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Re: Very interesting find



Peter Kurilecz wrote:
> While testing out a new search bot (Lexibot as mentioned
> in the NYTimes article from this past Thursday) I came
> across a very interesting website.
> Here is the link http://www.egroups.co.jp/group/archives
>
> Yes it is a Japanes website but note that it contains the
> postings for this listserv, does not appear to be all of
> them but quite a lot.
>
> I find this to be a very interesting situation.

It certainly raises some interesting legal questions.  eGroups was purchased by Yahoo! in August of
last year, which would seem to imply that any content posted to an eGroup is subject to the
intellectual property claims of Yahoo!  I could be reading this wrong, but wouldn't the text below
seemt to imply that Yahoo! is asserting an implicit (though non-exclusive) license to anything we post
to the list, once it gets reposted through eGroups?

Yahoo! Terms of Service
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
8. CONTENT SUBMITTED OR MADE AVAILABLE FOR INCLUSION ON THE SERVICE

"With respect to Content other than photos, graphics, audio or video you submit or make available for
inclusion on publicly accessible areas of the Service other than Yahoo! Clubs or Yahoo! Groups, the
perpetual, irrevocable and fully sublicensable license to use, distribute, reproduce, modify, adapt,
publish, translate, publicly perform and publicly display such Content (in whole or in part) and to
incorporate such Content into other works in any format or medium now known or later developed."

I'm all for mirroring content posted to public mailing lists anywhere it might be appropriate, as long
as the entity doing the mirroring isn't making any claim to rights over that content, but this
particular language seems a bit suspect to me.  Again maybe I'm just reading it wrong.  It could be
that the "submit or make available" condition wouldn't be satisfied, since most of us aren't actively
deciding to post to eGroups.  Would any lawyers out there like to set me straight?

=========================================================
 Cal Lee
 University of Michigan
 School of Information
 Phone: 734-647-0505
 http://www-personal.si.umich.edu/~calz/
 "How can I know what I think because I forgot what I said?"
                                         - Karl Weick, 1979

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