The Place For My Writers Notes

Original posting 21 Jan 2010

(lots of words... mostly borrowed!)

I think it behooves each of us to consider carefully how we present ourselves in the digital world. This includes thinking about what of ours we want to make public, especially with the ease of copying, distribution, etc. that is part of the digital world.

At the same time, it might be worth considering that many published authors are making some parts of their work relatively freely available. In fact, if you go to the Baen Free Library at http://www.baen.com/library/defaultTitles.htm you will find a large number of entire e-books freely available. Several of the Baen titles include CDs with even more volumes available, and http://baencd.thefifthimperium.com/ has the library of free CDs for people to copy. Individual authors are putting work up on their websites, and some people are experimenting with web serials and similar work open to the public! http://shadowunit.org/ for example.

The evidence from these folks is that giving away work in this way actually ends up creating more demand, and sells more books.

But each of us has to decide what we're willing to make available. Remember that by and large once something goes into the digital world, it may be very hard to ever get it out again.

At the same time, we should be aware of the terms of service that we are probably operating under. I know I was curious, and went to LiveJournal (another blogging service which I happen to use). I scrolled through their TOS and found ...

LiveJournal http://www.livejournal.com/legal/tos.bml

XIV. Journal Content
3. LiveJournal claims no ownership or control over any Content posted by its users. The author retains all patent, trademark, and copyright to all Content posted within available fields, and is responsible for protecting those rights, but is not entitled to the help of the LiveJournal staff in protecting such Content. The user posting any Content represents that it has all rights necessary to post such Content (and for LiveJournal to serve such Content) without violation of any intellectual property or other rights of third parties, or any laws or regulations;

Hum? Apparently LiveJournal believes that users retain all rights to their content.

Then I got curious, and went to check the Google TOS. The general Google TOS says...

Google Terms of Service http://www.google.com/accounts/TOS?hl=en&loc=en

9. Proprietary rights

9.4 Other than the limited license set forth in Section 11, Google acknowledges and agrees that it obtains no right, title or interest from you (or your licensors) under these Terms in or to any Content that you submit, post, transmit or display on, or through, the Services, including any intellectual property rights which subsist in that Content (whether those rights happen to be registered or not, and wherever in the world those rights may exist). Unless you have agreed otherwise in writing with Google, you agree that you are responsible for protecting and enforcing those rights and that Google has no obligation to do so on your behalf.

11. Content licence from you

    11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive licence to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. This licence is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the Services and may be revoked for certain Services as defined in the Additional Terms of those Services.

    11.2 You agree that this licence includes a right for Google to make such Content available to other companies, organizations or individuals with whom Google has relationships for the provision of syndicated services, and to use such Content in connection with the provision of those services.

    11.3 You understand that Google, in performing the required technical steps to provide the Services to our users, may (a) transmit or distribute your Content over various public networks and in various media; and (b) make such changes to your Content as are necessary to conform and adapt that Content to the technical requirements of connecting networks, devices, services or media. You agree that this licence shall permit Google to take these actions.

    11.4 You confirm and warrant to Google that you have all the rights, power and authority necessary to grant the above licence.

Huh! Google seems to agree, content belongs to the users. Maybe the Blogger TOS is different? Let's see...

And specifically the Blogger TOS http://www.blogger.com/terms.g

6. Intellectual Property Rights. Google's Intellectual Property Rights. You acknowledge that Google owns all right, title and interest in and to the Service, including all intellectual property rights (the "Google Rights"). Google Rights are protected by U.S. and international intellectual property laws. Accordingly, you agree that you will not copy, reproduce, alter, modify, or create derivative works from the Service. You also agree that you will not use any robot, spider, other automated device, or manual process to monitor or copy any content from the Service. As described immediately below, Google Rights do not include third-party content used as part of the Service, including the content of communications appearing on the Service.

Your Intellectual Property Rights. Google claims no ownership or control over any Content submitted, posted or displayed by you on or through Google services. You or a third party licensor, as appropriate, retain all patent, trademark and copyright to any Content you submit, post or display on or through Google services and you are responsible for protecting those rights, as appropriate. By submitting, posting or displaying Content on or through Google services which are intended to be available to the members of the public, you grant Google a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to reproduce, publish and distribute such Content on Google services for the purpose of displaying and distributing Google services. Google furthermore reserves the right to refuse to accept, post, display or transmit any Content in its sole discretion.

You represent and warrant that you have all the rights, power and authority necessary to grant the rights granted herein to any Content submitted.

You may choose to submit, post, and display any materials on or through the Blogger service or Blogspot.com under a public license (e.g. a Creative Commons license), whether by manually marking your materials as such or using Blogger service tools to do so. For avoidance of doubt, Google is not a party to any such public license between you and any third party. Also, for avoidance of doubt, Google may choose to exercise the rights granted under (a) the public license or licenses, if any, you apply to your materials or (b) this Agreement.

Wow! Blogger agrees -- your content is yours.

Huh. I think the bottom line really is that... well, you should pick your own. But it looks as if both LiveJournal and Google agree -- your content is your own. Now, what you choose to put out there... that's up to you.