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Thursday, July 26, 2007

"© 2007 Fox"?.....and the mystery of the TOS

There has been a lot of discussion today about the infamous new Terms of Service (TOS) that appears at the bottom of the Lonelygirl15.com home page. Now everyone seems to be wondering what this means for fan videos that are submitted to Lonelygirl15 and everyone seems to have a different opinion. I am not even sure that a lawyer could tell us for sure because given that internet law is quite new not everything has been worked out. I am sure that over time the Creators will try and help us understand what it means.

However what we did find rather puzzling was the last paragraph:



"COPYRIGHTS (C) / TRADEMARKS (tm)

LONELYGIRL 15 ™ & © 2006. Audio/visual elements and text � 2007 LG15, LLC. Artwork © 2007 Fox and its related entities. Use of this Site assumes acceptance of the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy."

So the question would be, where does Fox fit into this equation?

As of 8:10PM EST the text now reads:

"LONELYGIRL 15 ™ & © 2006. Audio/visual elements and text © 2007 LG15, LLC. Artwork © 2007 LG15, LLC and its related entities. Use of this Site assumes acceptance of the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. "

.......leading us to believe that that mysterious Fox has been quietly put to sleep:)

Thanks to Milowent for pointing out this late developing change.

14 comments:

  1. I think Fox owns the company that hosts the web site.

    ReplyDelete
  2. ok, I don't see Fox anywhere in the statement.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Oh wait, DOh, sorry, I see it. Silly me.

    ReplyDelete
  4. i don't see Fox on there now (though maybe its still there). easy likely answer: this doc was copied from a form that included "Fox" on it. Just an oversight, probably.

    ReplyDelete
  5. If you click the Terms Of Use at the bottom of the home page, then scroll to the bottom and click either Terms of Use or Privacy Policy, both take you to thelot.com

    So I agree it was just copied from a Fox owned website.

    ~M of many

    ReplyDelete
  6. The moral of this story? Always back up your documentation with a screen shot!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Sorry, that was a typo. Of course we meant to write Lonelygirl15, LLC. Oops. Thanks.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Dear Creators, You still need to check and repair all the links on the TOS page. Three point to thelot.com right now, and the email links look broken also.

    ReplyDelete
  9. p.s. As for the "mystery" - I have been asking for a T.O.S. for LG15.com to address conduct on the site since April (see forums post in the concerns & complaints section) ... and sent links to the LG15 Creators for Fox's theLot.com site and Bebo site terms of service pages a couple of months ago as examples.

    ReplyDelete
  10. so Q is the one responsible for us needing "link licenses" now

    ReplyDelete
  11. No, I'm the one responsible for requesting a safe website with written standards for conduct. The rest is up to the Creators.

    ReplyDelete
  12. ... and the link and HTML/CSS stuff from the FOX website seems geared to avoid someone building a third party website around their content while masking out their advertisers on the FOX website.

    The Creators' approach is very different / non-traditional. They are saying "here, download and modify our content for your own fan videos as much as you want" and they are trying to build advertising into the content by product placement rather than plastering their site with it.

    If LG15 cares about anyone creating links to their site, I would be very surprised, as that make no sense, unless someone is setting up a site just to sell their own advertising, without making a deal first with the original content providers.

    ReplyDelete
  13. The mystery is not the existence of the TOS, although it is rather hidden, but rather what it means in plain english in terms of the creative rights to submitted fan videos.

    Thats why I suggested that the Creators explain it to us in terms we can understand.

    Is that too much to ask for? Hopefully they will respond soon.

    ReplyDelete
  14. I agree modelmotion that would be super helpful.

    ReplyDelete




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