{"id":312,"date":"2006-12-21T11:02:43","date_gmt":"2006-12-21T02:02:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2006-12-21\/312"},"modified":"2006-12-21T11:02:43","modified_gmt":"2006-12-21T02:02:43","slug":"elf-yourself-and-contractual-fine-print","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2006-12-21\/312","title":{"rendered":"“Elf Yourself” and Contractual Fine Print"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n

A cute thing going around the Internet these days is Elf Yourself<\/a>, a site<\/span> where you can\nupload a picture<\/span> of your face and then see yourself doing a silly<\/span> dance\ndressed as an elf. It's fun and<\/span> silly.<\/p>\n\n

When you go to the site and click the “Start the Elfamorphosis” button\nand choose to upload your own photo, you're first presented with this page:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Blah blah blah, yeah, whatever, click ACCEPT and move along.<\/p>\n\n

If you actually glanced at the text shown before clicking ACCEPT, you'd\nsee that you can't post porn and you have to have the right to use the\npicture. Sure, fine,... click and move along.<\/p>\n\n

However, notice the thing that looks like an elf baton on the right\nside? That's actually a slider<\/span> (on the real site, not in this crop from a\nscreen<\/span> capture). If you slide<\/span> it, it reveals a dozen<\/span> more pages of contract\nthat you're agreeing to. Very clever how they hid so well that there's\nmore.<\/p>\n\n

Here's the first page of the dozen or so that follow, the start of the\n“GRANT OF RIGHTS”:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The full text of the GRANT OF RIGHTS section is only two sentences, but\nwow, you give them everything but your left kidney (and a skilled<\/span> lawyer\ncould probably extract that as well). The following<\/span> is the full text of\nthis section, with my having visually separated the two sentences to make\nit a bit<\/span> more readable. I also placed<\/span> a few<\/span> key passages in bold.<\/p>\n\n
\n
\n

\n\nGRANT OF RIGHTS. By submitting<\/span> a photograph<\/span> or any other material\n(including, without limitation, vocal messages, text messages, or text)\n(each a “Submission”), I hereby<\/span> grant<\/b> to OMX, Inc., its subsidiaries\nand affiliated companies and each of their respective licensees, successors\nand assigns (collectively, “OfficeMax”), the unlimited right and\npermission to use<\/b> the Submission or any part thereof (including,\nwithout limitation, my name<\/b>, screen name, instant message name,\nor email address<\/b>) throughout the universe, in perpetuity<\/b>, in\nany manner or venue and for any purpose whatsoever<\/b>, including,\nwithout limitation, for purposes of advertising<\/b>, promotion or trade\nin promoting and publicizing Office Max and its products and services, by\nmeans of any and all media and devices whether now known or hereafter\ndevised, which includes, without limitation, the unlimited right and\npermission to post the Submission on the [reindeer.com, elf.com, pole.com,\netc.] websites (collectively, the “Websites”).\n\n<\/p>

\n\nOfficeMax shall have the right, in its sole discretion, to edit, composite,\nmorph, scan, duplicate, or alter the Submission in any manner for any\npurpose which OfficeMax deems necessary or desirable, and I irrevocably<\/span>\nwave any and all so-called moral rights<\/b> I may<\/span> have in the Submission and I\nagree<\/span> that I shall<\/span> have no right of approval, no claim to compensation<\/b>, and\nno claim (including, without limitation, claims based upon invasion of\nprivacy, defamation, or right of publicity<\/b>) arising our of any use,\nblurring, alteration, editing, morphing, distortion, illusionary effect,\nfaulty reproduction, fictionalization, or use in any composite form of my\nname, picture, likeness, voice, and biographical information<\/b>.\n\n<\/p><\/div><\/td>

\n\n\nThe “Default Elf”<\/td><\/tr><\/table>\n\n\n\n

Besides the incredibly sweeping rights they claim, a few<\/span> things struck\nme odd about this. The punctuation<\/span> near the websites seems odd, and none of\nthe websites listed (reindeer.com<\/a>, elf.com<\/a>, and pole.com<\/a>) seem to have anything to do with OfficeMax or\nits parent company, affiliates, licencees, etc. I bet that<\/span> the person in\nthe legal department writing this put those in as placeholders, thinking\nthat the engineers creating the site would replace them with the\nholiday-related websites that OfficMax actually sponsors (such as elfinterviews.com<\/a>). So, what they\nhave is almost certainly a mistake.<\/span>... that's funny.\n\n<\/p>

\n\nNote to corporate legal departments: engineers (like everyone else) hate\nyou, but fear you, so would never<\/i> so much as even think of\ndisplacing a comma<\/span> on verbiage handed down from above, much less change\nwords. (But John Place, you<\/i> were a cool<\/span> lawyer.... at least so long as\nyour towel was left alone! \ud83d\ude42 )\n\n<\/p>

\n\nAnother odd thing is that they mention things like “screen name” and\n“instant message name,” which so far as I can<\/span> tell they never collect. It's as if<\/span> they cut-n-pasted this text from a different<\/span> promotion. I dunno.<\/span>\n\n<\/p>

\n\nThe contract goes on for a lot longer, but I didn't<\/span> read the rest. I still<\/span> have a cold.<\/span> Why on earth<\/span> am I even<\/span> taking the energy to write this?\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A cute thing going around the Internet these days is Elf Yourself, a site where you can upload a picture of your face and then see yourself doing a silly dance dressed as an elf. It's fun and silly.<\/p>

When you go to the site and click the \"Start the Elfamorphosis\" button and choose to upload your own photo, you're first presented with this page:<\/p>

Blah blah blah, yeah, whatever, click ACCEPT and move along.<\/p>

If you actually glanced at the text shown before clicking ACCEPT, you'd see that you can't post porn and you have to have the right [...]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}