http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:30808

I think for all 3D-printer-people, we have a milestone here!
I was short before creating an account on thingiverse. I'm using it every day,
wrote scripts to download things and to organise them.

After changing the terms of use, people are very pissed and leaving.

Thingiverse was my favourite. If it doesn't change back I think it will become a
minor and leave a gab.

Holger

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H. Karsten <h-karsten()web.de> wrote:
> After changing the terms of use, people are very pissed and leaving.

I find it quite curious that many companies don't even know what their
own terms of use say.

It's almost incredible how many "terms of use" are almost exact copies
of each other, even for companies that have nothing whatsoever to do with
each other.

What I think is happening that many companies hire a lawyer to take care
of the legal stuff for their company, and as part of that job the lawyer
writes a "terms of use" for the website of the company, and the vast
majority of lawyers simply take a readymade template from somewhere, just
inserting the name of the company and whatever, and put it there pretty
much as-is, without much thought or consultation. And the owners of the
company never read it carefully and with thought to see if they actually
agree with what it's saying. Heck, most company owners probably never even
read it at all (assuming they even know of its existence!)

(If there *is* an approval process, the owners of the company probably just
skim through the miles of text without much thought, and just buy the nice
speech made by the lawyer that "this is a standard text, and most companies
are using it.")

And by the way, this is a nice service: http://tos-dr.info/

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On 9/22/2012 0:44, Warp wrote:
> It's almost incredible how many "terms of use" are almost exact copies
> of each other, even for companies that have nothing whatsoever to do with
> each other.

Well, there *is* some copying, especially for small companies. It's much 
cheaper than hiring a lawyer to do your own.

The other thing is that lots of pieces of TOS contracts are either 
determined by law or precedent, in the USA. For example, at one point, 
someone sued for warranty service, and the seller said "we disclaimed the 
warranty." The buyer told the judge they hadn't noticed that, and the judge 
said "How could you not notice? It was in all capitals!" From that decision 
on, all disclaimers of warranty are in all capitals. So that's how it goes 
for a lot of what looks like the boilerplate, because it's copied from 
decisions judges made or wording in laws. (For example, there's a law that 
says "you're allowed to record conversations for training or quality 
assurance." So that's exactly the words every telemarketer spiel uses.)

tl;dr: It's some of each.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "They're the 1-800-#-GORILA of the telecom business."

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