[ale] Yahoo TOS [was: is USB stick safer than CD-ROM/DVD]

[Brian Pitts]

James Sumners wrote:
> I copied the text from "flicker.com > Terms of Service".It's the same
> language that was in place before the site was acquired by Yahoo!.

I'm looking at the same place. This link goes to 
http://info.yahoo.com/legal/us/yahoo/utos/utos-173.html

> 
> Still, if you read the preamble to that section and skip over (a) to
> read (b), the same language is in place. If you upload a "public"
> picture to flickr.com, Yahoo! can then modify it however they like and
> use it to promote the Flickr service.

I'm pasting what we've agreed is the the relevant language below.

"With respect to photos, graphics, audio or video you submit or make 
available for inclusion on publicly accessible areas of the Service 
other than Yahoo! Groups, the license to use, distribute, reproduce, 
modify, adapt, publicly perform and publicly display such Content on the 
Service solely for the purpose for which such Content was submitted or 
made available. This license exists only for as long as you elect to 
continue to include such Content on the Service and will terminate at 
the time you remove or Yahoo! removes such Content from the Service."

I don't see what part of "solely for the purpose for which such Content 
was submitted or made available" can be taken to mean "use it to promote 
the Flickr service." Even if you think it does, keep in mind that

1) Flickr's privacy policy [0] states that "You can choose to make your 
photos public for anyone to access, restrict access to a limited number 
of other Flickr users, or keep those photos private so only you can 
access them."

2) The right of publicity, as I understand it, would prevent Yahoo from 
using any pictures of people.

Since this is pretty far off topic and no one else on the list has 
chimed in, this is my last message on the topic.

[0] http://info.yahoo.com/privacy/us/yahoo/flickr/details.html

-Brian