Brent
December 2nd, 2004, 5:32pm
The reason I'm forcing every OLS member to now read and explicitly agree to the User Agreement is the blatant, widespread copyright infringement that takes place on a daily basis. Everyday, our sweepstakes and contest listings get unlawfully copied from our site and added to a large number of other sweepstakes sites, newsletters (including snailmail), newsgroups, message boards, etc. Make no mistake about it, there are more sweepstakes sites and newsletters that get the bulk of their sweepstakes and contest listings directly through OLS than don't.
I've been running a sweep site for the better part of 7 years now, and without a doubt, sweep "swiping" has always been around to some extent (a few here and there, with some give and take- some of our members have swiped as well). But over the course of the last couple of years, what was once a relatively benign problem has become much more rampant, to the point that a number of these other sweepstakes sites and newsletters now get most all of their sweep listings directly from OLS.
What's the big deal you say? When another sweepstakes site, newsletter or group takes our sweepstakes and contest listings:
1) They're taking all the hard work our editors, moderators, members and myself put into OLS. There are some very good reasons why OLS can list 2,000 new sweepstakes and contests every month (more if you count all the local and snailmail sweeps in the forums), and usually before anyone else does- our editors, moderators, members and myself. Together, as a community, we collectively produce our sweepstakes listings. We have the community, the people who are willing to volunteer, and the infrastructure in place to list the number of sweeps that we do. The other sites/newsletters/groups simply don't, so they either have to list far fewer sweepstakes and contests or they have to depend on swiping- and that's exactly what many of them do. When they depend heavily on swiping, especially from OLS, they don't need to do much else other than a lot of copying and pasting.
They don't have to have thousands of members who are willing to find, share and submit new sweeps, they don't have to have all the knowledgable volunteers (or employees) necessary to check all the details and edit all the submitted sweeps, they don't need to weed through all the sweeps that for one reason or another aren't listable, they don't need to email the sponsors with questions, they don't have to have all custom software necessary to run it all. Believe me, there's a hell of a lot more work that goes into a site like OLS than most of you will ever know. Instead of working their ass off to build a good web site and a supportive community, all they have to do is copy & paste all the information they need from right here at OLS- they don't even have to visit the sweeps' web pages. Collectively, we've done all the hard work for them.
2) It lessons our members' odds of winning. Enough said.
3) It greatly dilutes the value and the uniqueness of OLS both as a community and as a business. Why go to OLS when I can go elsewhere and find most of the same sweeps? And now that OLS is selling premium membership subscriptions, exclusive access to about half our sweeps being one of the primary benefits, you don't have to be a genius to see the very real damages that are being done by these other sites/newsletters/groups' rampant copyright infringement of our work.
Who are you to say that you "own" the sweep listings when you don't "own" the sweeps?
This is by far the most common justification given in defense of swiping. The idea that you have to own the subject of your creative work for it to be copyrightable is absolutely, 100% absurd. Following that "logic," I could just copy all the links in Yahoo's Directory (or just about any directory for that matter) and copy everything for my own competing web directory. Or I could go to ESPN or CNN and copy their stories and articles and present them as my own. After all, Yahoo doesn't "own" the web sites in it's directory, ESPN doesn't "own" all the sports teams they cover, and CNN doesn't "own" President Bush, Iraq or the recent elections.
But if I don't copy something word-for-word, or it's just basic facts, it's not copyright infringement.
From the U.S. Copyright Office's web site (http://copyright.gov/circs/circ65.html):
DEFINITION
An automated database is a body of facts, data, or other information assembled into an organized format suitable for use in a computer and comprising one or more files.
The copyright law does not specifically enumerate databases as copyrightable subject matter, but the legislative history indicates that Congress considered computer databases and compilations of data as “literary works” subject to copyright protection. Databases may be considered copyrightable as a form of compilation, which is defined in the law as a work “formed by the collection and assembling of preexisting materials or of data that are selected, coordinated, or arranged in such a way that the resulting work as a whole constitutes an original work of authorship.”
It is my right and more importantly my responsibility as the founder, owner and (alleged) leader of OLS to protect our collective work from those that take it. The click-thru User Agreement gives OLS an additional layer of protection against the copyright infringers. It carries much more weight legally than a more common "browse-thru" type of User Agreement which it was before now, and it's just one more tool at my disposal with which to battle the infringers. The days of OLS 'stocking the shelves' of other sweepstakes sites, newsletters and groups are coming to an end, to the great benefit of every single member of OLS, especially those that contribute the most to our site and community, and that's exactly what it's all about.
