-consuming way specifically so that everyone can keep their bulletin board info intact.  So you will still be Double Infinity and I'll still be Number Five.  And we'll always have Paris.

S&I: There are some problems with a clause like that, I think (about a writer's forum exemption), although it's an important question that I've been worrying about too.  If we start saying that certain kinds of writing are exempt, then we're opening a door on Shadowmarch for someone to, say, post a story that has no overt Shadowmarch material in it on the writer's forum, thus exempting it, then claim later on that I stole their ideas.

(I hope it's understood that I don't think 99.9 percent of our potential members would dream of doing such a thing, but it does happen, and if it did it would put us out of the online-fiction business at the very least.)

Two things to consider around avoiding the you-post, we-own syndrome or accepting it:

1. If you want to avoid us technically "owning" something of yours, you could post links to material rather than the material itself, then do the discussion on the bulletin board.  (This would probably be a better idea for long segments of material anyway, because if we have lots of people uploading two- or three-hundred page novels-in-progress to the server, it's going to slow it down for everyone.)  Simply discussing something or linking to something doesn't give ownership rights the same way posting it does, otherwise I'd be able to claim I own rights to Tolkien, Neil Gaiman, Roger Zelazny, and other people who've been discussed on the board already.

2. Even if you do post something under the you-post, we-own rubric, bear in mind that this is meant to protect Shadowmarch (me and three other people, but primarily me and my wife and partner Deb) from being sued.  Can anyone actually imagine a situation in which I would want to take someone else's material and claim it was mine?  I'm sure some of you are very good writers -- your message board postings certainly show wit and imagination -- but I still can't foresee a situation where I'd be so down on my luck I'd want to grab someone else's story and try to claim it as my own by a legal technicality.  And doing so would certainly result in a horrible legal tangle, discredit me forever with my readers and site-subscribers, and generally be bad news for my career, not to mention my self-respect.

So that's my thoughts at the moment.  Responses, anyone?

Sounds good to me. Just point me in the right direction so that I can click. When it gets here, that is.

Dang, you two sure have a lot of posts.  I can see why you're the ones asking questions.  If the legal stuff went the wrong way, we'd own the whole last three weeks of your lives...!

Thanks for being understanding, guys.  We'll keep dragging this stuff out in the open so at least people know what we're doing and why.

I could offer temporary upload space too...th' instant I put anything in my home directory here 's available.

Three weeks?  Is that all? 
I thought it was longer.
Eh well...you'll prolly want a refund after a while anyawy...heh.

How do I sign this new ToS?

Message received, understood and appreciated.

I'm sure you know this (in fact it seems to be implicit in your post), but any such system should require the signee to read the agreement. A "click here to agree, click there to see wat you are agreeing too" isn't terribly legally robust.

No problems with this. I'll be happy to agree once we can.

Still, I lament the need for this. When Jordan and Pratchett were in the Netherlands two months ago, they also talked about this. Once upon a time everybody understood the rules and nobody would ever think of making trouble for an idea they had. The fan-scene just behaved.
It's this silly notion that ideas are worth money, and the one in ten-thousand people who make trouble that make this sort of thing necessary. *sighs*

Yeah...the whole necessity for this kind of thing really irkes me.

Just reading through the Rime of the Ancient Triloger today underscores the point--Tad points out that in many ways MS&T can be called a 'copy' of LotR.  Yet obviously similatrities to other works don't make something bad--a good idea is simply a good idea and should be used if it fits.

Ohh...this is getting off-topic.  Stopping now.

Originally posted by Shadows and Ice:
[QBIt raises a slight problem for people who don't have direct access to somewhere they can upload to, but 'm sure people here will help out in that respect.[/QB]

*nod* I think you're posolutely correct, Oh Shadow Queen :) There are a variety of spaces available with varying volume limits -- and I'm sure others around here know more about it than I do.

One place that comes to mind (but might have some volume limits): the TreeHouse web space has an upload area that could be used for some of this, although we've never really talked about any guidelines or anything like that. I doubt my fellow lysters would mind at all since we're all Tadfans -- esp. if it were something temporary-like: maybe post it there for a week or so for people to have some access during the discussion phase & then take it down to make room for more/others. (Like I said, I know there are some volume limits, but I can't at the moment recall specifics.)

Anyhow, just a thought...
~Lisa

I'd also like to point out that programs like hotline and gnutella can be used for legitamate purposes allowing any computer connected to the internet to be a server which significantly increases the number of people who could potentially host(ie only limiting people who pay for their connection by the hour since even a modem can handle the demands of serving text downloads)
It would also make it easier for people to update their stuff if they are hosting it themselves.

Travis

In theory, Ian, God only knows.  (You can see what a keen grasp of legal niceties I have.)


In practice, who's going to publish it, other than you?  The only person who could possibly claim some kind of ownership (against your copyright, as you pointed out) is me, because it was posted on my website.


I'm not going to do that.  Even if you became incredibly successful overnight, J. K. Rowling successful, to the point where even fragments of unfinished stories were worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, I'm still not going to claim something of yours as my own -- or even reprint the excerpt you've already made public -- without your permission.


The legalism of you-post, we-own is to protect us from being sued, not to make other people's non-Shadowmarch material belong to me.


And you have as yet signed no such license, anyway.  So if you or anyone of our other bulletin board members are truly concerned, or just don't want to have to worry about this intellectual property stuff, take the excerpt down and replace it with a link.


I hope this helps clear things up a bit...

[ June 20, 2001: Message edited by: Tad ]