mastodonmigration

mastodonmigration, 1 year ago (edited 1 year ago)

@takelgryph @monbrielle Not all Terms of Service are the same. Mike Masnick is right about the Snapchat terms in the article, and the important reason is the limitation [emphasis mine]:

"We will use this license for the LIMITED PURPOSE of operating, developing, providing, promoting, and improving the Services..."

Twitter and Bluesky do not so limit their licenses effectively giving them a co-ownership of the content.

#twittermigration #ContentLicense

mastodonmigration, 1 year ago

@diazona Thanks, sorry for the confusion. The post you replied to is 2/3 in a thread in which the top post says: "You effectively make them co-owners of your content." The sentence in 2/3 relates to that previous context, but it is not as clear as it should be. Secondarily, not sure, but the rationale could be along the lines of it being you that is reproducing the copies by posting your content. Mastodon may simply be the technology you are using to do so.

#twittermigration #ContentLicense

mastodonmigration, 1 year ago

@austin @thomasfuchs @privacat No, because you did not agree to any Terms of Service with Mastodon that extracts a license for your content. Mastodon is presenting your content, but you have not "effectively" given them anything. The analogy would be talking on the telephone or emailing someone, you don't give the phone company or your ISP a license to content.

#ContentLicense

mastodonmigration, 1 year ago

@diazona A license is different from "ownership" of the content. You own the copyrite, but you give them a broad license to the content. What they get depends on the terms. In the case of Twitter and Bluesky, the license terms are very broad, giving them "effectively" co-ownership. But you are right, they do not own the content, just a perpetual license to it. It is not against the law to not have a license. That is just what they want you to think. Most Mastodon instances do not take licenses.

mastodonmigration, 1 year ago

So it’s up to you whether you want to give away licenses to your content. You have been led to believe that the necessary cost of using internet services is to give away a broad license. It’s not, you have options.

(1) Twitter Terms of Service: https://twitter.com/en/tos
(2) Bluesky Terms of Service: https://staging.bsky.app/support/tos
(3) Mastodon Privacy Policy (mastodon.social): https://mastodon.social/privacy-policy

3/3
#twittermigration #ContentLicense

mastodonmigration, 1 year ago

@TomDelargy Here is the information that Twitter provides on Deactivating/Deleting your account: https://help.twitter.com/en/managing-your-account/how-to-deactivate-twitter-account

Note: "Deactivating your account does not remove data from Twitter systems."

No mention of the expiration of the content license.

#twittermigration #ContentLicense

mastodonmigration, 1 year ago

@thomasfuchs Actually, it depends on the terms of the license, but given how broad the Twitter and Bluesky licenses are, effectively they co-own it.

"You may be shocked to learn once you post on these sites, although you still “own” the photograph you grant the social media sites a license to use your photograph anyway they see fit for free AND you grant them the right to let others use you picture as well!"

(https://nyccounsel.com/who-owns-photos-and-videos-posted-on-facebook-or-twitter/)

#twittermigration #ContentLicense

mastodonmigration, 1 year ago

@takelgryph @monbrielle That said, social media companies are afforded broad protections against people suing them for publishing their content (Section 230), and the fact that "everyone does it" does not mean that it is necessary. Corporations do it because they can. They have convinced you that giving them a license is OK. If you are cool with that, go ahead, but you do have the option of not giving up rights to your content by posting on Mastodon.

#twittermigration #ContentLicense

mastodonmigration, 1 year ago (edited 1 year ago)

@elduvelle @Gargron Screenshot...

But, it's hard to show it. Really looks good when dealing with threads.

mastodonmigration, 1 year ago

@Gargron Absolutely loving the way threads are now displayed! Huge improvement!

#twittermigration

mastodonmigration, 1 year ago

@simon_lucy @haayman Not all contracts are the same. It depends on the fine print. You grant them whatever rights you have agreed to in their terms of service. It is necessary to grant them the right to publish and reproduce, but these terms are much broader, and give Twitter and Bluesky effectively unlimited rights to your content. That is not necessary.

mastodonmigration, 1 year ago

@simon_lucy @aurynn Those things will be detailed in the contract. You are not granting the book publisher an open ended right to your content.

mastodonmigration, 1 year ago

@lookitmychicken @aurynn Seems fine. It would definitely be good to have these things "lawyer tested." The distinction might lie in whether something is a transmission medium versus a publisher. For instance, an ISP does not need a license to your content since it is a transmission medium. If something wants to do something with your content that's where the license comes in. It would be very interesting to get a real copywrite/intellectual property lawyer to comment on this.

mastodonmigration, 1 year ago

@lookitmychicken @aurynn What is interesting here is that this recommended boilerplate Privacy Notice does not seem to contain any license. This is consistent with mastodon.social 's privacy policy: https://mastodon.social/privacy-policy

It seems that the policy describes what the server does with your post, but does not assert a license. Missing something here?

mastodonmigration, 1 year ago

@aurynn From this conversation it seems like Mastodon and the Fediverse need to not just wing it, but rather have recommended terms of service for instances that are not overly broad but give the instance the protections it needs without taking rights it does not require. In essence, a good contract. IANAL, but your terms seem fine. It would be very surprising if simply reformatting content were determined to be in violation.

mastodonmigration, 1 year ago

@coachtony Heard that invite codes were being sold for top $$$. 🤦‍♂️

mastodonmigration, 1 year ago (edited 1 year ago)

@gme @tchambers This is what they say. Social media is afforded broad legal protections (Section 230) without licensing, but even if they feel "safer" taking a license, not all licenses are the same. It is very possible to craft a license that gives them every protection they would need for publishing your content, but what they want is to mine and monetize it, and for that they need to effectively co-own the content.

#twittermigration #ContentLicense

mastodonmigration, 1 year ago

@gme @tchambers Actually, they are different, in that the Bluesky terms are a lot more restrictive than most. But, you are right that corporate social media has led you to believe you need to give them a license to your content in order to use their service. That's because they want to process and monetize your content. Mastodon does not do that. Most Mastodon instances don't take a license to your content.

mastodonmigration, 1 year ago

@samueljohnson Understood, this is a silly "alternative history" example that is supposed to be a clue to the insane overreach that Bluesky is attempting.

mastodonmigration, 1 year ago (edited 1 year ago)

OK, still looking for the answer to the insane overreach #Bluesky are attempting.

Hint #3:

"The AT Protocol is a networking technology created by Bluesky to power the next generation of social applications." (https://atproto.com/)

3/4
#ContentLicense #DigitalRights

mastodonmigration, 1 year ago

@theendismeh Yeah, that's pretty terrible, but that's not the most insane overreach that Bluesky is attempting.

mastodonmigration, 1 year ago

@f800gecko Right, maybe because TCP/IP emerged from DARPA they couldn't extract a content license for all data transmitted using TCP/IP.

mastodonmigration, 1 year ago (edited 1 year ago)

Nobody? OK, here's another hint to the insane overreach #Bluesky are attempting.

Hint #2 comes from alternative history:

Back in 1974 technology pioneer Robert Metcalfe at Xerox PARC developed the Ethernet PROTOCOL upon which the internet is based. Astutely, Xerox Terms of Service included an irrevocable, non-exclusive, perpetual, transferable, worldwide, royalty-free license any data sent over the Ethernet protocol. Which is why Xerox now effectively co-owns everything.

2/4
#ContentLicense

mastodonmigration, 1 year ago

@mattwells Close... you've almost got it!

#ContentLicense #DigitalRights