Our editors, moderators, members and myself haven't been busting our humps, many of us for years, just to let the results of all our hard work get taken so easily from us in order for somebody else can profit from it. And before anybody says something about me or us being greedy or selfish about it, there's absolutely nothing preventing anybody from coming to OLS to access the same sweeps, most for free. If it's about sharing sweeps than all anybody has to do is post a link to OLS. You want thousands of the latest and greatest sweeps, here ya go: http://www.online-sweepstakes.com/ . We're the ones that are unlawfully being taken advantage of here, it's not the other way around. And if you think I'm being greedy, recent criticisms aside (some fair and some not even close), then I'd love to hear your explanation as to why there have been almost NO advertisements (banner, text, affiliate, pop-ups, you name it) to speak of on this site for the last 3 years. It's not because I just hadn't thought of it, that's for sure.
The click-thru User Agreement that I have up now, is not very different at all from the one that's been there for the last 3 years, nor is it much different than just about any other user agreement that you'd find at most other web sites. In fact, the user agreement that we've had for at least 3 years prior has always said that accessing and using the OLS web site constitutes your agreement to the same terms and conditions; if you don't agree, then you shouldn't access or use OLS. It's always said just about everything it says now, all I did was force everybody to explicitly agree to it with a couple of mouse clicks, and straighten things up a little bit to make it a little more clear and relevant. And everybody who's purchased a premium subscription has had to agree to the following on the order page (http://www.online-sweepstakes.com/forums/subscriptions.php?):
By purchasing or making use of an OLS Premium Membership subscription, you agree to the Online-Sweepstakes.com Terms of Service (there's a link to the User Agreement here) and you agree to follow all OLS Site and Forum rules (and a link to the site and forum rules here). This service is offered as-is only, and no guarantees, explicit or implied, are given as to the availability, suitability, or usability of said service or any and all information contained therein. Terms and conditions are subject to change at anytime. All subscriptions are final and refunds will only be granted at the sole discretion of the owner of the OLS web site.
Very, very standard stuff. The fact is the bulk of the User Agreement came from some web site I found a few years ago that lets anybody input the name of their web site, answer a few simple questions, and voila- you get your own standard user agreement from a template.
Like I said, the biggest difference now is that everybody has to indicate their agreement by making a few clicks. Anybody that says they're surprised or concerned as to the terms and conditions in the agreement, has never taken the time to read virtually the same exact user agreement that's always been link to at the bottom of every single web page on this web site for at least the last 3 years.
One potential issue I do see with the new agreement, however, is the line that says "Any materials submitted, posted, uploaded or otherwise communicated to the Site become the copyrighted property of Online-Sweepstakes.com." Everybody that submits, posts or uploads something to OLS still owns the original copyright to their own work. I'm not intending to claim an absolute copyright over everything that comes through OLS. Rather, once something is submitted, posted or uploaded to OLS, I am claiming a copyright as it becomes part of a collective work, OLS. From the U.S. Copyright Office's web site (http://copyright.gov/title17/92chap2.html):
(c) Contributions to Collective Works. — Copyright in each separate contribution to a collective work is distinct from copyright in the collective work as a whole, and vests initially in the author of the contribution. In the absence of an express transfer of the copyright or of any rights under it, the owner of copyright in the collective work is presumed to have acquired only the privilege of reproducing and distributing the contribution as part of that particular collective work, any revision of that collective work, and any later collective work in the same series.
However, once something is submitted posted or uploaded to OLS (from our User Agreement):
You agree to grant to Online-Sweepstakes.com a non-exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide, perpetual license, with the right to sub-license, reproduce, distribute, publish, create derivative works from and publicly display any materials and information (including, without limitation, ideas contained therein for new or improved products and services) you submit to any area of the Site (such as the message board and the sweepstakes and contest directory) for any and all commercial and non-commercial purposes.
That's necessary to protect OLS from being sued for copyright infringement just for displaying or using any information submitted by anybody to the site. Without it, anybody that ever contributes anything to the site could, at anytime and for any reason, revoke their permission to OLS to use or display it. You'd have a hard time finding any web site that accepts user contributions of any kind that doesn't have the same kind of clause in their user agreement. With the clause, OLS basically has your permission to use anything submitted, posted or uploaded any way OLS wants. That does not mean that we are going to treat any submissions, posts or uploads any differently that we have before. All members are completely free to remove or edit any post, photo or upload themselves whenever they so choose.
OLS has never been, nor will it ever be about exploiting every single thing that it can to make a buck. I need to make a living just like everybody else to be sure, but I have always purposely run OLS in a decidedly non-commercial way, and though that's slowly changing a little bit, OLS will always be run like a community first, and a business second. I think that's perhaps the biggest difference between OLS and most of the other sweep sites, and I think that philosophy has been every bit as important to the success of OLS as anything else.
