[Catalog-sig] PyPI terms

[Jesse Noller]

Since we're hotly contesting the pypi terms of service - I thought I'd page Van, who is the chairman and I'm pretty sure drafted the terms of service for pypi for the foundation.

He should be able to bludgeon us all!

Jesse

On Feb 28, 2013, at 8:31 PM, Terry Reedy <tjreedy at udel.edu> wrote:

> On 2/28/2013 1:19 PM, Noah Kantrowitz wrote:
> 
>> Because I happen to have YouTube open anyway:
>> 
>> """ For clarity, you retain all of your ownership rights in your
>> Content. However, by submitting Content to YouTube, you hereby grant
>> YouTube a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicenseable and
>> transferable license to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare
>> derivative works of, display, and perform the Content in connection
>> with the Service and YouTube's (and its successors' and affiliates')
>> business, including without limitation for promoting and
>> redistributing part or all of the Service (and derivative works
>> thereof) in any media formats and through any media channels. You
>> also hereby grant each user of the Service a non-exclusive license to
>> access your Content through the Service, and to use, reproduce,
>> distribute, display and perform such Content as permitted through the
>> functionality of the Service and under these Terms of Service. The
>> above licenses granted by you in video Content you submit to the
>> Service terminate within a commercially reasonable time after you
>> remove or delete your videos from the Service. You understand and
>> agree, however, that YouTube may retain, but not display, distribute,
>> or perform, server copies of your videos that have been removed or
>> deleted. The above licenses granted by you in user comments you
>> submit are perpetual and irrevocable. """
>> 
>> Slightly different wording,
> 
> Noah, I understand that you desperately do not want to admit that the PSF requirement for uploading to it servers is unusually broad, because you do not want to admit that rational people might have a reason to not upload, but there it is.
> 
> 1. The uploader only authorizes distribution via the YouTube infrastructure. Indeed, Google want that limitation because it wants to be the one that monetizes distribution. So it only streams videos (free ones, anyway) and does *not* download. Anyone who subverts this and captures the stream as a download has no rights to it.
> 
> 2. The uploader can terminate the license with Google. Because of #1, such termination stops anyone from legal distribution.
> 
> Note: Flickr gives uploaders the choice of whether images can be downloaded or only embedded in a flickr web page. It also lets uploaders set the license that applies to flickr users. And it allows deletion of images.
> 
>> only the license to comments is irrevocable,
> 
> Irrelevant to this discussion.
> 
> > for videos they just promise to stop distributing
> 
> This is the important point.
> 
>> but not actually remove your content.
> 
> This is a mostly irrelevant practical issue. Finding and scrubbing every backup copy is difficult and expensive, especially for disk-image backups or serial tape media (if indeed they still use such) or backups stuck down in a deep salt mine. Any repository that does backups has to have this proviso. (I am sure, for instance, that Flickr does now.)
> 
> 
> My take on the current license is this: the original upload license was rather minimal. The lawyer decided it was insufficient. Rather that craft a broader license with the absolute minimum rights grant necessary, the lawyer took the easy, quick, and cheap-for-psf route of a maximal rights grant. That is okay with me as long as it is not mis-represented and as long as people do not try to bludgeon me or anyone else in signing something we do not agree to.
> 
> Note: when I contribute text and code to the CPython repository, I also give up all control. I know and accept that, and even want that, because it also means that I can re-write *other* people's text and code. But people may reasonably want to keep more control over their independent sole-author work.
> 
> -- 
> Terry Jan Reedy
> 
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