PIU report and human rights: e-commerce Bill

[Nicholas Bohm]

At 08:06 AM 6/21/1999 +0100, lists@notatla.demon.co.uk wrote:
>matthew-l@itconsult.co.uk (Matthew Richardson):
>
>> An ISP seeking to claim copyright over someone's private email would
>> seem to present a significant number of issues!
>
>> I have tried searching for the text of the offending terms and
>> conditions, but have failed to locate them.  Does anyone have a URL?
>
>
>No, but you can see this on www.ibm.com....
>
>   IBM does not want to receive confidential or proprietary information
>   from you through our Web site. Please note that any information or
>   material sent to IBM will be deemed NOT to be confidential. By sending
>   IBM any information or material, you grant IBM an unrestricted,
>   irrevocable license to use, reproduce, display, perform, modify,
>   transmit and distribute those materials or information, and you also
>   agree that IBM is free to use any ideas, concepts, know-how or
>   techniques that you send us for any purpose. ....
>
>I dislike the 'irrevocable' in the above paragraph, given the
>revoke-for-no-reason provision of the postfix licence.

It is at least much more reasonable than the alleged virgin.net terms.  

It is aimed at solving a well-known problem (which long predates the Web),
which is that many companies involved in product research and development
receive unsolicited suggestions for product improvements from people who
subsequently claim their ideas have been stolen.  The text above is just a
Web-adapted version of existing ways of trying to avoid getting lumbered
with unwanted legal consequences of unsolicited confidential disclosure of
copyright material.  

Regards,

Nicholas Bohm

Salkyns, Great Canfield,
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