The only people that have cause to worry about anything are the rampant swipers. They'll be hearing from me soon. Everybody else should rest easy, remember, I'm on your side, not against you. :gvibes:
For reference, I'll post a copy of the old user agreement in the next post.
Brent
I've been running a sweep site for the better part of 7 years now, and without a doubt, sweep "swiping" has always been around to some extent (a few here and there, with some give and take- some of our members have swiped as well). But over the course of the last couple of years, what was once a relatively benign problem has become much more rampant, to the point that a number of these other sweepstakes sites and newsletters now get most all of their sweep listings directly from OLS.
What's the big deal you say? When another sweepstakes site, newsletter or group takes our sweepstakes and contest listings:
1) They're taking all the hard work our editors, moderators, members and myself put into OLS. There are some very good reasons why OLS can list 2,000 new sweepstakes and contests every month (more if you count all the local and snailmail sweeps in the forums), and usually before anyone else does- our editors, moderators, members and myself. Together, as a community, we collectively produce our sweepstakes listings. We have the community, the people who are willing to volunteer, and the infrastructure in place to list the number of sweeps that we do. The other sites/newsletters/groups simply don't, so they either have to list far fewer sweepstakes and contests or they have to depend on swiping- and that's exactly what many of them do. When they depend heavily on swiping, especially from OLS, they don't need to do much else other than a lot of copying and pasting.
They don't have to have thousands of members who are willing to find, share and submit new sweeps, they don't have to have all the knowledgable volunteers (or employees) necessary to check all the details and edit all the submitted sweeps, they don't need to weed through all the sweeps that for one reason or another aren't listable, they don't need to email the sponsors with questions, they don't have to have all custom software necessary to run it all. Believe me, there's a hell of a lot more work that goes into a site like OLS than most of you will ever know. Instead of working their ass off to build a good web site and a supportive community, all they have to do is copy & paste all the information they need from right here at OLS- they don't even have to visit the sweeps' web pages. Collectively, we've done all the hard work for them.
2) It lessons our members' odds of winning. Enough said.
3) It greatly dilutes the value and the uniqueness of OLS both as a community and as a business. Why go to OLS when I can go elsewhere and find most of the same sweeps? And now that OLS is selling premium membership subscriptions, exclusive access to about half our sweeps being one of the primary benefits, you don't have to be a genius to see the very real damages that are being done by these other sites/newsletters/groups' rampant copyright infringement of our work.
Who are you to say that you "own" the sweep listings when you don't "own" the sweeps?
This is by far the most common justification given in defense of swiping. The idea that you have to own the subject of your creative work for it to be copyrightable is absolutely, 100% absurd. Following that "logic," I could just copy all the links in Yahoo's Directory (or just about any directory for that matter) and copy everything for my own competing web directory. Or I could go to ESPN or CNN and copy their stories and articles and present them as my own. After all, Yahoo doesn't "own" the web sites in it's directory, ESPN doesn't "own" all the sports teams they cover, and CNN doesn't "own" President Bush, Iraq or the recent elections.
But if I don't copy something word-for-word, or it's just basic facts, it's not copyright infringement.
From the U.S. Copyright Office's web site (http://copyright.gov/circs/circ65.html):
DEFINITION
An automated database is a body of facts, data, or other information assembled into an organized format suitable for use in a computer and comprising one or more files.
The copyright law does not specifically enumerate databases as copyrightable subject matter, but the legislative history indicates that Congress considered computer databases and compilations of data as “literary works” subject to copyright protection. Databases may be considered copyrightable as a form of compilation, which is defined in the law as a work “formed by the collection and assembling of preexisting materials or of data that are selected, coordinated, or arranged in such a way that the resulting work as a whole constitutes an original work of authorship.”
It is my right and more importantly my responsibility as the founder, owner and (alleged) leader of OLS to protect our collective work from those that take it. The click-thru User Agreement gives OLS an additional layer of protection against the copyright infringers. It carries much more weight legally than a more common "browse-thru" type of User Agreement which it was before now, and it's just one more tool at my disposal with which to battle the infringers. The days of OLS 'stocking the shelves' of other sweepstakes sites, newsletters and groups are coming to an end, to the great benefit of every single member of OLS, especially those that contribute the most to our site and community, and that's exactly what it's all about.
