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opencaching.com
Geocaching by the community, for the community
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hmarq
Site Admin
Joined: 15 Sep 2003
Posts: 351
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 Posted: Mon Sep 15, 2003 8:21 am Post subject: We need a lawyer |
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Lots of reasons why, but initially advice on terms of service for the site --
One of the goals of the site has to be easy syndication of data to folks with a valid reason to have it, without having to give it to anyone who asks. I know that sounds contrary to why we're starting this, but think about it, do you really want to *have* to give data to anyone that wants it, regardless of their intent? I don't, and I don't think I'd sign up for a site that was structured that way. At the same time it needs to be binding that we will give the data to those conforming to an acceptible definition.
And of course that all needs to be crafted into a front end terms of service that addresses the end user, so that they may retain copyright, but know that the data will be given to others.
A good legal mind with understanding of new media IP and copyright law is needed to help hash through the issues and craft language ... of course like the rest of us, you'd need to be willing to work pro bono ... and we'd hope you're a geocacher too 
Any geogeek lawyers out there? |
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Scout
Joined: 16 Sep 2003
Posts: 235
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| Posted: Tue Sep 16, 2003 9:34 am Post subject: Re: We need a lawyer |
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| hmarq wrote: | | One of the goals of the site has to be easy syndication of data to folks with a valid reason to have it, without having to give it to anyone who asks. |
I think it's a mistake to go into this venture planning to be geo-cops. Model yourselves after the open-source software movement. They don't worry themselves about *why* someone wants the software. They only require that whatever you do with it, you make your enhancements freely available back to the community.
By all means create a great Web site. But make the data you collect freely available for others who might have other ideas how to present it or slice it and dice it or whatever. You can't do everything, so make it as easy as possible for others to do things, too. That means making not only the data freely available, but whatever infrastructure you develop around the data and the database. Develop it with the idea that not only will you share your data, but you will collect data from other cooperating sites, too. Maybe even develop a system where the data itself is distributed, so that the load (and cost) on any one system is minimal.
Oh, by the way, good luck. Your site is like a breath of fresh air.
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Scout http://GPSgames.org
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hmarq
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Joined: 15 Sep 2003
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| Posted: Tue Sep 16, 2003 10:43 am Post subject: |
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I started out thinking exactly the same way Scout, but if you think about it in worst case terms you start to realize that the data really can't be given to everyone without question, otherwise I'd feel obliged to put that fact in large, red, blinking text on the signup page and that would scare people away ... hell it would scare me away. At the end of the day, the cache holder or log writer maintains copyright and they need to be comfortable with how they grant license for further use. I had come up with a few tounge in cheek examples, some more llikely than others, but here they are:
Hustler magazine does a "Backing in at Forest Preserves, a Survival Guide" and uses some select log entries as comedic foddor, along with cache links. That's a plain and simple "Commercial Purpose", they want to sell magazines, but I think most folks that would object to that use would be on other grounds ... that being the association with pornography or general distaste for the publisher.
Synical Sam Geocacher starts a parody site with sections on "Doofus Log Entries of the Week" that highlight bad trades and other stupid things ... or "Sucky Cache of the Week" ... how funny you find these depends on whether you're the subject of the humor I'd think.
Using the data against us (as a community); a government or pseudo-government agency uses log info to further their anti-geocaching agenda. "Look, data from the groups own website shows them doing XXX and we don't want XXX, we must pass ordinence against" ... granted they can do this today, but the practicality of doing it goes way up when you have a database and a script to do the search for 'violations' rather than perusing the website one page at a time.
Maybe I'm out of step here, but I think some element of control on the syndication is a good thing, at the same time stating that use/availability would not be reasonably with-held. And to that end ... the second example above (the parody would be interesting) ... the site, non-commercial in nature and relating to geocaching, I'd have to grant that one ... though I'm sure there'd be folks unhappy about it. |
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Scout
Joined: 16 Sep 2003
Posts: 235
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| Posted: Tue Sep 16, 2003 12:19 pm Post subject: |
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First, US law already gives wide latitude to parody and news reports, so you probably can't stop your examples even if you wanted to. Second, if there are caches that violate US laws, then you should make it as easy as possible to identify them and correct them, in my opinion. So, your examples do not convince me that you should try to police how people use the data, beyond something like the licensing terms used by the open software movement, which ensures that the community benefits from any enhancements made.
If you want to grow into something other than a gc.com wannabe, you have to use a different business model. Linux didn't grow to be a threat to Windows by the Open Source community adopting Microsoft's business tactics.
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Jeremy
Joined: 16 Sep 2003
Posts: 2
Location: Emerald City, USA
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| Posted: Tue Sep 16, 2003 12:31 pm Post subject: |
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The most important thing is for the owner of the listing to be able to make changes to their own listing. It is amazing the number of changes that are made to cache pages on a daily basis, many of which will change/modify the location or other important details.
