A B N A Vets Forum Terms of Service: What Charlie..

This is my recent correspondence with the creator and administrator of writerscafe.org on the subject of the terms of service.

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Leah D wrote:
> Charles:
>
> I recently set up a group for folks who entered manuscripts in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award.  A lot of the entrants had never been exposed to peer review, and I thought it would be really useful.  The group has grown to 62 members over the course of about a month.
>
> A couple of members have an issue with the terms of service, specifically as pertains to the rights of the site to our work.  They think that it's not quite kosher that you'd have perpetual rights to display our work because it might interfere with future publication, or even with future sales (the theory being, why pay for what you can read for free?)  I have pointed out the advantages a polished, published work has in the market over fragments of early drafts, but the issue keeps cropping up. 
>
> If members are reluctant to post their work here for peer review, it defeats the purpose of the group -- what troubles me most is that some creative people will never get the help that could boost them over the barrier between amateur and professional.
>
> Could you please respond with a definitive answer as to why the rights to our work are described as they are in the terms of service, addressing specifically the worries about future publication.
>
> Leah Davidson, moderator, 'A B N A Vets.'
>
>
>
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> Time: 07:23:43 PM (CST | GMT -0600) Thursday, January 17, 2008
> Referring Page:
> User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 6.0; SLCC1; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; Media Center PC 5.0; .NET CLR 3.0.04506; MSN 9.0;MSN 9.1; MSNbQ002; MSNmen-us; MSNcOTH)
> IP Address: 75.161.18.253
> User ID: 6364
> User Name: MindMuse
>
>
>
>
>  
We reserve the right to post your work perpetually simply because we
don't want some writer to post their work, then suddenly turn around and
say I don't give you that right any more and sue us because we didn't
remove their writing.

That being said, we've never, ever stopped any user from deleting any of
their work.  Indeed, we recommend that if they're sending it out for
publication, they should probably remove it from WritersCafe.org.  We
really see ourselves more as a critiquing and polishing site than a
publishing venue.

-Charlie

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As I thought, it's just something to preserve the site from legal action by any possibly litigious site member.

 

No. There are more elegant solutions to that.

Other things that could be agreed upon in the ToS:

1. User's responsibility to delete content himself
2. Requirement of a written notice by the user to writerscafe.org if system doesn't allow deletion or end of publication service
3. A leniency phase for content that is still being displayed and/or a recurring opt-in for online publication.


Look at the ToS of youwriteon.com for example:

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7. Your Information

Definition "Your Information" is defined as any information you provide to us or other users in relation to the YouWriteOn.com site and service including the registration, review process, listing of items for sale (including, without limitation, any description of items listed), your postings on the message boards and any other content that you post on the Site other than your Creative Work. You retain all copyright and all other rights to your Creative Work. You are solely responsible for Your Information, and Your Information must not infringe any of the rules of conduct behaviour on the Site.

To enable YouWriteOn.com to use Your Information on the site, you grant us a non-exclusive, world-wide, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, sublicensable (through multiple tiers) license right to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, and display such content throughout the world on our website and in any media. This is a standard practice for website content to enable websites to function and display information on their websites, view the conditions of use of major websites such as Amazon. Conditions of use are usually viewable at the base of most websites or through their help menus. You grant YouWriteOn.com and its affiliates and sublicensees the right to use the name that you submit in connection with such content, if they choose.

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You see how they don't want any perpetual rights to your work? Aren't they afraid of being sued? I guess not.
And judging by the size and general community clout, YWO seems to be run very professionally and enjoys lots of attention.




As to the necessity of that particular passus in the writerscafe.org ToS, I'm just not convinced yet.

 I suggest that anyone who has concerns about the ToS to contact Charlie yourselves.  The contact button is at the bottom of the page, on the right, just above the ad for his site Mappington.

I agree that there are better ways at protecting themselves than asking for perpetual rights.