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500px Terms of Service

500px.com

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Re: 500px Terms of Service

#61

Post by suchire »

tomelders wrote: post #57
NyxWulf wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been through the process of litigating a contract in court. Not fun, but definitely was an exquisite education in the school of hard knocks. Lawyers throw all kinds of language into a contract, that doesn't mean the intent was there. Vague, unfair, or overly broad language that was not clearly understood by both parties tends to get reduced, removed, or modified in accordance with what both parties reasonably un…

"The column on the right provides a short explanation of the terms of use and is not legally binding." That's quite clear to me. If I were to try my luck in the courts, I'd be pleasantly surprised if the Judge took the "basically" column as the legal interpretation. Ignorance, as far as I'm aware, is not an acceptable legal defence (as cited by many a judge to people who neglect to pay their taxes). The fact remains…

IANAL (but my wife has a JD): it's a fine line; on the one hand, the legal principle of "meeting of the minds" might make the judge rule that the "basically" illustrates the true intentions of the contractual clauses. On the other hand, as you say, judges are often unsympathetic to pleas of ignorance. What you sign in the contract is generally the contract. Most of the time, what this probably means is that judges will take the "basically" summarized version when they feel the contract is egregiously inequitable, and otherwise defer to the legally binding wording.

EDIT: fixed typo.

Re: 500px Terms of Service

#62

Post by tchebotarev »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #24

> (iii) for any direct damages in Excess of (in the aggregate) $100. // That doesnt sound legal. It would, if enforceable allow them to only pay you $100 if they wrote off (destroyed) your car in a crash if it happened that you were a customer. Or similarly they could duplicate any customer's copyright works and pay only $100 compensation.

Hi pbhjpbhj!

Thanks for pointing that out!

It is legal and very common. It is done simply to limit the liability in unforeseen events. Some courts can throw this point out during the case, some may adhere to that. But most terms on the Internet would include it "just in case".

And no, we won't duplicate customers' works and such — we have build it for photographers, and we are photographers ourselves. We care about that stuff.

- Evgeny Tchebotarev, COO, 500px

Re: 500px Terms of Service

#63

Post by tambourine_man »

Tichy wrote: post #14

I was expecting a TOS in ultra small print so that it all fits into 500px (500px height or whatever).

Or something that would have to fit in 500px in 12px Helvetica, Arial. That would be quite nice actually. Our TOS or EULA is about 3 paragraphs, and that's it.

Re: 500px Terms of Service

#64

Post by keenman »

tchebotarev wrote: post #60
jonny500px wrote: post #53

Well done to whoever spotted this. I signed up to this site, and now I will delete my account. The simplifications are not accurately simplifying what they should be. Which I think is silly, since the majority of us can read and think, and see that in some cases the simplifications barely match whats actually being said. And I point also and especially to wording like this, which leaves me outright cold to them as a…

True. But we want you to have the truthful information in case someone steals _your_ photos. We'll be able to investigate and find out the truth. Having real name, web-site, twitter or facebook helps us a lot in that. There has been a few cases like that, and photographers love that we take proactive approach in solving their problems.

Want and need are two very different things.

Re: 500px Terms of Service

#65

Post by ynniv »

tomelders wrote: post #57
NyxWulf wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been through the process of litigating a contract in court. Not fun, but definitely was an exquisite education in the school of hard knocks. Lawyers throw all kinds of language into a contract, that doesn't mean the intent was there. Vague, unfair, or overly broad language that was not clearly understood by both parties tends to get reduced, removed, or modified in accordance with what both parties reasonably un…

"The column on the right provides a short explanation of the terms of use and is not legally binding." That's quite clear to me. If I were to try my luck in the courts, I'd be pleasantly surprised if the Judge took the "basically" column as the legal interpretation. Ignorance, as far as I'm aware, is not an acceptable legal defence (as cited by many a judge to people who neglect to pay their taxes). The fact remains…

I'd be pleasantly surprised if the Judge took the "basically" column as the legal interpretation.

I would be very surprised if their legal department thought the "basically" column was a good idea. They can say that it isn't legally binding, but that claim isn't ... err... legally binding. Everything written in a contract is equally binding, and the proximity and one-to-one mapping could make the summary column part of the contract. If either party is surprised by conflicting claims, it will be up to the judge to decide which parts of the contract are stronger.

The "basically" column is a really bad idea. The "full" column should stand on its own. If they think it is too complicated, it should be simplified.

Re: 500px Terms of Service

#67

Post by unreal37 »

RobertKohr wrote: post #59

Here is an idea. Simplify the actual terms of service. The TOS can be what was written under the "Basically" parts. There is no rule that a TOS has to be convoluted.

The "basically" parts don't cover even 10% of the actual terms. As others have said, there are tons of restrictive language in there that are not even hinted at under basically.

Re: 500px Terms of Service

#68

Post by Silhouette »

tomelders wrote: post #57
NyxWulf wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been through the process of litigating a contract in court. Not fun, but definitely was an exquisite education in the school of hard knocks. Lawyers throw all kinds of language into a contract, that doesn't mean the intent was there. Vague, unfair, or overly broad language that was not clearly understood by both parties tends to get reduced, removed, or modified in accordance with what both parties reasonably un…

"The column on the right provides a short explanation of the terms of use and is not legally binding." That's quite clear to me. If I were to try my luck in the courts, I'd be pleasantly surprised if the Judge took the "basically" column as the legal interpretation. Ignorance, as far as I'm aware, is not an acceptable legal defence (as cited by many a judge to people who neglect to pay their taxes). The fact remains…

Ignorance, as far as I'm aware, is not an acceptable legal defence (as cited by many a judge to people who neglect to pay their taxes).

Be careful not to confuse criminal law with contracts. It is fundamental to the existence of a contract that both sides understand it. That is one of the few points of law that is pretty much a universal constant, whatever jurisdiction you're in.

Re: 500px Terms of Service

#69

Post by whackberry »

I assume most of us here at HN do some sort of computer development work. In computers, languages aren't simple, human readable, though modern languages try to be as readable as possible. Why is that? It's because you can't have ambiguity. An ambiguous command could set off a nuke...or break a pacemaker and kill a patient, or something worse.

There is a reason why legal documents are terse, boring, difficult to read. It's because they need to avoid the natural ambiguities of human language.

Mom just saw a cat in the living room. The mom was in the living room and saw a cat? The mom was in the kitchen and saw a cat in the living room? See, for a casual conversation it doesn't matter. But to prove where a murder happened, it matters....

As much as I hate lawyerspeak(computer programmer here), I understand the need for a technical language and I understand that the simplifications in that document WILL allow for ambiguities.

For example: "If you use more than your fair share, we may gradually limit your account." Can mean anything....

Re: 500px Terms of Service

#70

Post by melvinmt »

yaix wrote: post #25

What we need is a Creative Commons for TOS boilerplate, to just copy and paste. Especially, since most of that lawyer blah is superfluous. Things like "do not harass other people". Really! We already have /laws/ for that, you don't need to add any obviously prohibited thing to the TOS.

Welcome to common law.
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