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Beware: O'Reilly reviews

 

May 26 2011

Update (May 28): O'Reilly can not contact Power Reviews about this issue until next week, but let me know that their contract with Power Reviews gives O'Reilly ownership of the the reviews, which are then licensed under a much more reasonable Creative Commons license.

This is a warning: Do not, repeat, do not write reviews at O'Reilly's web page.

O'Reilly uses Power Reviews to process their book reviews. Unfortunately, their click-wrap agreement has this gem in it:

By transmitting product or service ratings or reviews (collectively, "Reviews") to the Review Service, you hereby (a) irrevocably assign and transfer to PowerReviews all of your rights, title and interest, on a worldwide basis, including, without limitation, all intellectual property rights and moral rights, in and to such Reviews

This makes it possible for Power Reviews to, for example, legally sue me for having a review I wrote myself on my blog, since they are now the legal owner of the review I submitted to them. Indeed, I had a blog entry here reviewing an O'Reilly book which I had to remove when I discovered I lost the copyright to the review by submitting it to O'Reilly's web page.

When submitting a review to a web site, make sure the review is not using Power Review's EULA. Otherwise, you can lose the copyright to your review.

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