9 thoughts on “Updated terms of use

  1. 4

    Dec04|2016

    Dennis

    This comment/email is in response to your post of Dec01|16 “PatentlyO-Blog: Terms of Use.”

    Nice try, friend, but it don’t work like that. Among the points of my non-agreement with your Terms of Use, please find the following enumerated list. The list is meant to be illustrative and not as limiting inasmuch as I do not waive any rights in any form for any period of time for any reason with respect to you or any website or blog you own, control, operate, promote, or publish.

    1. I have never agreed to any unilateral conditions placed on my participation on PO, and I do not now agree to any of your unilateral, so-called “Terms of Use.” Irrespective of how many times I read content on, or offer comments to, your website, I do not waive any rights, including, without limit, any and all propriety rights in content I create and any cause of action or any right to sue you or anyone else should a valid claim.

    2. I deny any responsibility to review your so-called “Terms of Use” regularly, periodically, monthly, or any time at all. Moreover, I have no intention of reviewing your “Terms of Use” regularly, periodically, monthly, or any time at all. My continued accessing of the website/blog does not constitute my agreement to do anything.

    3. More specifically, as to any content I may create and provide to PO from time to time, absent a written agreement between us the only license I grant you is a one-time license to publish my content once as a comment attached to the post I placed the comment under. Specifically, and without limit, other than the foregoing I do not grant you any right to upload, download, copy, plagiarize, publish, re-publish, print, sell, transfer, tweet, re-tweet, toot, or twerp any content I provide, unless you have my written consent to do so. Other than the foregoing-referenced one-time license, absent a written agreement between us, there is no “fully paid-up license to PO.” I have no idea where you got that idea.

    4. Your blog is offered as a public forum to anyone in the world who cares to read the posts and/or participate in the comments, and that is the basis upon which I have, and which I do, and which I will engage with the blog. If you wish to avail yourself to the World Wide Web and to run a public blog that does not require passwords or other methods to restrict access and participation, then you have no grounds for demanding that those who do participate give up or waive any rights they have, and you have no grounds for demanding that your users review any terms of use or take any other affirmative actions of any nature.

    5. I have unsubscribed from your email service; consequently, PO does not provide to me any personalized service that could constitute grounds for a claim under contract by either of us.

    My opinion, for which I do not intend to invoice you, is that your digital Terms of Use are, by and large, not worth the paper they are not written on.

    Nothing here is meant to disparage you or your efforts, which have always been appreciated and admired.

    Thanks,
    Denis O’Brien, PhD/Esq.

    This disclaimer is being sent by email to dcrouch@patentlyo.com and is being posted as a comment to the Dec01|16 post “Updated terms of use” or, in the alternative, to the most recent post on patentlyo.com

      1. 4.1.1

        Clearly, we lack a meeting of the minds here – which I say works against the idea that Mr. Crouch could ever enforce such a contract of adhesion that he desires to do with his Terms of Use.

        (and for the record, I am not Denis O’Brien, and my additional comment is entirely my own).

  2. 3

    Item 7 is a serious overreach, Professor Crouch. You get a free pass to defame anyone who accesses your site twice, as well as to misappropriate their material and post it here?

    1. 3.1

      Section 7 states:
      7. Reader Addendum

      Anyone who reads content from the site more than twice agrees to not charge PO or Dennis Crouch with any violation of copyright, Lanham Act, patent, defamation, libel, or fraud claim based wholly or partially on any aspect of this Site or Blog. If you do have a problem with anything posted on the site or feel that you have an ownership claim to anything on the site, please contact PO immediately.

      It only applies when the site is accessed more than twice.

      Further, it only disclaims defamation, libel, etc “based wholly or partially on any aspect of this Site or Blog” so it’s not a completely free pass on the slander.

      Though, I do wonder about the effectiveness of such disclaimer within terms of use when not alerted to the reader, e.g., the sites that tell you that they use cookies in a pop up that must be closed in order to effectuate their privacy policy.

      So maybe your worry is null and void because the disclaimer won’t be effective.

      1. 3.1.1

        It only applies when the site is accessed more than twice.”

        Yes. So, I’ve accessed the site twice. Professor Crouch now has a license from here on out to defame me? Even if I don’t come back? Let’s say somebody tells me that he defames me, and I come to the site twice to investigate it. I’ve now given up my right to sue?

        Further, it only disclaims defamation, libel, etc “based wholly or partially on any aspect of this Site or Blog” so it’s not a completely free pass on the slander.

        It’s a free pass so long as the slander is performed via this site. Somehow you haven’t convinced me that this isn’t an over-reach.

        So maybe your worry is null and void because the disclaimer won’t be effective.

        Maybe. That doesn’t mean it isn’t obnoxious.

        1. 3.1.1.1

          Or perhaps just sloppy (granted Prof. Crouch does not teach contract law; leastwise, I do not think that he does).

  3. 1

    Legally enforceable? “The following is intended to be a legally enforceable contract. You should be careful to note that you are assenting to the contract by accessing the blog more than once.” I had no idea such a thing even existed, and I’ve been posting well over a year. Unless you make it such that you have to agree to these terms each time you visit, how is anyone going to know these terns exist? This is a shrink wrap license without the shrink wrap.

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