On Wed, 1 May 2002, Ballew Kinnaman wrote:

>>This is a long-standing claim about Yahoo groups but I cannot
>
>If you start a group with Yahoo, you will go through
>many hoops, one of which is assent to this policy.
>
>As I understood it, they own ALL content within the
>group, and they can do with it as they please, with
>or without notice.
>
>Your mileage may vary - do tell.

These assertions, which have been made repeatedly in lists like this
one, remind me that one *cannot* assume that just because many people
on the Net say something, it must be true.  In this case, it is not
true.

A look at the actual terms of service reveals several things:

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