May I upload public domain data under the Swivel terms of use

[Brough Turner]

In Swivel's terms of use,under "User Submissions" it says,
   "... you represent and warrant that you own or otherwise control all
   rights to such User Submissions and that disclosure and use of such User
   Submissions by Swivel (including without limitation, publishing content
   on or at the Site) will not infringe or violate the rights of any third
   party; ..."

What about public domain data?  I would like to scrape some data from the
CIA World Factbook's website and upload it to Swivel. On their website they
say
   "The Factbook is in the public domain. Accordingly, it may be copied
   freely without permission of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).  ."

Intuitively it seems like this data should be fair game.  But I certainly
don't "own or otherwise control all rights" to this data.

Thanks,
Brough

Blog: http://blogs.nmss.com/communications/
Skype: brough

[Dmitry Dimov]

Brough,

Thanks for pointing this out, I'll work with our lawyers to clarify this. In the mean time, public domain data is totally fair game (they do typically ask you to properly cite the source), so please go ahead and upload the data. Thanks for trying Swivel out. I would love to hear any other feedback you might have.

Thanks,
Dmitry Dimov
Product Chief & Cofounder
http://www.swivel.com

[Dmitry Dimov]

Brough,

We will modify our terms to read:

" . . . you represent and warrant that you own, control, or otherwise possess sufficient legal rights to such User Submissions . . ."

which, according to our laywer, takes care of your concern. Let me know if you have any other concerns, otherwise, upload that data and go swiveling.

Thank you,

Dmitry Dimov
Product Chief & Cofounder
http://www.swivel.com

On 12/21/06, Brough Turner < brough...@gmail.com> wrote:

[brough...@gmail.com]

Dmitry,

Thank you. I agree that covers my concern over public data. Now I
have some more questions and/or suggestions...

First a suggestion - While I realize it's difficult to get any lawyer
to write simplified English, I have seen examples of simple
descriptions of what is permissable that are readable by the average
person. Frequently they end with a pointer to the full terms and
conditions for those that really want to know for sure what applies.
Very few non-lawyers read terms and conditions. Can you talk your
lawyers into allowing some simple text that humans (not lawyers :-)
would actually read?

Wikipedia is a wonderful source of information, however Wikipedia's
content is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License which
specifically says any subsequent use of the documentation must also be
licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. What is the
legality of extracting (scraping) information from Wikipedia and using
it on Swivel (which doesn't support the GNU Free Documentation
License)? After all, it's not their text verbatim (although the first
case I'm thinking of it would be pretty close). Right now I'm
interested in the data in Wikipedia's lists of mobile network
operators, e.g.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mobile_network_operators and their
longer lists by region. Any thoughts on whether this is legitimate or,
if not, on a way to make it legitimate?

Thanks,
Brough

[Dmitry Dimov]

Brough,

Thank you for this suggestion. Believe it or not, lawyers have reasons for not (easily) letting you write a friendly summary of terms accessible to a normal human being, one being the concern that the simplified summary will cover a broader legal base than what the terms of use intend (go figure). Nevertheless, I'll keep working with our legal team to see what we can do.

Regarding the GNU Free Documentation License: this is an excellent question. Again, I'll work with our legal team and get back to you and the group.

Thank you,
Dmitry

[Dmitry Dimov]

Brough,

1. On simplified terms of use: as it turns out, there really isn't a good way to try to condense the official terms of use into a user-friendly version without getting into legal troubled waters. You and our users have to have to go through the whole thing.

2. On data licensing: it is our general understanding that in the US, data cannot be copyrighted. That said, I encourage you to carefully read through and abide by the license terms for any data you want to upload into Swivel. The world of copyright is complex and it will be impossible for us to try to address every specific scenario, so all we can do is ask you to respect whatever copyright terms the originator of data may have specified.

Thank you,
Dmitry

On 12/31/06, brough...@gmail.com < brough...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Dmitry Dimov]

Hal,

Mandatory disclaimer: we cannot provide legal advice, so it's best for you to consult a legal professional. With that in mind, read on.

Regarding the second point first. We will do our best to help our members at their request and remove all traces of it known to us and within our control. However, as you know, once anything is published on the Internet, whether on Swivel or any other site, it cannot really be completely removed. It may be cached by search engines, on machines of visitors who happened to get a glance at it, and who knows where else. Please also remember that any help we might provide with removing the data from Swivel is a courtesy, not an obligation: we simply may not have the capacity to honor all such requests.

Regarding publishing unauthorized data: as our terms of use indicate, we comply with the DMCA requirements and will take down unauthorized or copyrighted data in accordance with the DMCA. Publishing unauthorized data violates the terms of service and therefore may lead to the termination of the offender's account.

Once again, please consult a legal professional for definitive answers to your questions.

Dmitry

On 8/15/07, Hal < hal...@gmail.com> wrote:

I'd like to explore a little more on this topic. Would you be able to
clarify what may be the consequence of uploading data that one did not
have permissions to upload? Would it be a warning to remove, or
something more serious?

Secondly, would Swivel act "swiftly" to help the erring member, to
clean-up?

Would it remain cached elsewhere, such as search engine servers? Or
would there be a way to clear that?

Thanks, and regards.

Hal

On Jan 10, 2:28 pm, "Dmitry Dimov" < dmi...@swivel.com> wrote:
> Brough,
>
> 1. On simplified terms of use: as it turns out, there really isn't a good
> way to try to condense the official terms of use into a user-friendly
> version without getting into legal troubled waters. You and our users have
> to have to go through the whole thing.
>
> 2. On data licensing: it is our general understanding that in the US, data
> cannot be copyrighted. That said, I encourage you to carefully read through
> and abide by the license terms for any data you want to upload into Swivel.
> The world of copyright is complex and it will be impossible for us to try to
> address every specific scenario, so all we can do is ask you to respect
> whatever copyright terms the originator of data may have specified.
>
> Thank you,
> Dmitry
>

> On 12/31/06, broughtur...@gmail.com <broughtur...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > Dmitry,
>
> > Thank you.  I agree that covers my concern over public data.  Now I
> > have some more questions and/or suggestions...
>
> > First a suggestion - While I realize it's difficult to get any lawyer
> > to write simplified English, I have seen examples of simple
> > descriptions of what is permissable that are readable by the average
> > person.  Frequently they end with a pointer to the full terms and
> > conditions for those that really want to know for sure what applies.
> > Very few non-lawyers read terms and conditions.  Can you talk your
> > lawyers into allowing some simple text that humans (not lawyers :-)
> > would actually read?
>
> > Wikipedia is a wonderful source of information, however Wikipedia's
> > content is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License which
> > specifically says any subsequent use of the documentation must also be
> > licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.  What is the
> > legality of extracting (scraping) information from Wikipedia and using
> > it on Swivel (which doesn't support the GNU Free Documentation
> > License)?  After all, it's not their text verbatim (although the first
> > case I'm thinking of it would be pretty close).  Right now I'm
> > interested in the data in Wikipedia's lists of mobile network
> > operators, e.g.

> >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mobile_network_operatorsand their

> > longer lists by region.  Any thoughts on whether this is legitimate or,
> > if not, on a way to make it legitimate?
>
> > Thanks,

> > Brough- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -