Boots & Sabers

The blogging will continue until morale improves...

Category: The Blog

Apple’s News App

Heh.

Apple’s forthcoming news app has been criticised over claims the company is hoodwinking bloggers into accepting its terms and conditions.

An unsolicited email from Apple inviting publishers to join the service presumes acceptance of the terms, unless they actively opt out.

It requires them to cover Apple if legal issues arise, among other things.

[…]

Other terms in the email allow Apple to place adverts next to publishers’ publicly available content without paying them.

So even though I didn’t ask them to redistribute my content, they will do so, hold me liable for any lawsuits, and not compensate me despite their being compensated for my content?

No thanks.

I agree with this guy.

And, in a blogpost entitled I Do Not Agree To Your Terms, he took issue with the requirement to opt out.

He wrote: “Let me get this straight, Apple: you send me an email outlining the terms under which you will redistribute my content, and you will just assume that I agree to your terms unless I opt out?

“You’re going to consider me bound to terms you just declared to me in an email as long as I don’t respond? That’s completely crazy. You don’t even know if I received the email!”

 

Down For a Little While

We apologize for the technical difficulties which caused the blog to be down for a while. We think we’re good now.

12th Birthday

Thanks to my wife for reminding me… B&S is 12 years old today. We’re almost to the bratty teen years.

B&S In the News

Hey, I know those guys.

The latest release this week of tens of thousands of documents gathered during the first John Doe investigation demonstrated employees in then-County Executive Scott Walker’s office doing mostly routine business. And one thing that seemed routine was Walker emailing thoughts on key policy matters to his friends in conservative media.

For example, in February 2007, Walker sent unsolicited emails in rapid succession to radio hosts Charlie Sykes, Mark Belling and Jay Weber and conservative blogger Owen Robinson giving them a heads up about a Milwaukee County Board and City Council press conference about the Kenosha-Racine-Milwaukee rail line.

It should go without saying, but what Walker did was not illegal. It wasn’t even uncommon. People who share political beliefs and values swap stories all the time. In fact, I seem to remember something in the constitution about freedom of association, but I could be wrong.

WPR Week in Review

I’ll be on WPR’s Week In Review tomorrow morning at 0800. I haven’t received the normal prep packet, so it could be extra-entertaining.

UPDATE: I got it now, so I’m semi-prepared. Let’s go! 

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