Hey jay and gang! > The question that is still unanswered is: > does a legal release form need to be in legalese? > or can I write one up that is human readable, but still a serious > document?
I am not a lawyer, but, I think I can help here. (People ask this question a lot :-) Well if two people agree on a document and sign it, it's "legally binding" and all that -- and in that way it's a "serious" document, in the sense that I think you mean. But "legally binding" won't get you far later if you have a signed document whose true legal meaning leaves too much open for interpretation. Ambiguity can be your friend or your enemy - But I'm going to make the case for ambiguity not being your friend (although I will pitch both sides in a p.s. below) Lack of "legalese" often leads to ambiguity - and that will cause trouble later "when things go wrong." eg when one party or the other decides that the other party has violated their agreement in some way. If you wrote up on a piece of paper: X can use Y's artwork X will pay Y $$ for it X can use it for "anything" for two years after the date of this document. and both X and Y signed it The question then becomes (to a judge) - what were the terms of the agreement exactly? (which uses were allowed, and which were restricted) So questions like: What does "anything" mean. Does it mean friggin "anything?" Or "any use that existed to the best of either party's knowledge at the time of the document?" or whatever.... And then, did X violate those terms, or not? (Did the use in question fall under the allowable uses?) So with Creative Commons licenses -- since they are based on existing copyright law, if you were to prosecute a party for the unauthorized use of your copyrighted work, you could not afford yourself the legal protections under existing copyright law if the licenses did not use the exact legal language *of existing copyright law." (Without that language, it's difficult to determine what the "authorized" and "unauthorized" uses in question even are.) Even with the human readable versions, it's really still too complicated to figure out very quickly, if ya ask me, so I've created this table that summarizes and compares them - with the pros and cons of each, here: http://video.lisarein.com/sfsu/guide/prosandcons.html well, hope this helps :-) thanks! lisa (co-founder, creative commons) (former director of operations, wide hive records) p.s. total sidenote on ambiguity: It totally depends which side of the agreement you're on at any given time whether the ambiguity helps you or hurts you. When I'm an artist selling a photograph - I want to be paid for *that specific use* of my work, say, for an album cover, so the company has to come back to me to give me more money if, say, they want to make t-shirts, or whatever. But here's the flip side: as a record label person, I don't want to have to go looking for the artist to make a separate deal every time I want to make a t-shirt or print a mug or whatever of the artwork you just paid $1000 for fer your album cover. It's easier to give them a little more upfront and write up an agreement that says you can do what your what you want with the artwork -- usually for a limited period of time, like two years after the album comes out -- and if the artist is smart, they can protect themselves by putting in language like doesn't not include commercial uses other than those directly promoting the album., etc. > > jay > > -- > Here I am.... > http://jaydedman.com > 917 371 6790 > > Check out the latest project: http://politicalvideo.org > 500 hours of George Bush speeches > Search, download, use > Lisa Rein http://onlisareinsradar.com http://www.lisarein.com
