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Baxil [bakh-HEEL'], n.

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December 21st, 2007
02:37 am
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Great moments in legalese (part 2,037 of a continuing series)
The Terms of Use at ElfYourself.com include the following mind-boggling phrase, retyped* verbatim (emphasis mine):

"GRANT OF RIGHTS. By submitting a photograph or any other materials or information to the Web site ... you hereby grant to Company ... the unlimited, worldwide, irrevocable, perpetual and royalty-free right and license to use, host, cache, copy, distribute, display, perform, publish, broadcast, transmit, modify, reformat, translate, or otherwise exploit in any manner whatsoever your Submission throughout the universe, in perpetuity, in any manner or venue whatsoever, ... by means of any and all media and devices whether now known or hereafter devised."

I know that nobody ever reads the legalese, and companies sneak all sorts of ridiculous clauses in there, but that's got to be a new one. (Never mind the chilling declaration of their right to to exploit you. No, I mean: universe.)

Is OfficeMax developing some sort of offworld broadcast technology we don't know about?

--

EDITED TO ADD: The wording above is NOT available on their Terms of Use page. To see the Terms I quoted from, wait for the site to load, click on "Start the Elfamorphosis," and click on "Upload Photo". Here's a screenshot containing the 'throughout the universe' phrase.

--
* Hooray for not being able to select text out of Flash movies! You guys better appreciate what I went through to retype that. I had to endure about FIVE SOLID MINUTES of using a crappy grab bar to scroll through a tiny box -- gnawing shapeless and ravenous amidst the muffled, maddening beat and the thin, monotonous whine of those accursed jingle bells.**
** Shit. I think I just lost six Sanity points. If I go missing tonight, look for me at Arkham Sanitarium.

Current Location: ~/Brainstorm
Current Mood: impressedimpressed
Current Music: jingle jingle *jingle* *jingle* *JINGLE* *JINGLE* ...
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(11 comments | Leave a comment)

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[User Picture]
From:baxil
Date:December 21st, 2007 11:09 am (UTC)
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Bonus QOTD from the Salon article I got the Lovecraft text in Footnote 1 from:

Like a lot of people who proudly declare themselves to inhabit the territory of pure reason, Lovecraft had difficulty policing the borders.
-- Laura Miller
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From:yaochi
Date:December 21st, 2007 12:33 pm (UTC)
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I salute your egregiously delirious masochism.
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From:bronzemistral
Date:December 21st, 2007 12:59 pm (UTC)
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Wow, I'm going to have to share this disclaimer with all of the co-workers who most certainly didn't the fine print while getting Elfed. If their faces show up on some uknown planet, we'll know why :D
From:philrancid
Date:December 21st, 2007 01:48 pm (UTC)
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OfficeMax:

Live for the Swarm.
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From:dancinglights
Date:December 21st, 2007 02:57 pm (UTC)
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heh. That's excellent.

I think "throughout the universe" is a perfectly reasonable condition for anything that may be transmitted via satellite internets, actually.
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From:frameacloud
Date:December 21st, 2007 04:22 pm (UTC)

throughout the universe

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Throughout the universe? Good grief, that's a bit hasty. Who would enforce it, He-Man? The Ellimist? Does the universe, in this definition, include the afterlife?

That's about as strange as the small print that was involved with buying my computer. There was one part where it talked about various disasters that could happen to your computer that would invalidate its warranty. The list included "acts of God."

For all I know, maybe that's well-known legalese with some tidy, specific definition, but it's one of the strangest things that I've found in small print in years.* I found myself wondering how you would distinguish an act of God from other events. Are we talking plagues of locusts here, or would that be classified as a natural disaster instead? Should my antivirus precautions include daubing lamb's blood on the CD drive door? (Could I use a vegan alternative?)

* Other than some small print that revealed a scam where some guys would-- among other unusually nasty things-- repossess your house if you tried to back out of the deal, which of course you would, because they were scam artists who planned on forcing you to do so. That was the strangest small print I've ever seen. That's why it's important to read the small print before signing anything.
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From:ceruleanst
Date:December 21st, 2007 05:18 pm (UTC)

Acts of God

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Yes, quite well-known, actually, though "tidy" may be overstating it.
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From:paka
Date:December 21st, 2007 06:47 pm (UTC)
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For a while there, Es was kind of horridly fascinated with the Elf Yourself site - the sheer wholesome fun of it all was incredibly Mormon to her. I find that it's a lot more tolerable when you don't listen to the music the site provides and instead put on Electric Six's "Gay Bar," especially with the dancing elves.
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From:baphnedia
Date:December 22nd, 2007 12:55 am (UTC)
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Well, a loss of six Sanity points equals a net gain of six Insanity Points. I'll be sure to credit your account accordingly.
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From:arethinn
Date:December 25th, 2007 01:23 am (UTC)
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enotsola speculates they may have lifted such language from the Sci-Fi Mad Mad House terms... he says sethanikeem posted about what she had to sign re: being on the show and that it used phraseology like "multiverse" or some such.
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From:alynna
Date:December 28th, 2007 09:57 am (UTC)
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well at least they aren't trying to enforce it in other universes...
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