In the six months I've been on Gather I've often felt foggy regarding the copyright arrangements in using the service.
Finally, getting off my lazy keister, I pulled up the Terms of Service Agreement (TOS) and sat through the read.
Here is what I found that seemed applicable.
Section 6. REGISTRATION AND MEMBERSHIP
c. Gather does not claim ownership of Content you submit or make available for inclusion on the Service. However, with respect to such Content (including but not limited to articles, comments, photos, graphics, audio, or video you submit or make available), you grant Gather a world-wide, royalty free, perpetual, unlimited, and non-exclusive license(s) to use, distribute, reproduce, modify, adapt, create derivative works, publicly perform and publicly display such Content via the Service or on any other Gather property. Gather reserves the right to syndicate the Content submitted, posted, and/or displayed by you and to use that Content in connection with other services offered by Gather. You also agree that, if you post Content containing adult or sexually explicit material that is not suitable for minors, you will mark the Content as such. If your posted Content contains material that is adult or sexually explicit and you do not mark it appropriately, Gather shall have the right to cancel your membership.
AS an independent writer the following information also seemed poignant to me;
Section 10. NO RESALE OF SERVICE
You agree not to reproduce, duplicate, copy, sell, trade, resell or exploit for any commercial purposes, any portion of the Service (including your Gather username) or Content you do not own, use of the Service or Content you do not own, or access to the Service or Content you do not own, without the express written consent of Gather.
Section 15. GATHER'S PROPRIETARY RIGHTS
(3rd paragraph) Gather and the Gather logo are trademarks and service marks of Gather and other Gather logos and product and service names are trademarks and service marks of Gather (collectively, the "Gather Marks"). Without Gather's prior permission, you agree not to display or use in any manner, the Gather Marks.
What I make of all this, is that you own anything and everything you publish to the site; have granted Gather a never ending usage right; and are free to do anything else you want with it.
It is implied that Gather has the right to maintain and use copies of anything posted, even if you delete them from your member space.
The fact that you published it to Gather is generally considered by professionals as a First Publishing.
Therefore, if you plan to sell something you have published to Gather elsewhere you should disclose and discuss the fact that it has been posted with prospective buyers.
If you have restricted the viewing of the piece by Gather members you may have a chance to duck the Already published moniker. The more severe the restrictions the better your chances.
Members are prohibited from claiming that they work for, or are a representative of Gather, Inc., cannot put the Gather logo, or their username on business cards (or other promotional or marketing materials), without written permission.
However, members apparently can use their URL for promotional purposes. And, of course, members are encouraged to tell everyone that they post things on Gather.
To summarize;
Posting things to Gather does not bind them to Gather. You have merely provided them with a perpetual usage right. They are all yours.
** I sincerely hope that someone from the membership, or more importantly, the Gather Editorial Team will step-up and comment if I'm off-track, or missed something important. **
Best of luck to all.
--
rate
email
print
link to this page
Comments: 59
This is ( in my opinion ) a very important post. As Gather's visibility grows so will the visibility of those who post here.
Tom Gerace has stated many times that he sees a day when members of Gather can " make a living doing this". The need to know what you do and don't own and what you can and can't sell elsewhere is a huge thing to know if earning a living doing this someday is the goal of any Gather member.
I pretty much read Gather's policy the same way you do. A response from Gather would be great !
But I agree that this is very important. There were things I was aware of and others I was not.
Thanks for publishing this; I've saved it on my favorites.
This is very good. I didn't really read the TOS, and had an almost correct idea about the terms.
Thank you for posting, and
Thanks George for making sure we didn't miss it.
I read it the same as you did, came to about the same conclusions. However in practical use I would think that the chances of a single use/post of content are really rather small and get smaller as people and content are added.
'Luck of the Draw' so to speak, (abeeted by talent of course).
Pretty standard stuff.
good articel and a great service for the Gathering.
Thanks for doing the heavy lifting! This brings a lot of clarity to a fuzzy area. Thanks.
Cheers,
Colonel Possum
Mandi is me and my user name...
I guess I will have to change my name.
And I am certainly not going to write anything worth while anymore.. if gather can just take it and use it where or when or how they want... screw that.
As for Gather using or altering your stuff, I'm pretty sure they are professional enough to discuss any use that goes beyond mere display, with the author before hand.
Let's hope Gather.com posts a comment or similar article in the very near future!
I've glanced at the TOS many times, mostly to answer a burning question, but never really thought through the implications.
If I'm wrong, I hope someone sets me straight, since I've been using the xtabber moniker LONG before I ever met Gather...
I assumed that username meant (as in my case): Bill's Spirit, and not stryderthom (as in stryderthom.gather.com, the URL of my name-space).
I see know that it is most likely the other way around.
Since Gather register's the member's log-in name as a URL they have a point of claim for the moniker.
