Goodreads Alternative Riffle Goes Live

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

At least in Europe, they will not be able to claim those rights. Here, the law supersedes ANY Terms of Service or End User License Agreement. If I publish something, somewhere, I have the copyright, and you're not allowed to use the publication in any way, except when I clearly state that you can do so.

I knew that; I assume they know that (hence the careful phrasing of the TOS) but are trying to imply they have more rights than they do.

I rather can't believe that this would be otherwise in the US. It's impossible to believe that a company can state that they are free to do whatever they want, with anything you publish on whatever site.

With anything you publish *publicly*. Important distinction. And of course, that only applies to their users, not "other people with the same names as our users," which would make it hard to support any actual content-grabbing.

That TOS is impossible, as this company would practically be able to own the information in the entire internet, by stating that it was posted by one of its users.

The claim isn't enough to make it true. However, yeah, the TOS is awful.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

With anything you publish *publicly*. Important distinction. And of course, that only applies to their users, not "other people with the same names as our users," which would make it hard to support any actual content-grabbing.

Everything one publishes on the internet is public, if it's not password protected or something. How would they check if a site that holds content by a "Mr. X" is actually the same "Mr. X" as one of their users? That's impossible to check, therefore it's not possible to follow up on the rights they seem to give themselves.

Same thing, as one of our Dutch politicians tried to do some time ago. "I want to completely forbid illegal downloading. The user has to check if the files that they download are on that site legally."

So, uh... Sir. You really think that it is possible to check legality of every link, if I type in "Harry Potter epub" in Google, to see if I can by it somewhere? For all I know, the first link is a direct link to an archive containing all the epubs in retail quality. (And yes, I have encountered this, while searching for information on an author or a book.)

Almost everybody can put almost everything on the internet. It's impossible to check if this is done by the same person, or legally, without expending a great amount of time and resources; and you also need to have the appropriate knowledge. What may be illegal in country X may be perfectly legal in country Y.

The claim isn't enough to make it true. However, yeah, the TOS is awful.

I assume that there will be people with the applicable knowledge to put that company in its place in due time.

[Quexos]

Can't really access it, to do so one must enter a facebook or twitter account and I have none. There was a time when one could sign up with an account specific to the site one is trying to join and not a facebook forced sign in.

[Katsunami]

It's just one more way for them to get more information, by linking those accounts.

If a site uses a Facebook or Twitter account sign-in system, they can be sure that I won't join. I don't have Facebook or Twitter, and I don't want them.