Updated (sorry this post was kind of confusing before)

Breakfast: Yogurt Honey Peanut Balance Bar

Several upset members of my hosting site have sent me the following information. I know some lawyers read my site and would like one of them to write me regarding this issue. (TiffanyAStone@aol.com) I have my own custom domain, but most people on my hosting site don't. I believe this is a recent ammendment to the TOS. Now I'm told it's old news.

Journalspace Terms of Service:

Postings to the Service are not private. You grant journalspace the unrestricted right to use, reproduce, modify, translate, transmit, publish, and distribute any material you post to the Service in any medium (now in existence or hereafter developed), and for any purpose, including commercial uses, and to authorize others to do so.

YOU give us a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free, irrevocable, sublicenseable (through multiple tiers) right to exercise all copyright and publicity rights, in any existing or future media, known or unknown, over the material, photographs or User Data displayed in YOUR listings. For the purpose of this Agreement, "User Data" shall mean all information (if any) submitted by YOU, (the "User") to journalspace with the exception of trading data, credit card numbers, checking account numbers, etc. "Individually Identifiable User Data" shall mean that subset of "User Data" which can be reasonably used to identify a specific individual such as their name, address, phone number, etc. The User Data shall be deemed to be the property of journalspace. YOU shall take all reasonable efforts to ensure that it is accurate and complete and not misleading in any way.

*JS owner writes me:

We need rights to reproduce your stuff because that is what web sites do. You post, we redistribute. If we don't have that right, nobody gets to read your journal.

Sorry to hear you're leaving. What features are we lacking? As you know, most of our feature suggestions come from users, so suggest away.

Okay, I modified the TOS a bit to reduce the freakage level. I also took the opportunity to make a wee joke at your expense; I hope you don't mind.

JS owner went on to say what Southern Cali town he's from, which justified his joke on me. Do I mind the joke? No, because I get it. He reads my journal so he knows about all the drama.

*Ammended TOS as of this afternoon:

4. Postings to the Service are not private. You grant journalspace the unrestricted right to use, reproduce, modify, translate, transmit, publish, and distribute any material you post to the Service in any medium (now in existence or hereafter developed), and for any purpose, including commercial uses, and to authorize others to do so.

[update: people are freaking out over this, so struck for now. Here's a "plain English" version: you own the copyright to your stuff, but we must have the right to reproduce it, because that is what web sites do. As a matter of practice, we'll reproduce it on our web site. We're not going to, say, print it in a book and sell it on Amazon. So settle down. :-) ]

Our friends at Six Apart wrote this much better than we could, so we'll steal their version: Six Apart Lagomorphics does not claim ownership of the Content you place on your Six Apart journalspace Blog Site. By submitting Content to Six Apart journalspace for inclusion on your Six Apart journalspace Blog Site, you grant Six Apart journalspace a world-wide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, modify, adapt and publish the Content solely for the purpose of displaying, distributing and promoting your Blog Site on Six Aparts Lagomorphics Internet properties. This license exists only for as long as you continue to be a Six Apartjournalspace customer and shall be terminated at the time your Blog Site is terminated.

We reserve the right to make fun of TiffanyStone for talking like an LA person in a completely un-ironic manner. No, just kidding.

This product is not to be used in systems providing life support. (never mind, that doesn't apply here. We got a little excited with the copying and pasting. We do that sometimes.)

13. YOU give us a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free, irrevocable, sublicenseable (through multiple tiers) right to exercise all copyright and publicity rights, in any existing or future media, known or unknown, over the material, photographs or User Data displayed in YOUR listings. For the purpose of this Agreement, "User Data" shall mean all information (if any) submitted by YOU, (the "User") to journalspace with the exception of trading data, credit card numbers, checking account numbers, etc. "Individually Identifiable User Data" shall mean that subset of "User Data" which can be reasonably used to identify a specific individual such as their name, address, phone number, etc. The User Data shall be deemed to be the property of journalspace. YOU shall take all reasonable efforts to ensure that it is accurate and complete and not misleading in any way.[a few people have been freaking out over this. struck for now.]

Anyway, I will be moving to a new hosting service soon, because JS doesn't have a few options I need. JS members: Please change your links for me to TiffanyAStone.com. It already works. Thanks!

P.S. At my next site I will have an expanded links list.

Note: I really haven't had a bad experiences with JS and don't believe the owner wants to use our content for anything.