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Findaway's new terms of service are unacceptable

mwl.io

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Re: Findaway's new terms of service are unacceptable

#2
I'm waiting for these sorts of unilateral "we have updated our terms of service, by doing nothing, you agree to these new terms" contractual edicts get eliminated as a whole class of behavior. I'm not a lawyer so I'm not sure if it stops when enough of them get invalidated in court, or ifwhen the legislature steps in.

It's insane that it's accepted as normal that someone can send you an email with notice of a contract being altered (without even including those changes in the email) and you are deemed to have agreed to this new contract without even seeing it or taking any action whatsoever.

Companies that do this are shitty, and the people that run them are shitty people.

Re: Findaway's new terms of service are unacceptable

#4
If you've ever been involved in ToS drafting, you're used to customers panicking over clauses that you and your attorneys crafted to deal with pretty standard business requirements, such as granting adaptation rights so you can create thumbnails or summaries of user-generated content, for example.

This ... is not that. This is facially overbroad, lacks any kind of even indicative usage limitations, and likely breaks a lot of standard negotiating and contracting for authors within the publishing (and related) industries. While I've seen bad and overbroad adhesion contracts that were cut-and-paste jobs not created by actual counsel, I don't think I've seen something this audacious that went through legal review. It's predatory.

Re: Findaway's new terms of service are unacceptable

#5
post #2

I'm waiting for these sorts of unilateral "we have updated our terms of service, by doing nothing, you agree to these new terms" contractual edicts get eliminated as a whole class of behavior. I'm not a lawyer so I'm not sure if it stops when enough of them get invalidated in court, or ifwhen the legislature steps in. It's insane that it's accepted as normal that someone can send you an email with notice of a contrac…

Getting an email sounds quite courteous. Most companies just put an extra sentence some in the footer along the lines of "these terms can be updated anytime without prior notice. check back here every 20 minutes, if you want to know about it, lol" (HN has this too btw - which makes sense for accounts without email. Not so polite regarding the other accounts.)

Re: Findaway's new terms of service are unacceptable

#6
I wonder how much of the highlighted clause

    you hereby grant Spotify a non-exclusive, transferable, sublicensable, royalty-free, fully paid, irrevocable, worldwide license to reproduce, make available, perform and display, translate, modify, create derivative works from (such as transcripts of User Content), distribute, and otherwise use any such User Content through any medium
is actually necessary for the service to function in the first place. But something caught my attention:

    by any means, method or technology, **whether now known or hereafter created**
Why is this even legal anywhere ? How does one consent to something that is unknown at the time of signing?

Re: Findaway's new terms of service are unacceptable

#8
I was just seeing something about this on social media - @laura_horowitz_narrator was talking about it and one of the commenters claim they have backpedaled and apologized for "confusing language" but I don't find the language confusing at all. If you're a lawyer and you're modifying an existing document to state these terms, what else could you possibly be meaning?

Re: Findaway's new terms of service are unacceptable

#9
This is tangential, but the author's audiobook "Savaged by Systemd" sounds hilariously bizarre:

> The classic work of Linux satirical erotica, complete and unabridged, now a Tilted Windmill Press exclusive!

> ... The latest trend Terry refuses? One adopted almost everywhere? Systemd, the replacement init.

> So Systemd comes for Terry.

> Wearing skin-tight leather pants.

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