On Thursday, February 12, 2015 01:20:49 PM Carl D Hamann wrote: >[...]I'm far > from labeling them as "evil"; in fact, the fact that they are offering > free-as-in-beer content puts them a step closer to the right track [...]
They also appear to be having their participants encouraged to contribute their own materials and run courses, from what I can tell, which seems like another step in the right direction. (It could ALSO be a cynical attempt to get people to do their work for them for free, too, though...) > I did read through their [Terms of Service][1], > and they make it quite clear that content belongs to them, and that > you, your content, your status, etc. can be summarily deleted from the > site without cause. > > [1]: http://www.cybrary.it/terms-service/ I caught that too, though it also looks a lot like "boilerplate" language that could also apply even if the site was entirely creative-commons licensed. For example: "Intellectual Property: The Site and its original content, features and functionality are owned by Cybrary IT and are protected by international copyright, trademark, patent, trade secret and other intellectual property or proprietary rights laws." I don't really see where this site has any "trade secrets" or "patents", and I have no idea what they mean by "other intellectual property or proprietary rights laws" other than "and, like, anything else I'm forgetting". To me, it looks like a generic CYA "we aren't giving up our rights or anything" clause that might be applied even to entirely CC licensed sites. "Proper Use and Spam: If the Site determines that an account is being used for any purpose other than online IT and Cyber Security learning, the Site reserves the right to disable or delete the account without notice." similarly seems to be canned "no, you can't sue us if we shut you off for trolling or spending all of your time here trying to get people to buy something from you" clause rather than unreasonable overreach. I don't really like either of those clauses, nor the "limited license" and "changes to this agreement" clauses, but those too look like standard canned clauses that appear all over the place rather than something the site's operators consciously intend to make use of, necessarily. I think you're completely right about this initial contact being a low-effort mass-mailled promotional project for them. I'm just wondering if it'd be worth contacting them back to see if they're salvageable, so to speak. They seem new, so it's still early enough that they might take some guideance on being really free-and-open. (Heck, if they just want a "we'll mention Hacker Public Radio somewhere on our site once for every episode that mentions us somewhere" informal arrangement, we've already got potential episode material right here on the subjects of MOOCs, methods of self-promotion on the internet, and the ethical values of Hacker Public Radio which could all mention "cybrary.it" and their marketing email as a relevant example, even if we decide they're awful...) I'd definitely be reluctant to jump into any sort of formal arrangement without more information from them, though. _______________________________________________ Hpr mailing list [email protected] http://hackerpublicradio.org/mailman/listinfo/hpr_hackerpublicradio.org
