Re:Something Scary for you Geocities Site Owners...

> Yeah, this has come up on the other list that I'm a member of as
well (the Star
> Wars RPG list). One of the guys on that list recieved the following
letter from
> Yahoo after sending them a letter asking about the new terms:Thank
you for
> contacting us re: Yahoo! GeoCities.
> We'd like to be really clear - Yahoo! does not claim to own content
> submitted to it by its users.
> 
> Our terms of service require homesteaders to grant us the right to
> reproduce and otherwise use their content when we post and maintain it
> on the Yahoo! Network.  There are simple and important reasons we have
> this policy and they are designed to benefit you. Listed below are two
> of the biggest reasons:
> 
> 1. When you upload a Web page or image to us, we often need to copy it
> to put it on the many computers that we use to serve home pages to
> people that want to look at your page. We need you to give us the
right
> to copy and reproduce that content.
> 
> 2. We also might want to feature your home page on the front page of
> Yahoo! GeoCities or elsewhere on the Yahoo! Network, so you can get
more
> people to see your page. We need to have that right; otherwise we
> couldn't reproduce this content.
> 
> Yahoo! has always been focused on providing users with a compelling
> experience on the Web, and the Terms of Service are standard
throughout
> the Yahoo! Network.  We hope you understand that all of our actions
are
> taken with you, the user, in our mind.
> 
> Thank you again for taking the time to write to us.
> 
> The bad news is that this seems to be a form letter, and from what I
can infer
> from the terms of agreement they give Yahoo! rights to ANY pictures
or anything
> posted on a Yahoo! page, which means that if you have a Spelljammer
page on
> there using the Spelljammer logo, Yahoo! could then try to claim
ownership of
> the logo, which would get TSR/WotC pissed off, and would give them
an actual
> legitimate reason for clamping down on fan sites... My advice for
everyone who
> has a site on Geocities is that they move it post haste, there are
other free
> webpage providers out there, like Angelfire, Xoom.com, etc.
> By the way, I apologise for the off-topic post, but I feel that it's
important
> for anyone with a Geocities page, and I know that a lot of people on
the list
> have them.

First, since SJ only exists on the web and with us now I'd say this is
*very* on topic (but the list admin may disagree).  Second they know
what their terms say and it isn't the same thing that form letter
says.  Personally I now refuse to have any of my stuff on Yahoo or
Geocities.  For anyone with web pages that might in the future wish to
display something I create I thank you for your interest but if you
web page or provider has this sort of terms of agreement I'm afraid I
have to insist you not put my stuff up.

  Incidentally I recently finished converting my SJ ships to a
postable form (from my old, now proprietary, word processor) and
should put them up on the list in a few days.  Anyone wishing to place
them on their web site should contact me privately
(spellj@??????????.com) for copyright info and so I can add you to the
list of people I'll send the deckplans to when I recover them (after
much searching I've discovered I left them at my parents'
house--doh!!).  I plan to send my Antships along with a few other
ships (some taken from various sources and made "standard" while
others are my own inventions).  This includes the newest elven
vessels:  the Raptorship and the Ladybugship.  See how the elves are
advancing to fight the wars of the future.  The antships and the
Ladybug ship all have complete deckplans to *actual* scale (not the
random, oh, I think this hammership should be 60 tons, scale).  I've
used standard SJ rules for making them and anyone wishing to convert
them with Leroy Van Camps' design system is welcome to do so (as long
as they post both versions on their web pages).
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