If the system doesn't allow this, expect a lot of outdated and incorrect cache listings. After a while you'll lose trust in the people that use your site.
Geocaching.com has the terms of use to ensure that the owner remains the owner of their cache listings, since technically we have yet to discover a way to create an "open source" style for sharing cache listing data but still have each cache retain ownership by the placer. We are considering web services that will allow access to the data at the same time allowing the owner to make changes to it.
Just my insight. Take it or leave it.
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hmarq
Site Admin
Joined: 15 Sep 2003
Posts: 351
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| Posted: Tue Sep 16, 2003 1:21 pm Post subject: |
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Well thank you, ... I think.
I've emailed the registrant Jeremy to see if it is indeed who we think it is. If not, while not inflammatory the posts and user will be deleted.
... yes indeed it is the real Jeremy [updated 2:15CDT]
Last edited by hmarq on Tue Sep 16, 2003 2:13 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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hmarq
Site Admin
Joined: 15 Sep 2003
Posts: 351
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| Posted: Tue Sep 16, 2003 1:27 pm Post subject: |
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| Scout wrote: | First, US law already gives wide latitude to parody and news reports, so you probably can't stop your examples even if you wanted to. Second, if there are caches that violate US laws, then you should make it as easy as possible to identify them and correct them, in my opinion. So, your examples do not convince me that you should try to police how people use the data, beyond something like the licensing terms used by the open software movement, which ensures that the community benefits from any enhancements made.
If you want to grow into something other than a gc.com wannabe, you have to use a different business model. Linux didn't grow to be a threat to Windows by the Open Source community adopting Microsoft's business tactics. |
We aren't disagreeing here ... my point is that I feel obligated to tell folks what *could* happen under this model and I wonder how many would sign up if they actually read the terms of service granting full, unconditional syndication of all data ... beyond that, whether the real Jeremy or not, the issues about changes and keeping data synched are worthwhile ... maybe a full open source data feed will work if the license forces attribution to the main data feed and displays a 'Data Expiration Date' so that feeds downstream know that what their looking at my be out of synch with the upstream.
If you can't tell, I'm having a hard time with this. And that's really why I was hoping for the geo-geek lawyer to show up. ... but alas none as of yet. |
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Scout
Joined: 16 Sep 2003
Posts: 235
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| Posted: Tue Sep 16, 2003 2:52 pm Post subject: |
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| hmarq wrote: | | my point is that I feel obligated to tell folks what *could* happen under this model and I wonder how many would sign up if they actually read the terms of service granting full, unconditional syndication of all data |
Of course, your terms of service would specify all particulars. gc.com's terms of usage are pretty tough sledding, but that hasn't stopped players from using the site. Two years ago, Jeremy Irish said he would put a checkbox right on the cache submission page allowing players to specify that they agreed to allow other geocaching sites to copy their data. He never followed through, but he said it was a good idea two years ago. (I agreed with him, but then it was my idea. ;-)
Besides, your terms of use don't have to grant full, unconditional syndication. The Open Source movement doesn't do that. What's more, the rights we are talking about here are not much more than what players already assign to gc.com when they submit any content to that site. They give gc.com a non-exclusive license to do pretty much whatever they want with the data, including selling it to Hustler or the US government if they want.
| hmarq wrote: | | the issues about changes and keeping data synched are worthwhile |
Sure they are. And there are many ways to handle this. Centralizing the data and its control in the hands of a monopolist are not the only way. Quit thinking in terms of a "main data feed" and think in terms of multiple sites, some big, some tiny, all sharing distributed data, none the "master".
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Mopar
Joined: 16 Sep 2003
Posts: 3
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| Posted: Tue Sep 16, 2003 11:11 pm Post subject: |
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| Scout wrote: | | the rights we are talking about here are not much more than what players already assign to gc.com when they submit any content to that site. They give gc.com a non-exclusive license to do pretty much whatever they want with the data, including selling it to Hustler or the US government if they want. |
As does navicache without quite so many words as gc.com. |
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hmarq
Site Admin
Joined: 15 Sep 2003
Posts: 351
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| Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2003 6:19 am Post subject: |
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| Mopar wrote: | | Scout wrote: | | the rights we are talking about here are not much more than what players already assign to gc.com when they submit any content to that site. They give gc.com a non-exclusive license to do pretty much whatever they want with the data, including selling it to Hustler or the US government if they want. |
As does navicache without quite so many words as gc.com. |
Yeah, all my thoughs and consternation about this were before finding that navicache was already doing it; I guess that maybe I'm worrying about nothing and no one actually reads the TOS anyway, except the malcontents wanting to start new sites |
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ju66l3r
Joined: 18 Sep 2003
Posts: 10
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| Posted: Thu Sep 18, 2003 1:24 pm Post subject: Re: We need a lawyer |
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| hmarq wrote: |
Any geogeek lawyers out there? |
IANAGGL, unfortunately, but I do have a published paper in a law journal! 