Our editors, moderators, members and myself haven't been busting our humps, many of us for years, just to let the results of all our hard work get taken so easily from us in order for somebody else can profit from it. And before anybody says something about me or us being greedy or selfish about it, there's absolutely nothing preventing anybody from coming to OLS to access the same sweeps, most for free. If it's about sharing sweeps than all anybody has to do is post a link to OLS. You want thousands of the latest and greatest sweeps, here ya go: http://www.online-sweepstakes.com/ . We're the ones that are unlawfully being taken advantage of here, it's not the other way around. And if you think I'm being greedy, recent criticisms aside (some fair and some not even close), then I'd love to hear your explanation as to why there have been almost NO advertisements (banner, text, affiliate, pop-ups, you name it) to speak of on this site for the last 3 years. It's not because I just hadn't thought of it, that's for sure.
The click-thru User Agreement that I have up now, is not very different at all from the one that's been there for the last 3 years, nor is it much different than just about any other user agreement that you'd find at most other web sites. In fact, the user agreement that we've had for at least 3 years prior has always said that accessing and using the OLS web site constitutes your agreement to the same terms and conditions; if you don't agree, then you shouldn't access or use OLS. It's always said just about everything it says now, all I did was force everybody to explicitly agree to it with a couple of mouse clicks, and straighten things up a little bit to make it a little more clear and relevant. And everybody who's purchased a premium subscription has had to agree to the following on the order page (http://www.online-sweepstakes.com/forums/subscriptions.php?):
By purchasing or making use of an OLS Premium Membership subscription, you agree to the Online-Sweepstakes.com Terms of Service (there's a link to the User Agreement here) and you agree to follow all OLS Site and Forum rules (and a link to the site and forum rules here). This service is offered as-is only, and no guarantees, explicit or implied, are given as to the availability, suitability, or usability of said service or any and all information contained therein. Terms and conditions are subject to change at anytime. All subscriptions are final and refunds will only be granted at the sole discretion of the owner of the OLS web site.
Very, very standard stuff. The fact is the bulk of the User Agreement came from some web site I found a few years ago that lets anybody input the name of their web site, answer a few simple questions, and voila- you get your own standard user agreement from a template.
Like I said, the biggest difference now is that everybody has to indicate their agreement by making a few clicks. Anybody that says they're surprised or concerned as to the terms and conditions in the agreement, has never taken the time to read virtually the same exact user agreement that's always been link to at the bottom of every single web page on this web site for at least the last 3 years.
One potential issue I do see with the new agreement, however, is the line that says "Any materials submitted, posted, uploaded or otherwise communicated to the Site become the copyrighted property of Online-Sweepstakes.com." Everybody that submits, posts or uploads something to OLS still owns the original copyright to their own work. I'm not intending to claim an absolute copyright over everything that comes through OLS. Rather, once something is submitted, posted or uploaded to OLS, I am claiming a copyright as it becomes part of a collective work, OLS. From the U.S. Copyright Office's web site (http://copyright.gov/title17/92chap2.html):
(c) Contributions to Collective Works. — Copyright in each separate contribution to a collective work is distinct from copyright in the collective work as a whole, and vests initially in the author of the contribution. In the absence of an express transfer of the copyright or of any rights under it, the owner of copyright in the collective work is presumed to have acquired only the privilege of reproducing and distributing the contribution as part of that particular collective work, any revision of that collective work, and any later collective work in the same series.
However, once something is submitted posted or uploaded to OLS (from our User Agreement):
You agree to grant to Online-Sweepstakes.com a non-exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide, perpetual license, with the right to sub-license, reproduce, distribute, publish, create derivative works from and publicly display any materials and information (including, without limitation, ideas contained therein for new or improved products and services) you submit to any area of the Site (such as the message board and the sweepstakes and contest directory) for any and all commercial and non-commercial purposes.
That's necessary to protect OLS from being sued for copyright infringement just for displaying or using any information submitted by anybody to the site. Without it, anybody that ever contributes anything to the site could, at anytime and for any reason, revoke their permission to OLS to use or display it. You'd have a hard time finding any web site that accepts user contributions of any kind that doesn't have the same kind of clause in their user agreement. With the clause, OLS basically has your permission to use anything submitted, posted or uploaded any way OLS wants. That does not mean that we are going to treat any submissions, posts or uploads any differently that we have before. All members are completely free to remove or edit any post, photo or upload themselves whenever they so choose.
OLS has never been, nor will it ever be about exploiting every single thing that it can to make a buck. I need to make a living just like everybody else to be sure, but I have always purposely run OLS in a decidedly non-commercial way, and though that's slowly changing a little bit, OLS will always be run like a community first, and a business second. I think that's perhaps the biggest difference between OLS and most of the other sweep sites, and I think that philosophy has been every bit as important to the success of OLS as anything else.
The only people that have cause to worry about anything are the rampant swipers. They'll be hearing from me soon. Everybody else should rest easy, remember, I'm on your side, not against you. :gvibes:
For reference, I'll post a copy of the old user agreement in the next post.
Brent