Chapters invites you to their content acquisition community

Chapters-Indigo is the major bookstore chain in Canada.  What do they provide for booklovers online?

Chapters Indigo Community, "Acceptable Use Policy"

http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/Legal-Statement/legal-art.html

Emphasis mine.

The User acknowledges that any content, e-mails, postings, offers, software, videos, photos, text, graphics, music, sounds, questions, creative suggestions, messages, feedback, ideas, recipes, notes, drawings, articles, stories or other information, data, materials and opinions (including, without limitation any postings on community forums) ("Submissions") that he or she may provide, e-mail, post, upload or otherwise transmit to the Website shall be deemed and shall remain the property of Indigo, including all copyright, without reservation, and User waives in favour of Indigo any and all moral rights in such Submissions. Except as provided in the Privacy Policy, none of the Submissions shall be subject to any obligation of confidence on Indigo’s part, and We shall not be liable for any use or disclosure of any Submissions. Without limitation of the foregoing, the User acknowledges and agrees that all or any portion of the Submissions may be used, edited, reproduced, published, translated, sublicensed, copied and distributed and/or incorporated into other works in any form, media, or technology now known or hereafter developed for the full term of any copyright that may exist in such Submissions, without compensation of any kind to the User. When You post Submissions to the Website, You authorize and direct Indigo to make such copies thereof as We deem necessary in order to facilitate the posting and storage of the Submissions on the Website. By posting Submissions to any part of the Website, You automatically grant, and You represent and warrant that You have the right to grant, to Indigo an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such Submissions for any purpose on or in connection with the Website or the promotion thereof, to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such Submissions, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing. You agree to defend, indemnify and hold Indigo, its subsidiaries and affiliates, and each of their directors, officers, agents, contractors, partners and employees, harmless from and against any loss, liability, threatened or actual claim, demand, damages, costs and expenses, including reasonable legal fees, arising out of or in connection with any of Your Submissions.

Err thanks, but my idea of community doesn't involve transferring my ideas to a private corporation for reproduction in formats yet to be invented, until the end of time.

Way to miss the point of social networking, Chapter-Sin-digo.

They say they have 80,000 members, I don't see how that is even possible, considering that even the older, well-established, and wildly popular LibraryThing only has 368,000 members.

Comments

[Tim]

Well, check out ours http://www.librarything.com/privacy .

We also assert a perpetual, free, transferable non-exclusive license, albeit with a fun quote. Certainly you don't want to be getting royalty invoices because you serve up a tag, put it in a press pack or allow other members to translate it. The copyright aspect is, however, obnoxious. Copyright is very hard to transfer under US law. I don't think Indigo's terms would hold up.

As far as 80k members, membership is not the same thing as involvement. They probably made it very easy to become a "member"—anyone who bought something, for example. Whether they're using it daily? I doubt it.

[Peter Murray]

Excessive terms-of-service are nothing new. In one example that I found over the holiday season, I could have given an "...unlimited, worldwide, irrevocable, perpetual and royalty-free right and license to use, host, cache, store, copy, distribute, display, perform, publish, broadcast, transmit, modify, reformat, translate or otherwise exploit in any manner whatsoever your Submission throughout the universe, in perpetuity..."

I especially like the "throughout the universe" part. Sometimes it seems like there is a challenge between the lawyers (or pseudo-lawyers) to outdo each other.