But seriously, definitely check out the open source initiative's websites as well as the EFF (who give great free legal advice from what I hear).
I think a GPL and a few other things are going to be necessary to establish the appropriate legal bounds for this venture, but once established this can be like any SourceForge project and people will be able to code some truly amazing branches to this open source tree (like directional compass searches, better filters for the caches, etc).
I wish I had more time to work on all this, because I think it could be really great (I'm a big fan of open-source...less of a fan of Free Software). |
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nici-
Joined: 25 Sep 2003
Posts: 199
Location: Hürth near Cologne, Germany
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| Posted: Mon Sep 29, 2003 3:08 pm Post subject: |
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I agree fully with Scout. Make it free for all. You simply cannot control the use of the data, if you want to distribute it to geocaching sites all over the world. There is no way, perhaps at the start but wait some months... And who is to decide. Look at the UK: Tree 'big' geocaching Webpages at last, the Netherlands: two and so on. And cache owners like to show 'their' caches on their privat pages too. The potential network is absolutely HUGE and this is, what we want!!!
| hmarq wrote: | | Hustler magazine does a "Backing in at Forest Preserves, a Survival Guide" and uses some select log entries as comedic foddor, along with cache links. That's a plain and simple "Commercial Purpose", they want to sell magazines, but I |
We need terms of use that handle things regarding 'commercial' use. It's not making money that I critizise on geocaching.com. I'd be the first to buy all that cool things and to be paying member and to donate and so on. It's monopolizing the data for this business purpose, instead of relying on good services and help from the community. They grab the data and close it away from me - geocacher who wants to do his own ideas to create my own maps and so on. I believe there is no golden mean between keep hold on the data or give it free. And
| hmarq wrote: | | Synical Sam Geocacher starts a parody site with sections on "Doofus Log Entries of the Week" that highlight bad trades and other stupid things ... or "Sucky Cache of the Week" ... how funny you find these depends on whether you're the subject of the humor I'd think. |
exactly THAT might be something, that cachers would like to do (and who knows, it might help to re-raise 'cache quality )
nici-
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Arun Mahalingam
Joined: 22 Oct 2003
Posts: 8
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| Posted: Wed Oct 22, 2003 4:29 pm Post subject: |
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When I registered for this forum I had to confirm that I was >13 or <13 years of age. Which legal system is this forum under at the moment?
USA?
Further: reading this thread it seems to me that already is decided that a coming international opencaching organisation will be seated in de USA and will fall under US law.
Yes, I know that the USA legal system is the best in the world so I do not object when the seat of the organisation will be in Guantanamo Bay: US territory no US law. The best of both.
I would advice strongly to put the seat in Liechtenstein or on the Bahama islands. You will have a lot less legal hassles that way now and in the nearby future.
And you will not have to cope with a multitude of rules like: is it all usable for handicaped persons? |
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hmarq
Site Admin
Joined: 15 Sep 2003
Posts: 351
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| Posted: Wed Oct 22, 2003 5:47 pm Post subject: |
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| Arun Mahalingam wrote: | When I registered for this forum I had to confirm that I was >13 or <13 years of age. Which legal system is this forum under at the moment?
USA?
Further: reading this thread it seems to me that already is decided that a coming international opencaching organisation will be seated in de USA and will fall under US law.
Yes, I know that the USA legal system is the best in the world so I do not object when the seat of the organisation will be in Guantanamo Bay: US territory no US law. The best of both.
I would advice strongly to put the seat in Liechtenstein or on the Bahama islands. You will have a lot less legal hassles that way now and in the nearby future.
And you will not have to cope with a multitude of rules like: is it all usable for handicaped persons? |
Yeah, that Over 13 thing is a stock part of the bulletin board package I installed here ... it is US derived for the COPPA requirements. It's been so long since I registered on other sites I don't remember if there was a similar blurb ...
Might be worthwhile to post the 'organize offshore' stuff in the Organization forum. |
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Arun Mahalingam
Joined: 22 Oct 2003
Posts: 8
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| Posted: Sun Nov 16, 2003 3:08 pm Post subject: |
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First a quote from elsewhere from this forum ( thou shall not crosspost...)
Renegade Knight
Posted: Sun Nov 16, 2003 2:29 pm
opencaching.com Forum Index -> General (The Catch All)
[...]
I'd like to see the organization up and running with a recognized legal structure before we select a logo. [...]
A recognised legal structure.
May I ask : for who, and above all 'where?' Legal structures exist only within boundaries of nation states.
I am totally in the dark about this. Please clarify. |
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