IIC Internet Virtual servers

[Jerry Feldman]

On Thu, 12 Apr 2007 10:23:27 -0400
Matthew Gillen <me at mattgillen.net> wrote:

> Kristian Hermansen wrote:
> > Interestingly, have you ever read your ISPs terms of service in
> > detail?  When my father signed up for Adelphia 8 years ago or so (no
> > other high-speed around the area) I actually read through it.  The
> > terms clearly stated...
> > 
> > "...assumes all ownership for any ideas, communication, and
> > technologies produced and transmitted via this service..."
> 
> Someone else pointed out recently (on this list perhaps, or maybe I saw it on
> slashdot), that Comcast has (or had, I saw it a while ago, but can't find it
> now) the a very similar thing in their agreement.  In one line, they said they
> weren't responsible for anything, then in the next line claimed copyright on
> anything going over their wires.  Since I can't find it now, maybe they came
> to their senses and removed that clause...
> 
> > So, if you write some proprietary code, and upload to your web server,
> > Adelphia now has the right to use your source code.  It's ridiculous,
> > but no one ever reads the terms of service.  
> 
> It's also completely unenforceable.  If you use ssh/ssl for all your important
> traffic, they can't prove what you're doing anyway.
Here is Comcast's terms of use. 
http://www.comcast.net/terms/use.jsp

Maybe Adelphia copied the language from a University. Normally,
colleges and universities have very strong language regarding IP.
Essentially, if a professor invents something  and he/she used
university time or facilities, the university has certain ownership
rights. Or maybe Adelphia thinks it is SCO, which owns the rights to
Unix® and anything that was derived from Unix including Linux, all the
FSF code, Berkeley code :-)
-- 
Jerry Feldman <gaf at blu.org>
Boston Linux and Unix user group
http://www.blu.org PGP key id:C5061EA9
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