I'm launching an online archive of personal stories and I'd be grateful for any intrepid early-adopters who are willing to share a few of their stories with a growing audience. Feedback welcomed.

For more info visit: http://www.wereyouthere.com

Thanks!
Jonathan Hull
jonathan@wereyouthere.com

Interesting idea.

I'm not sure how comfortable I am with the licensing terms.
http://www.wereyouthere.com/page/terms.php

These look standard, I know. I've clicked on them for everyone from YouTube to MySpace. But while I'm okay with a web site sharing my content with the world on a nonexclusive and fully paid basis and even the sublicensing rights as described... I'm not comfortable licensing the right to modify, adapt, and create derivative works from my personal experience "in any format or medium now known or later developed." Personally, I'm fine with a web site making money from advertising on a page that has my story on it. But if a web site wants to include my story in a published book, a CD, a movie, etc... that's different.

Signing away the rights to a video I made in 20 minutes and posted on YouTube... fine.

Signing away a story from my life experience... not so fine.

_________________
Tim E
http://www.storyteller.net/tellers/tereneta
http://www.myspace.com/storiesbytim
http://storytelling.blogspot.com
http://storytellersunplugged.wordpress.com

Tim,

Thanks for taking the time to look at WereYouThere.com. I thought it might be helpful if I shared some of the reasoning that went into our terms.

We encourage noncommercial use of the content posted by members in the hopes of providing an educational resource for students and historians. In short, we sublicense the right for members to make use of content posted by other members, including for derivative works. If we’re going to sublicense these rights, we need them as well. And certainly we are a commercial enterprise, so I don’t see how we could restrict ourselves to noncommercial use of the content. Also, I expect that we’ll want to use some of the content when marketing and promoting the site. Give the rapid state of technological change, it’s hard to say what mediums will be used in the future so we wanted to keep our options open.

WereYouThere is designed to gather the types of stories that people want to share and disseminate. My sense is that the collective impact of a lot of these stories woven together will be much more powerful than any single post. How this tapestry of memories might be used in the future remains to be seen. Most of the individual stories posted by members are quite short; a few paragraphs or a photo. Video posts are limited to five minutes, compared to ten minutes on YouTube, to which users grant “a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicenseable and transferable license to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, and perform the User Submissions . . .” I’ve certainly seen a lot of very personal and dramatic stories on YouTube.

I personally would not give away my entire life story (not that anyone’s interested), but I’m comfortable sharing certain experiences and vignettes under such terms. It’s a decision that everyone needs to make for themselves and I both respect your opinion and appreciate your feedback.

Jonathan H.


http://www.wereyouthere.com