Simply put, then, Yahoo is in effect stating that by making access to your posts, archives, etc., public, you are granting them license to use, dissimilar in effect, but not the process of putting something into the public domain?  When Yahoo! changed its policy, a couple of years ago, I don't recall the notice they distributed making much, if any, distinction, between the accessibility of material with respect to their being licensed to use it, though I am doubting your interpretation of their TOS.  Frankly, I was thinking that their desire for the license was to legitimize the harvesting of email addresses found in the message headers and occasionally, message bodies, for resale, much as some forwarding services not adding bottom banner advertising, do.

I wonder about situations whereby a subscriber has posted to a Yahoo! Group which maintained archives available to subscribers only, later (after a copyrighted non-licensed post had been made) making its archives public.  I've seen Group moderators change their access policy from public to members only to moderators only, and back again.  It could become complicated determining the status of content by comparison of archived post dates to group archive status change dates.

I assume this is Yahoo! (.com), as opposed to Yahoo! (.ca) or Yahoo! (.uk).  I've noticed Yahoo creating domains under certain country TLDs, but for other countries, making the country designation a sub-domain of Yahoo.com., e.g., <za.yahoo.com>. I've assumed (dangerous, I realize) thus far that a differing country TLD infers a distinct legal Yahoo-member agreement and operating structure.

As an aside, I've noticed another change in their operation.  At one time, I could simply join a group by an email subscribe command from any address.  I tried that yesterday, with no response from their server, including a following attempt on two groups I employ for management memos.  Once I added the address from which I was attempting to subscribe to an existing Yahoo! membership, I was successful.  I distinctly remember at one time their server, on detecting an "unknown address", invited (read "forced") the party to become a member.

I don't believe anyone was stating that "Yahoo claims ownership of material posted to Yahoo groups", but queryed
whether such was the case.

Thank you for your interpretation, Dennis.  It is well expressed and succint.  Now, what would your opinion be regarding the TOS's in respect of <yahoo.ca> and <yahoo.uk>?

Michael


At 04:47 PM 5/1/02 -0500, Dennis Budd wrote:
>
>Yahoo makes no claim of ownership to any content that others post on
>the site.  That means that the rights to all such content rest with
>with the person who posted it, except that for most publically
>accessible material on the site Yahoo is granted a perpetual license
>to use it in any way it sees fit.
>
>1)  The policy that gives Yahoo a license to use posted material in
>any way it sees fit applies only to publically accessibe material on
>the site.  Except for point 2) below, Yahoo makes this claim for all
>publically accessible material on the site and only for publically
>accessible material in the site.
>
>2)  The terms of service explicitly exclude Yahoo Groups from the
>above policy and institute another policy for publically accessible
>areas of Yahoo Groups (and Clubs), i.e., that Yahoo may use that
>material solely for providing and promoting that particular group
>(i.e. they can use the material to advertise your group elsewhere on
>the service without telling or consulting you).  *This* license is not
>perpetual, but exists only as long as the content is on the service.
>
>3)  For material on Yahoo Groups that is not publically accessible
>(for instance, restricted lists whose archives are limited to members)
>no license whatever is granted to Yahoo.  Yahoo makes no claim of any
>right to distribute material that is meant to stay private.
>
>I am aware of this because I started a couple of groups on Yahoo a
>month ago and I went through all the hoops.  I've been subscribed to
>one or another of their groups for years but this was the first time
>I'd taken the time to read their terms of service carefully and in
>their entirety.  What they say is not what people think they say.  To
>say that Yahoo claims ownership of material posted to Yahoo groups is
>*incredibly* misleading.
>
>Dennis