My article's claim that a member could use their Gather URL on self-promotional materials is probably wrong.
I am not well versed in the publishing indutry, but I am unclear how Gather might leverage things posted here in a detrimental effect on someone who hits it big. There is no exclusivity for, or to Gather in the agreement.
Is it loss of exclussivity that you are warning about? Will Doubleday and Del Rey never want me because I've already published to Gather?
Of course, a way to avoid having to argue over it at all would be to not post it to Gather.
I expect I'll have to argue and perhaps accept at least some rejections.
The reverse side would be to use the exposure as a plus. Showing that the article (or piece) has already been tested in a market.
Thanks for taking the time to analyze and respond to this. The article lays the points out accurately - we do not own the content, but you do need to note to prospective buyers that it is available online. Regarding our perpetual usage rights, this relates to the fact that we maintain the content on our sserveers. We cannot sell your content, and we do not represent it as our own.
We do not, as you know, edit any of the content provided to us, nor do we bear responsibility for content published to the site. The author remains the owner. So in the case of a copyright violation or verbal dispute, we may inform the content owner, but the responsibility remains with the creator of the post and our message will indicate that.
Feel free to ask us at any time about how the terms of service relate to your content by emailing us at feedback-at-gather.com.
Regards,
David
Editor in Chief, Gather
I know you are busy, Is there any chance that you could clarify the "username" use issue that has risen in our discussion?
Does Gather retain sole and exclusive rights to our screen-name, log-in name and/or URL?
On the subject of the Gather username, what we are refering to is the name you use at login, i.e. xtabber, member123, david etc. As part of our terms of service, we grant you a license to use that name for as long as you are a Gather member, but reserve the rights to it should you leave. This allows someone to take "david.gather.com" should I give it up. This does not refer to your display name on the site ("Bill's Spirit" or "David Cooperstein").
When it comes to distributing your username elsewhere, we absolutely want you to use your username and URL — that's how people can most easily find your content.
I hope this helps clarify the username question.
- David
I don't know where Gather went for the last few weeks (holidays maybe?) but things are looking up. I was told by "someone" that Gather was too busy to reply to me but I heard from MaryAnne overnight.
I hate looking up the stuff I know I really should and you've helped me a lot Bill.
I have to chuckle; I thought this article of mine would just slide off into obscurity with three of four comments on it. I had no idea that so many people shared my wonderings about the copyright issues of posting on Gather.
Personally, I don't share the idea that posting to Gather ruins a piece's marketability. It might inconvenience it a little, and it might also help. I firmly believe that a good piece will always appeal to its markets. But I do not have experience at this, only optimism.
For what it's worth, the most commented on pieces I have written barely garner one hundred page views. Why would a publisher with markets in the tens of thousands and higher care if less than two hundred people have already read it?
Best of luck, everybody.
thank you, thank you!
I've mostly only posted articles that I've sold previously and that I retain the rights to. I figure they've already past their "sell by date" for a print publication at this point, but they still have some good info to help others and should be shared.
I have debated whether or not to publish excerpts from my published works, however. I'm not sure I feel really comfortable doing so, but I have published excerpts on blogs before and this is pretty much the same thing, isn't it?
Sometimes a Google listing will lead to a sign-up window that proclaims the article as restricted only to members.
Thanks Bill's Spirit for the groundwork and the conversation.
Danny - Since I'm not an employee of Gather, I cannot answer your question. It certainly is disconcerting to know that an article we designate as restricted to groups or individuals is not so restricted.
If people are publishing ONLY to specific groups and NOT also to EVERYONE, I think Tom Gerace needs to know.
As for username, I think that it should be our username to login and Gather can only restrict the use of that name here within Gather. I always use rindira for other site as well, and I don't see how Gather can restrict that.
One is that you were still signed into your gather account when you did the google search, and that is why your private articles were displayed too. Unlike yahoo or gmail, gather sessions don't seem to time out quickly if you're not using them (maybe there is a somewhere you can change this, I haven't checked), in fact, sometimes you remain signed in even after you close the browser window (again, I haven't experimented with how long, I just noticed this).
The other possibility is that through some glitch an article you published *only* to "select groups" (or even "myself only") changed its settings to "everyone". This happened to me twice, once with a group and once with something I published to "myself only". You can check what the situation is if you choose "edit" on the article and then check (on the second edit page) who it is published to. I had to remove one of my articles, because it could not be fixed (it always reverted to "everyone"). The other one is behaving now.
So it can certainly happen, and it's worth checking those articles from time to time to see if they're still restricted. But it has nothing to do with google or any search engine - it's a gather glitch.
I'm still not sure, by the way, if gather is clearly saying that they will definitely NOT use/ display for viewing any content after the user deleted it (but just retain the right for it to sit around on their server), or just that they will not sell it to anyone else.