September 3, 2008
Steven
Matthews
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Via the Register:
Section 11.1 of the new Google Browser Chrome’s EULA:
11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights that you already hold in Content that you submit, post or display on or through the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying the content, you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free and non-exclusive licence to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content that you submit, post or display on or through the Services. This licence is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the Services and may be revoked for certain Services as defined in the Additional Terms of those Services.
Not sure any of us want to grant Google a “perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free and non-exclusive licence to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute” any content that we “submit, post or display on or through” their new browser.
I’m sure Mr. Fraser can critique more eloquently, so I’ll just quote Jon Stewart, “whaaaaaaaaaa?”
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... a per saltum project from Slaw ...
Our simple-to-remember rewriting of the URL for the Supreme Court of Canada — And lessupremes.ca works as well, bien sûr.
Gavel Busters
It's time to bring the hammer down on Canadian sites that mistakenly use the gavel as a symbol of law. Help us wipe out this scourge! Learn more on our Gavel Busters page.
The Friday Fillip Collections
Some end-of-week frivols fastened in folios for your enjoyment ...
Selected Fillips from 2006 2007
[2008 2009 coming soon ... ]
Slawstalgia
See how things used to be on Slaw:
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the page from June 5, 2006, when we'd be going for just about a year...
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the page from May 13, 2010 [PDF], nearly four years later...
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Read this book and you will know whether you are more likely to be a happy lawyer at age 30 or age 60, why you can tell a lot about a firm from looking at its walls and windows, whether a 10 percent raise or a new office with a view does more for your happiness, and whether the happiness prospects are better in large or small firms.
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"The Lake Shore Limited runs between Chicago and New York City without crossing the Canadian border. But when it stops at Amtrak stations in western New York State, armed Border Patrol agents routinely board the train, question passengers about their citizenship and take away noncitizens who cannot produce satisfactory immigration papers." If you haven't already said "This is how it begins" here's another reason to.
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On Monday, August 23, 2010, over 300 individuals charged during Toronto’s G20, nearly two months prior, had their first appearances at the courthouse at 2201 Finch Ave. West in North York. Although I had not been retained by any of those whom I assisted with bail on a pro-bono basis, I decided to head over to court to see what was happening.
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This came to me the other day, sitting in my car, thinking about how law students don’t know anything about secondary sources and just insist (said disdainfully, and as if I had dirt in my mouth) on looking for answers on Westlaw or Lexis as if it will just come to them if they ask.
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Evan Chesler, the presiding partner of Cravath, Swaine & Moore, one of the world’s largest law firms, wrote an article in 2009 called “Kill the Billable Hour”. It has not been killed, but he is confident that clients will continue to ask for alternatives.
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In 2003, a group of scientists and executives from the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration, the drug and medical-imaging industries, universities and nonprofit groups joined in a project that experts say had no precedent: a collaborative effort to find the biological markers that show the progression of Alzheimer’s disease in the human brain.
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“Music, libraries, and baseball: those are three things I’ve loved since I was very young.”
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"I believe that net neutrality is the First Amendment issue of our time," declared Democratic Senator Al Franken at Thursday's public hearing on the Internet, held in his home state of Minnesota. Unless it's freedom of religion," he added, "which, until last week, I thought we had kind of worked out."
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Perhaps the best piece in recent memory on the future of the web, competition of the closed-Apps market, and maturity of Internet content delivery. - SM
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Too bizarre to be real… Which is right, as it turns out. Google sez:
Google is “working quickly to remove language from Section 11 of the current Google Chrome terms of service. This change will apply retroactively to all users who have downloaded Google Chrome.”
See Ars Technica
That does seem over the top. Not sure why it would be drafted that way, or purport to give Google those rights. After all, this is a browser. The inputs are people entering URL’s they want to go to for which that doesn’t seem necessary. Other inputs could be people using the browser to do searches or post content – such as this comment – but then as I see it, the browser is just a conduit for that – not unlike your ISP. Its Slaw that I am putting this on, so if anyone has to deal with any rights to publish or use this comment, its Slaw, not Google.
whaaaaaaaaaa? does seem to sum this up nicely.
Why are people so willing to believe such an absurd story?
The EULA made no sense because you weren’t using Chrome to publish anything.
Now, on the other hand – if you are using blogger, you might want to rethink.
Good news Simon. :) Readwriteweb mentioned that the terms are very close to that of Google Docs, which of course browsers & web services are very different.
I have to wonder if a Google lawyer got caught with an unvetted cut & paste. The Sarah Palin of EULAs perhaps? ;)
Matt Cutts has a post on this — essentially Google’s lawyers are re-writing the EULA, with retroactive effect.
Does an EULA mean anything for open-source software? The source code is provided under a BSD-style license, allowing anyone to modify the browser to meet their needs. It would be very easy to modify the source to ensure that the browser never provides any information to Google (except legitimate web searches). This modified browser can then be released and freely distributed, free of any of the conditions in the EULA, since the EULA refers to the compiled, binary download and not to modifications to the source.
Can anyone with an IP background explain how the EULA interacts with Google’s BSD license? http://code.google.com/chromium/terms.html
Word from the official Google blog:
11. Content license from you
11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services.
Sounds good to me.
Commentators describe it as the PR backlash against EULA.