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The problem with the Erlang Forum ToS is not at all the content,
which is standard. The problem is that they claim the terms are
legally binding, and yet there is no indication who or what is the
legal entity behind Erlang Forums. <br>
<br>
The domain name is registered anonymously in Iceland. <br>
<br>
Is Ericsson the legal entity that owns erlangforums.com? If not,
who is?<br>
<br>
Ivan<br>
<br>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 16/12/2021 16:27, Fred Hebert wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:CAFA3VZK1bnMX6E=uWuk8CbKdb17fOr1AGYr-d+OOj4xV+pmOBQ@mail.gmail.com">
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<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Wed, Dec 15, 2021 at
12:53 PM Scott Ribe <<a
href="mailto:scott_ribe@elevated-dev.com"
moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">scott_ribe@elevated-dev.com</a>>
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px
0.8ex;border-left:1px solid
rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">> On Dec 15, 2021, at
10:27 AM, Contact | Erlang Forums <<a
href="mailto:contact@erlangforums.com" target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">contact@erlangforums.com</a>>
wrote:<br>
> <br>
> This is not the case. Code use is based on context and
intent. So if somebody posts a code snippet in a thread
where someone is asking a question about how to do
something, they are, by contributing to the thread,
implicitly stating that that person (or anyone reading the
thread in future) may use that code in the context of the
thread that they posted their snippet in (otherwise they
wouldn't have contributed to it).<br>
<br>
While I imagine this is the INTENT, the ToS restrictions go
well beyond:<br>
<br>
"You may not adapt, alter or create a derivative work from
any <a href="http://erlangforums.com" rel="noreferrer"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">erlangforums.com</a>
content except for your own personal, non-commercial use."<br>
<br>
"You may not copy, reproduce, republish, post, broadcast,
download, transmit, make available to the public, or
otherwise use <a href="http://erlangforums.com"
rel="noreferrer" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">erlangforums.com</a>
content in any way except for your own personal,
non-commercial use."<br>
<br>
Restrictions on republishing, posting, broadcasting are
understandable. But we may not download nor "otherwise use"?
Really???<br>
<br>
<br>
</blockquote>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>
<div>Unfortunately, most of these clauses are generally
correct even in the context of a mailing list. Copyright
applies implicitly without needs to declare it at all, and
the clauses of "not creating derivative use except for
personal use" are active for any code you find online, get
sent by email, and so on, unless noted otherwise by a
license. If someone shows you code in a thread where
asking for help but that code is not licensed, there is
actually no legal permission to use any of that code in
any sort of commercial systems nor for redistribution.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Code and even quoting people requires explicit legal
permission to be reusable in most jurisdictions, and any
use you have made of such contributions could have been
considered by the original author to have been intended
for education purposes, and reusing them may be a legal
liability (which your lawyer -- which I am not -- should
inform you about). I have written books where even quoting
someone from a public mailing list was a big no-no without
written permission, and if I wanted to cite Joe Armstrong
after his death, I'd have had to ask for written
permission from his estate in order to publish. Contexts
in terms of academic reviews or literary criticism tends
to offer more freedom, but none of this is guaranteed.<br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Particularly, bits like:</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div style="margin-left:40px">Where you are invited to
submit any contribution to <a
href="http://erlangforums.com" moz-do-not-send="true">erlangforums.com</a>
(including any photographs, text, graphics, audio or
video) you agree, by submitting your contribution, to
grant Erlang Forums a perpetual, non-exclusive,
royalty-free, sub-licenseable right and license to use,
modify, reproduce, publish, translate, distribute, make
available to the public. By submitting your contribution
to <a href="http://erlangforums.com"
moz-do-not-send="true">erlangforums.com</a>, you: ...</div>
<div style="margin-left:40px"><br>
</div>
tend to lean on "non-exclusive, royalty-free,
sub-licenseable right and license" as legal jargon to say
"you allow the erlang forum to republish your stuff"
(because otherwise they can't display it to other users
whether logged or not). The fact that a license is
non-exclusive means that you are free to keep another
license for other uses, but implies that you also had a
license in the first place where it was legitimate to share
that code and grant that right. Eg. you can't share code
your employer owns and isn't open source and legally grand
rights to it.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>These are standard and would usually have been required
or implied by the erlang-questions mailing list archive.
That Ericsson didn't explicitly set them up is up to their
lawyers; but there were, for example, a google groups mirror
of the list, which are posted under the following general
terms: <a href="https://policies.google.com/terms"
moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://policies.google.com/terms</a>
, specifically the section "Permission to use content" which
similarly contains a "non-exclusive, worldwide,
royalty-free" license to anything that gets posted there.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>As such, if you look into the way the groups are mirrored
for the mailing list, anything posted there may already more
or less abide by similar-sounding licensing terms and there
isn't much that's new under the sun. In fact, the
erlangforums terms may even be narrower than Google's terms,
which also include permissions to data-mine and translate
whatever is posted to their systems.<br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Also let me add a mandatory "I am not a lawyer, this is
not legal advice" disclaimer here; I am speaking of my
experience having had to deal with copyright before in
various functions as an author and someone having had to
deal with lawyers in corporate settings around open source,
but have no such qualifications myself.<br>
</div>
<div> </div>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
============================================================
Ivan A. Uemlianin PhD
Llaisdy
Ymchwil a Datblygu Technoleg Lleferydd
Speech Technology Research and Development
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:ivan@llaisdy.com">ivan@llaisdy.com</a>
@llaisdy
llaisdy.wordpress.com
github.com/llaisdy
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="http://www.linkedin.com/in/ivanuemlianin">www.linkedin.com/in/ivanuemlianin</a>
festina lente
============================================================</pre>
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