311–320 of 366 posts
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https://www.ycombinator.com/legal#tou
Back in the good old days... http://web.archive.org/web/20141020194316/https://www.ycombi... Terms of Use When you click on a link, our server will send you the corresponding page.
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Some would argue that the undefined duration does not match “limited times” and that the copyright is no longer “promoting useful arts”. While some of these questions have been answered in Disney’s favour in recent times, it is clear that the “matter of law” is anything but clear.
This was adjudicated up to the Supreme Court: https://www.oyez.org/cases/2002/01-618 tl;dr: 7-2 as long as there is some type of time limitation, Congress is free to extend copyright terms.
This is a good point worth bringing up, since the GP seems to imply it isn't with reference to the wording of the constitution's Copyright Clause.
However, it doesn't answer the moral question of whether congress should have passed that law, or whether congress should pass laws to change copyright term lengths to be shorter. That's not the role of the court.
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Disney probably does have implicit permission from anybody who tags them and uses that hashtag to use their quotes for a social media project, since Twitter is generally considered to be a forum for public discourse. This might also be enshrined in Twitter's ToS. That's not the problem. The problem is that they claim that anybody who tweets at them and uses their hashtag is entering into a contract agreement with the…
Unilateral contracts are a thing, when one party makes an offer that is only accepted by performance. As the offeror, Disney can invite acceptance of their contract however they want, including via replying to their tweet with a special hashtag. They made the requirements pretty clear and stringent enough that I very much doubt anyone is at risk of accidentally entering into that contract, but if that does happen, th…
The problem is Disney co-opting two regular parts of Twitter's service, and then claiming that represents a Disney service. It isn't, and can clearly be used for purposes beyond establishing a contract.
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Well-developed (highly-litigated) areas of law don't work this way. A phrase in children's book is unlikely to be considered sufficient evidence that Disney has conveyed an unlimited license to sell Mickey puppets. At best, the language might protect an unsophisticated infringer from having to pay statutory damages or Disney's legal fees. For example, if a naive person (non-lawyer, non-business person) sold a few of…
Couldn't you show that they're willing to enter into a contract by hash tag, therefor they're pretty flexible on how they enter contracts. Or is it only the unconscionable ones?
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Did you know that you can't use copyright to protect an algorithm?
But you can copyright the most efficient implementations.
At a rummage sale a few years ago, I bought a book published by Disney in the 1960s or 1970s which had instructions on how to make Mickey Mouse puppets. It also said to "have fun" making them. Selling things for a profit is a lot of fun. As far as I'm concerned, I now have a perpetual, transferable license to make and sell Mickey Mouse puppets. I even asked a lawyer.
Well-developed (highly-litigated) areas of law don't work this way. A phrase in children's book is unlikely to be considered sufficient evidence that Disney has conveyed an unlimited license to sell Mickey puppets. At best, the language might protect an unsophisticated infringer from having to pay statutory damages or Disney's legal fees. For example, if a naive person (non-lawyer, non-business person) sold a few of…