<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial">I want to return to the issue of ownership of posts on web sites. </font><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial"><br></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial">Would it be possible to use this discussion to define reasonable terms of agreement for users on all social networking sites? </font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial"><br></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial">I do believe that this is possible, because of a real-life experience with changing Terms of Agreement. The alumni association of Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, signed an agreement with iModules to provide a kind of "Facebook" experience for those of us who are alums. When some of read the "Terms of Agreement", it turned out that we agreeing to give everything away. Some of us freaked and asked for new terms (we worked together to write them). It worked. <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(36, 38, 37); ">Quite honestly, I suspect that the ridiculous terms were written by attorneys with little understanding of social networking sites. No one at iModules thought that we were wrong to ask for new terms.</span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#242625" face="Arial"><br></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#242625" face="Arial">Below are some phrases from the current Terms of Agreement on the Antiochians.org site (our alumni site -- and yes -- we are still in existence)</font></div><blockquote class="webkit-indent-blockquote" style="margin: 0 0 0 40px; border: none; padding: 0px;"><br></blockquote><blockquote class="webkit-indent-blockquote" style="margin: 0 0 0 40px; border: none; padding: 0px;"></blockquote><blockquote class="webkit-indent-blockquote" style="margin: 0 0 0 40px; border: none; padding: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: -1; ">7. Content submitted to this site</span><br><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial">We do not assert any ownership over user content; rather, as between us and you, subject to the rights granted to us in these Terms and Conditions, you retain full ownership of all of your content and any intellectual property rights or other proprietary rights associated with your content.</font><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(36, 38, 37); "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial"> . . . </font></span><br><br><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(36, 38, 37); font-family: Arial; ">xxxxxxxxxx(lots of stand stuff) - xxxxxxxxxxx</span><br><br><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: -1; ">If you wish to grant other users or the general public additional licenses to your content, you may include such terms with your content such as:</span><br><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: -1; ">Usage granted under Creative Commons License</span><br><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(36, 38, 37); font-family: Arial; "><a href="http://creativecommons.org">http://creativecommons.org</a></span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(36, 38, 37); font-family: Arial; "><br></span><div><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#242625" face="Arial"><br></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#242625" face="Arial"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(36, 38, 37); font-family: Arial; ">Cynthia Beth Rubin</span><br></span></font></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(36, 38, 37); font-family: Arial; "><a href="http://CBRubin.net">http://CBRubin.net</a></span><br><blockquote class="webkit-indent-blockquote" style="margin: 0 0 0 40px; border: none; padding: 0px;"><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#242625" face="Arial"><br><br></font></blockquote><blockquote class="webkit-indent-blockquote" style="margin: 0 0 0 40px; border: none; padding: 0px;"><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#242625" face="Arial"><br></font></blockquote><blockquote class="webkit-indent-blockquote" style="margin: 0 0 0 40px; border: none; padding: 0px;"><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#242625" face="Arial"><br></font></blockquote><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#242625" face="Arial"><br></font></div></body></html>