Hej Chris, hey all!

I too have been and are a member of GeoCities for quite a while now and
I agree to Chris opinion that the web-hosting terms of service are not
as dangerous as it may seem.
I can quite well understand that Yahoo and all the other providers of
web space out there have to insure themselves for not being sued for
copyright forgery especially when they are hosted in a country like the
USA where every legal procedure easily is bound to millions of dollars.
The internet is still quite a new medium and thus are its rights and
laws. However if you have a look at the more established media like
print and even broadcast - whenever you want to publish something it's a
normal procedure that you transfer your copyright to the publisher or
broadcasting station. If e.g. you write a book and it's then published
by a company, the copyright of the book is no longer in your hands but
in the hands of the publisher (just open any book you can grab right now
and have a look on the very first pages). OK you might say: "I get payed
for writing the book, so they can get the rights..." but you don't get
payed by Yahoo/Geocities... That's right, but the readers of your web
page don't have to pay either - they would have to buy a book ...

I can live with the terms I agreed to at Yahoo and I'm not planning to
move to another service - but of course that's a decision that everyone
has to make by him/herself.


Uwe.

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