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Autobiography!?

Adrian

Student
Adrian
Joined
Oct 2, 2005
Messages
31
I searched the forum and couldn't find a post about this, but if there has been one... please forgive my "newness".

So there's this mystic-woman-psychic-whatever... and she's sitting there thinking about writing a book. She doesn't know exactly what she is going to write about, but she really likes George Washington. She thinks she is going to write a biography, but then... she gets an idea! What if she writes an autobiography of George Washington! How can she do this? She channels George Washington and he writes the autobiography. :eye-poppi

Not joking... I can't post a link cause of a massive website "terms and conditions" that has one of those frustrating anti-linking rules. I know that is stupid, but I am not going to be the one to challenge it in court (I still have student loans to pay and I hate to wear a suit). But, I'll give you all a hint as to the domain. The woman's name rhymes with the band KISS and Randi wrote about her here: http://www.randi.org/jr/100402.html (clue: it isn't deepak chopra)
 
Why forbid linking to your site? That's pretty damm stupid if you want a high SE rating.
It's like writing a textbook with a legal afterward that forbids any other author from including a reference to your book in their work.
 
Well, I've found the site. It has the largest and most legalistic "terms and Conditions" section I've ever seen on any site - that's one very expensive lawyer she's got there. But I can't see where it actually forbids ordinary linking.
There's a section on site privacy that you probably misunderstood:
"This Site and any individual Myss microsites now or hereinafter contained within or otherwise available through external hyperlinks with our Web site (the "Microsites") is private property. All interactions on this Site and/or the Microsites must comply with these Terms of Use. Although we welcome and encourage user interaction on our Site, we do insist and require that all end users restrict any and all activity in connection with the use of this Site and the Microsites to that which involves lawful purposes only. "
Linking to a site IS a 'lawful purpose'.
 
sophia8 said:
Well, I've found the site. It has the largest and most legalistic "terms and Conditions" section I've ever seen on any site - that's one very expensive lawyer she's got there. But I can't see where it actually forbids ordinary linking.
There's a section on site privacy that you probably misunderstood:
"This Site and any individual Myss microsites now or hereinafter contained within or otherwise available through external hyperlinks with our Web site (the "Microsites") is private property. All interactions on this Site and/or the Microsites must comply with these Terms of Use. Although we welcome and encourage user interaction on our Site, we do insist and require that all end users restrict any and all activity in connection with the use of this Site and the Microsites to that which involves lawful purposes only. "
Linking to a site IS a 'lawful purpose'.
Click to expand...

Or it may have been this part (from http://www.myss.com/disclaimer.asp)

Section 6
...snip...
ANY COPYING, DISTRIBUTING, TRANSMITTING, POSTING, LINKING, DEEP LINKING, OR OTHERWISE MODIFYING OF THIS SITE OR ANY OF THE MICROSITES WITHOUT THE EXPRESS WRITTEN PERMISSION OF MYSS.COM, INC. IS STRICTLY PROHIBITED.
...snip...
Click to expand...

From this I would assume she is trying to prevent (for instance) people "hot linking" to images over there (e.g. if you saw an image over there and used the [img] tag to display it here).

I am very surprised given the "legalese" they've really nullified a lot of it by by 1) Calling the terms and conditions a "disclaimer" and 2) not drawing visitors’ attention to it.

I can’t see anything there that prevents “fair use” of material however I would advise any Member here to comply with the “Disclaimer” and ensure they do not (beyond “fair use”) post anything that is covered by that disclaimer here.
 
I suspect that the disclaimer may be a piece of catch-all "boilerplate" rather than something written specifically for the site. A quick Google search finds 21 other sites with identical disclaimers, with only the name of the site changed.
 
Mojo said:
I suspect that the disclaimer may be a piece of catch-all "boilerplate" rather than something written specifically for the site. A quick Google search finds 21 other sites with identical disclaimers, with only the name of the site changed.
Click to expand...
Then it was probably inserted by the site's "designer"; looking at the source code, he's clearly the type that uses templates and knows sod-all about writing web pages - no DTD declaration, no style sheet, depreciated tags everywhere etc..... And she hasn't got an expensive lawyer on the payroll after all.
So, link away!

ETA: I remember that there was a court case some years ago that established that "deep linking" was perfectly legal and 'fair use'. "Hot-linking" is another matter, since it could be construed as theft of bandwidth and/or breach of copyright.
 
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Oh, yes good. You did find it. I thought my clues would be enough. :)

The disclaimer is boilerplate, but that specific usage was held up in Sweden and the people involved in that case lost a lot of money. Since the Internet is "borderless", I didn't want to get the site that I posted it on in trouble with anyone.
 
Darat said:
Or it may have been this part (from http://www.myss.com/disclaimer.asp)



From this I would assume she is trying to prevent (for instance) people "hot linking" to images over there (e.g. if you saw an image over there and used the [img] tag to display it here).

I am very surprised given the "legalese" they've really nullified a lot of it by by 1) Calling the terms and conditions a "disclaimer" and 2) not drawing visitors’ attention to it.

I can’t see anything there that prevents “fair use” of material however I would advise any Member here to comply with the “Disclaimer” and ensure they do not (beyond “fair use”) post anything that is covered by that disclaimer here.
Click to expand...


[FONT=&quot]What about this paragraph?
[/FONT]

· Termination.
Either Myss.com or End User may terminate this Agreement at any time. Without limiting the foregoing, Myss.com shall have the right to immediately terminate any passwords or accounts of End User in the event of any conduct by End User which Myss.com, in its sole discretion, considers to be unacceptable, or in the event of any breach by End User of this Agreement. The provisions of Sections 3, 5, 6, 7, 10, 11, 12 will survive termination of this Agreement.
Click to expand...


In other words
“OK, so I’ve read and agree to your terms. Now I herby nullify and terminate the terms set fourth in this agreement.”


Although I must say that I’ve seen a more vapid site disclaimer. This one demands that a host reframe from even looking at the page.

http://www.scientology.org/en_US/feature/legal/index.html

To paraphrase, “users may not electronically transmit or reproduce any content from this website.”
 
To get back on topic, I can't think of any similar "ghost autobiographies" (though I'm sure there have been some). However, at one time it was quite the fashion for people who believed they had been reincarnated to write a past-life autobiography. There was one woman in particular (sorry, forgotten her name) who churned out about 20 or so such books - she had been several important figures in history, including Rameses 1 and Julius Caesar. As history, the books were complete b*ll*cks of course; as for literary merit, the one I tried reading would have been rejected by Mills & Boon.
 
http://paranormal.about.com/od/channeling/a/aa040405.htm

...snip...

One of the most famous cases is that of Pearl Curran, a woman in St. Louis of little education who, beginning in 1913, produced a series of novels that she claimed was dictated to her by a spirit going by the name of Patience Worth

...snip...
Rosemary Brown surpassed even Curran with her artistic accomplishments, composing music, she claimed, through as many as 20 dead composers, many of them very well known.
...snip...

Rosemary began composing music through the guidance of such legendary composers as Bach, Chopin, Stravinsky, Schubert, Grieg, Debussy, Rachmoninoff, Liszt – even finishing Beethoven’s Tenth and Eleventh Symphonies.
...snip...
Click to expand...
 
Genuine Picassos for sale.

Picasso is my spirit guide. He instructs me and guides my hand. Tell me what you want painted and for a fraction of the price of his other paintings you can get an original signed Picasso.





n.b. to avoid later disappointment it is only fair to point out that Picasso is now going though his ‘cr&p period.’
 
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