What is acceptable reuse of user-generated content?

[BethL]

When users register for a website (e.g.YouTube or Facebook), they generally must agree to terms and conditions that govern the website's use (or reuse) of any content they post to the site. Frequently, these terms state something like as follows:

You retain copyright (ownership) of your postings. We sometimes use postings in our products (books, newsletters, websites, television programs and products in other media). You give us a non-exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, worldwide license to reproduce, communicate, edit, adapt or otherwise use your postings in our products as we see fit, including the right to sublicense to others at our discretion. You also give us a license to deal with the postings as necessary to perform technical and administrative functions to operate the website community.

If you were to agree to these terms, how would you expect the company to behave with regard to your material?

What sort of reuse would be acceptable?

Is it OK for the company to use your UGC in its other (offline) products?
Is it OK if the company licenses its website to a third party that mirrors the entire site? (For example, MSN's careers page mirrors parts of CareerBuilder.com.)
Is it OK if that third-party website does not reference the original site? (For example, if MSN paid Career Builder, but did not credit it.)
Is it OK if the company licenses your submission to a third party as an individual item and not part of a package of content?

Under what circumstances do you think the company ought to get your permission to reuse your content?

[BethL]

Would you be angry if the company didn't get your permission?

[Narue]

>If you were to agree to these terms, how would you expect
>the company to behave with regard to your material?
Given nothing other than your paraphrasing, I'd expect them to do anything they please except claim ownership of the material.

>Would you be angry if the company didn't get your permission?
Accepting the terms and conditions constitutes giving your permission for whatever they specify.

[Lardmeister]

In this day and age any information you give will be data mined by others. Get used to it.

[jbennet]

Would you be angry if the company didn't get your permission?

when you click agree , its the same as signing a contract. You are legally bound by what you select.

[Ancient Dragon]

when you click agree , its the same as signing a contract. You are legally bound by what you select.

I'm not so sure about that -- how do they know who clicked on it? At most all they can tell is the ip address of the computer that was used, and in some cases they can't even tell that (for instance the computer I use doesn't expose the actual ip address to the internet). Or they might get my user name and email, that those could be lies too.

It might be interesting to see if there were any legal decisions (i.e. court cases).

When I sign a contract there have to be witnesses to see that I am who I say I am. That isn't the case when clicking an Agree button. My three-year-old grandson could have clicked it as far as they know.

[jwenting]

yes, you are legally bound to what you agreed to.
It doesn't matter who clicked that button, by clicking it that account was linked to that contract.
If the contract holder allows others to use that account the contract holder is still the one who holds the contract and has agreed to its terms.
People he lets use that account have no rights under that contract as it's not their contract, if they don't like it they'll have to get legal recourse from the contract holder, not the website operator (who most likely has a clause in that contract stating that you should not let others use the account for that precise reason).