[cc-community] using Creative Commons as a fig leave
drew Roberts
zotz at 100jamz.com
Tue Jul 7 06:48:19 EDT 2009
On Monday 06 July 2009 23:27:20 Giorgos Cheliotis wrote:
> This would also decouple such issues from
> the licenses themselves, where the latter are just made available for
> anyone to use, but the certification process aims at helping me decide
> which online video hosting service I should use for my latest
> recording wihtout me having to go through lengthy and complex TOS
> pages every time.
>
> Any thoughts on that?
Yes... Bingo.
Going down this road, in the long run, it might make sense for the community
to develop standard TOS documents for sites to adopt unchanged and in a
certifiable manner.
If you think about it a bit, the current situation is absurd on the face of
it.
All your life you are told that you should get a lawyers advice before signing
contracts and the like.
So now we have the internet. And we agree to TOS documents and the like online
like it is going out of style. Many are long and complex and include other
long and complex agreements by reference.
OK, so who calls their lawyer in or sends the TOS along to their lawyer for an
opinion before clicking I agree on every site they want to join? Who reads
and makes a concerted effort to study and understand the things themselves
before they click on agree? Who even reads all of the documents themselves in
their entirety before clicking I agree. Many claim to be modifiable buy the
other party whenever they wish and that we are responsible for keeping up to
date on the changes in various ways. And really, who monitors the things for
changes and goes through the whole process again on any change?
We need a few, clearly written TOS documents designed to protect the users but
also allow the businesses / web sites to profitably function. Then business
that want to can adopt these TOS unchanged and display a logo to that effect.
Then the users can get their legal advice if they wish on the few largely
unchanging TOS they use and use sites accordingly.
This may be too much to hope for, but the current situation is going to end in
much heartache on the part of many in the long run.
(Idea also posted here:
http://zotzbro.blogspot.com/2009/07/standard-terms-of-service-documents.html )
all the best,
drew
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