Tag: copyright

Should I Quit Facebook?

First, read the following excerpt of the “Licenses” clause of Facebook’s new terms of use:

You hereby grant Facebook an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to (a) use, copy, publish, stream, store, retain, publicly perform or display, transmit, scan, reformat, modify, edit, frame, translate, excerpt, adapt, create derivative works and distribute (through multiple tiers), any User Content you (i) Post on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof subject only to your privacy settings or (ii) enable a user to Post, including by offering a Share Link on your website and (b) to use your name, likeness and image for any purpose, including commercial or advertising, each of (a) and (b) on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof.

If that’s not bad enough, read the “Termination” section:

The following sections will survive any termination of your use of the Facebook Service: … Licenses …

Since I’ve been alerted to Facebook’s new terms of service, I will not longer be importing the posts from this blog to Facebook’s Notes application. Further, I will no longer be importing photos via the “my flickr” application or directly into Facebook’s default photo application.

Facebook is now just an elaborate address book to me.

Update: Consumerist has a nice summary and highlights that if you restrict your privacy settings then you may not be as exposed to the drastic licensing provision quoted above.

Copyright Final Exam

I’m about to take my Copyright Final. It’s a three-hour essay examination. I’m stoked. OK, not really. But, for the first time in my law school experience, we’re allowed to write an in-class exam on our laptops.

It will be interesting to see how this goes. We can only use Microsoft Word and we can’t use any of the drop-down menus, spellcheck, etc. I think we can use bold, italics, and underline.

We had the option to choose to write in a bluebook. Several people chose this, but I’m not sure why. Either (1) they don’t have a laptop or (2) they’re weary of a new and different testing experience.

I say, “bring it on.”

Bring it on!

Happy Fair Use Day

Happy Fair Use Day, which was apparently today or yesterday. It’s tough keeping track while living a day ahead of what I’m used to. (Link)

This is §107 of the U.S. Copyright Act, which provides a for exception to an author’s exclusive rights that come with copyright. Fair Use is generally what allows you to reproduce limited amounts of an author’s work for “purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or research” without infringing on an his copyright.

Be careful, though. If you use the “heart” of the author’s work (E.g. – A passage from a book that is so compelling as to be the only reason to buy the book.) then you could be found to be infringing.