I decided to dissect that portion of the Yahoo TOS that seems to be causing
folks the most concern. Here's what I came up with.

Just a reminder: I am not a lawyer. This is just a common-sense dissection of
one portion of their TOS, in terms of what I think it means. It's my opinion
only and you should not rely on it for anything.

Ok, the section many people are choking on says ...

"By submitting Content to any Yahoo property, you automatically grant, or 
 warrant that the owner of such Content has expressly granted, Yahoo the 
 royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive and fully 
 sublicensable right and license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, 
 translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform and display 
 such Content (in whole or part) worldwide and/or to incorporate it in 
 other works in any form, media, or technology now known or later 
 developed."

Let's analyze this.

"By submitting Content to any Yahoo property, ...

  As soon as you submit any content to GeoCities under the new agreement, you
  have agreed to the following.

... you automatically grant, or warrant that the owner of such Content has 
expressly granted ...

  Anything you upload has to be either your own property, or if it's not, 
  has to have express (not implied) permission from the copyright holder, 
  that they allow Yahoo the same rights to the material as Yahoo has to 
  your own material.

  Put another way, if you use a way-cool 'free gif' (perhaps from one of the
  many sites available on the net for such things) on your site, you are for
  all intents and purposes saying to Yahoo 'the owner of this GIF has granted
  permission for Yahoo to have the same rights to it as to my own material'.

  If the owner of such a GIF image sued Yahoo for using their GIF on, say, a
  CDROM, Yahoo would have the right to say 'it's YOUR fault! YOU pay damages!'

  You could not, for example, make a copy of POV-Ray available for download
  via GeoCities, because doing so would imply that we (the POV-Team) had 
  explicitly granted Yahoo rights to our software. Needless to say, we 
  have not done so. (You can put images created by yourself with POV-Ray 
  [using your own scene files] on the site since we do not claim any 
  copyright over such material).

  I can see the need for a section that covers roughly this sort of thing
  so that Yahoo can mirror its content elsewhere. It's up to you to decide
  if it's gone too far and/or is unnecessarily broad.

... Yahoo the royalty-free, ...

  They don't have to pay you if they use any of your submitted material.
  That's not the same as saying they WON'T pay you, but they don't have to.

... perpetual ...

  This means 'forever'. It doesn't mean 'until you are no longer a GeoCities
  member' as some have suggested. It means FOREVER.

... irrevocable ...

  You can't change your mind. Once this is granted, it can't be un-granted.

... non-exclusive ...

  This means that they don't claim to be the only right-holders. You can grant
  other entities the same rights to the same content if you choose.

... and fully sublicensable right and license ...

  'Fully sublicensable' means that they can sub-licence the licence you granted
  to them. This presumably means that they can give third parties certain rights
  to deal with your material.

... use, reproduce, ...

  That's fairly clear, and not unreasonable in itself given the purpose of
  GeoCities.

.. modify, adapt, ...

  Hmmm. They can modify your work. For example, if you have an image on 
  Geocities that had been submitted under the new agreement, and that image 
  had a copyright signature written on it by you, they have the right to 
  remove that signature. (That's not to say they will, but that they can ...).

  In fact, it seems they can do anything to the work that they choose,
  including adapting it to suit some other purpose (see 'derivative works'
  below).

.. publish, ...

  Ok, that's not unreasonable. But note that 'publish' doesn't just mean that
  they can publish it on the web ... they can also, if they choose, publish it
  in printed form, on a CDROM, or anywhere else.

... translate, ...

  Presumably translate it into other languages.

... create derivative works from, ...

  A 'derivative work' is a new work (in terms of the US copyright act) that is
  based upon, in whole or in part, other work(s).

... distribute, perform and display such Content ...

  Again, not unreasonable in itself. After all, that's what GeoCities exists to
  do.

... (in whole or part) worldwide ...

  They can just use the bits that they want to use. They don't have to use
  any part of it that they don't want to, even if that causes the bit that
  they do use to be out of context.

  It's interesting to note - when compared with the broadness of the rest 
  of this section of the TOS agreement - that they limit this to 'worldwide'
  (i.e. only on Earth ;). Heck, what about the REST of the solar system !!!

... and/or to incorporate it in other works ...

  Such as a CDROM, for example, or anything else that they please.

... in any form, media, or technology now known or later developed."

  That covers a LOT of ground.

Also, don't forget that the licence you grant them is perpetual. Even if, for
example, Yahoo was purchased by another firm (e.g., Microsoft), the licence
you granted still applies (and is now owned by the purchaser).

Again, just a reminder: I am not a lawyer. This is just, in my opinion, a 
common-sense dissection of one portion of their TOS, in terms of what I 
think it means to POV-Ray users (particularly those who place their 
raytracings on to a Yahoo property). It's my opinion only and you should 
not rely on it for anything.

-- Chris

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