Part of the problem with the common law system is that new things don't generally get new laws, or new forms of contract. Instead we look at what made sense when the law was being developed in the 1700's and 1800's and most issues involved sheep*.
So if I let you pasture your sheep on my land, you could pay, or I could get some of the sheep, or some of their wool (with which I could do anything I wanted). If we had an agreement and you stopped paying, I'd eventually be entitled to *all* of your sheep. (And the storage company can sell, or play dress-up in, your stored stuff if you stop paying them.)
IP is not sheep. But hundreds of years of legal precedent regarding sheep tends to influence some of the dafter things people try to do with IP. Including: you can use our pasture, but then we want a right to some sheep ... oh, and since these aren't tangible sheep we can have the whole herd and eat it too ... so, really, we want all the rights to all your sheep content.
One of the things I'm most curious about is what they propose to do if you do remove your content. If that content has been: used, copied, modified, adapted, translated, publicly performed, publicly displayed, stored, reproduced, transmitted, and distributed ... how are they going to track down every vestige of it wherever it has been reproduced, and stored by an unlimited number of sub-licensees? So if they *can't* undo what has been done, once the license is terminated can the original content producer demand royalties for ongoing using, copying, etc.
--- *Author freely admits to having some lingering ovinophobia thanks to having to read far too much old English caselaw on the way to her J.D.
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Date: 16 Oct 2011 08:20 pm (UTC)So if I let you pasture your sheep on my land, you could pay, or I could get some of the sheep, or some of their wool (with which I could do anything I wanted). If we had an agreement and you stopped paying, I'd eventually be entitled to *all* of your sheep. (And the storage company can sell, or play dress-up in, your stored stuff if you stop paying them.)
IP is not sheep. But hundreds of years of legal precedent regarding sheep tends to influence some of the dafter things people try to do with IP. Including: you can use our pasture, but then we want a right to some sheep ... oh, and since these aren't tangible sheep we can have the whole herd and eat it too ... so, really, we want all the rights to all your
sheepcontent.One of the things I'm most curious about is what they propose to do if you do remove your content. If that content has been: used, copied, modified, adapted, translated, publicly performed, publicly displayed, stored, reproduced, transmitted, and distributed ... how are they going to track down every vestige of it wherever it has been reproduced, and stored by an unlimited number of sub-licensees? So if they *can't* undo what has been done, once the license is terminated can the original content producer demand royalties for ongoing using, copying, etc.
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*Author freely admits to having some lingering ovinophobia thanks to having to read far too much old English caselaw on the way to her J.D.