I worked in law for 10 years, not as an attorney. One of my jobs was to read and interpret contract language. I have also studied, tested for, and earned an advanced certification concerning contract law that has only been earned by a small number of other legal professionals in the United States.
Here is what you agree to you when you post your reviews, broken down for ease of reading, but taken verbatim from the Terms & Conditions:
By posting reviews, comments, stories or other content to the site,
1. You grant EdenFantasys and its affiliates a non-exclusive, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable and fully sub licensable right to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivatives works from, distribute and display such reviews, comments, stories or other content throughout the world using any media.
2. By submitting your name with any review, comment, story or other content to EdenFantasys, you expressly state that you grant EdenFantasys and its affiliates and sub licensees the right to use the name that you have submitted.
3. You further state and warrant that your posting of reviews, comments, stories and other content to EdenFantasys site as well as any future usage, reproduction, modification, adaptation, publishing, translation, creation derivatives works from, distributing and displaying will not infringe upon or violate the rights of any third parties.
4. You further state and warrant that the holder of any Rights, including, but not limited to, moral Rights to such content, has completely and effectively waived all such rights and validly and irrevocably granted you the authority to grant the license as described above.
5. You also permit any subscriber to access, display, view, store and reproduce such content for personal use.
6. Subject to the foregoing, the owner of such content placed on EdenFantasys site retains any and all Rights that may exist in such content.
My non-legal-advice opinion is that this contract clearly states the Reviewers OWN their reviews, but they have IRREVOCABLY granted EdenFantasys the right to use, reproduce, publish, etc. without compensation to the Reviewer.
[In some states the lack of consideration (the thing of value given in exchange for the granting of the use of the reviews in this case) could possibly be considered a factor for the contract to be held void; however, the actual value of a review (or several) is very rarely going to be more than the court costs and attorney's fees to litigate the matter. The terms clearly state the rights are GIVEN by the Reviewer.]
Furthermore, EF provides a street address to which a Reviewer can submit a copyright infringement complaint.
A PUBLIC forum is NOT the place to discuss a possible copyright infringement of an individual Reviewer. In the future, I believe a more appropriate forum posting for such a complaint could be simply “I have written to EF at the address provided and am not happy with the response. Because of this I no longer wish to contribute to this website. If you wish to know the details you can email me.” This would make a clear point to not only the other reviewers, but the public. We don't need to know all the gritty details.
I am not making any personal attacks here I don't know any of you personally and I actually enjoy Snappy's reviews so it's nothing personal against her.
I just think everyone needs to step back, read the contract they have agreed to, and either move on or continue to write the reviews.
Here is what you agree to you when you post your reviews, broken down for ease of reading, but taken verbatim from the Terms & Conditions:
By posting reviews, comments, stories or other content to the site,
1. You grant EdenFantasys and its affiliates a non-exclusive, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable and fully sub licensable right to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivatives works from, distribute and display such reviews, comments, stories or other content throughout the world using any media.
2. By submitting your name with any review, comment, story or other content to EdenFantasys, you expressly state that you grant EdenFantasys and its affiliates and sub licensees the right to use the name that you have submitted.
3. You further state and warrant that your posting of reviews, comments, stories and other content to EdenFantasys site as well as any future usage, reproduction, modification, adaptation, publishing, translation, creation derivatives works from, distributing and displaying will not infringe upon or violate the rights of any third parties.
4. You further state and warrant that the holder of any Rights, including, but not limited to, moral Rights to such content, has completely and effectively waived all such rights and validly and irrevocably granted you the authority to grant the license as described above.
5. You also permit any subscriber to access, display, view, store and reproduce such content for personal use.
6. Subject to the foregoing, the owner of such content placed on EdenFantasys site retains any and all Rights that may exist in such content.
My non-legal-advice opinion is that this contract clearly states the Reviewers OWN their reviews, but they have IRREVOCABLY granted EdenFantasys the right to use, reproduce, publish, etc. without compensation to the Reviewer.
[In some states the lack of consideration (the thing of value given in exchange for the granting of the use of the reviews in this case) could possibly be considered a factor for the contract to be held void; however, the actual value of a review (or several) is very rarely going to be more than the court costs and attorney's fees to litigate the matter. The terms clearly state the rights are GIVEN by the Reviewer.]
Furthermore, EF provides a street address to which a Reviewer can submit a copyright infringement complaint.
A PUBLIC forum is NOT the place to discuss a possible copyright infringement of an individual Reviewer. In the future, I believe a more appropriate forum posting for such a complaint could be simply “I have written to EF at the address provided and am not happy with the response. Because of this I no longer wish to contribute to this website. If you wish to know the details you can email me.” This would make a clear point to not only the other reviewers, but the public. We don't need to know all the gritty details.
I am not making any personal attacks here I don't know any of you personally and I actually enjoy Snappy's reviews so it's nothing personal against her.
I just think everyone needs to step back, read the contract they have agreed to, and either move on or continue to write the reviews.
