Udate on the LJ User Agreement

[shadowkat]

So, uhm, update on the LJ situation. I did a little research during lunch at work. One of my co-workers is a) Russian, and b) has an old LJ account. Also he's up on the news in Russia.

According to my co-worker LJ has been having issues with a lot of lawsuits concerning people illegally sharing other people's posts, without credit. Mainly politically sensitive posts. Nothing has come of them, but it's been an issue. He says with all the bribes and corruption in the court system, the lawsuits don't really go anywhere. He said that unless you were writing a lot of political posts or Russian posts, not to worry about it. He doesn't use his lj account.

I also googled the law on contracts in foreign languages, and discovered that yes, they are legal and stand up in a court of law. As long as the contract states which language version is the valid one. If it's silent, than not valid.
Actually found a legal comment thread that I found rather amusing due to all the disclaimers, that yes, a contract that is in a foreign language other than English can stand up in a US court and if the agreement is based in the other country, that country's law governs. Way back in the day, I negotiated rights contracts with Chinese, French, German, and Russian journal publishers, who sent me translations of my contract in their language. I'd have to translate it. If it fit my contract's language -- then I'd sign with the caveat that the English version governed, since the contract's jurisdiction was the US.

That's why they state the Russian version is the legal one. However in talking to my co-worker, he said there weren't really any differences between the two. And the items that were concerning me, weren't really an issue unless I was living in Russia or the countries near and around Russia.

So...there you have it.

But...should I sign that user agreement? I don't want to. The legal professional in me is balking.

The problem is -- if I don't sign, I have little more than "lurking" privileges. I can read LJ, as long as I'm not logged in. The only way I can post and cross-post, not to mention manage my content and reply to comments is if I sign the user agreement. BTW, I can't even delete the journal or change anything in it. I've no access, except as a lurker. [ETA: You can comment under Open ID over there, just like you can here. So...you can still play on LJ, just don't log into it, and do it as an outsider.]

It's very hard for me as a contracts legal professional to sign an agreement that is in another language. When I was rights manager and had to deal with foreign contracts, I got them fully translated and ensured the clauses were the same. That said, I think my co-worker is right about this and we really have nothing to worry about. LJ is probably about as safe as DW or any other social media or journal outlet.

So again, what do you think?

Comments

[promethia_tenk]

Thank you for looking into this. I still haven't decided what to do at the moment, but it's good to have a little clearer information.

What you're stating is pretty much what I expected, tbh.

[mefisto]

It's easy for me. As you know, I've never once posted on lj. I use it only to keep in touch with others and to comment occasionally. I see no reason to sign an agreement with clauses I can't understand, giving jurisdiction to a country the government of which I hate.

[cactuswatcher]

Because I was always logged in on LJ, I can't even log off to use Open ID without using a different computer.

I suggest your coworker is only right about safety so far as it would be reasonably easy to hack into DW's code its initial source being the same as LJ's. Thus posts here are not exactly completely secure. But the difference is that LJ now is pretty much fair game for foul play, and by approving the agreement you'd pretty much tell your own government you don't care. For your coworker the problem is for Russian citizens and that is certainly where the greatest danger lies. When LJ was bought I warned people about making political posts on LJ, not for ourselves but for the Russians who might want to keep up with our posts and get into dire trouble over what we might say. But assuming that is the limit of the problem is not healthy for citizens from any country.

The Russian government is guilty of some very severe recent bad behavior. Putin was KGB. Do not assume that his proxies would not use any information they can gather to their advantage against citizens of other nations in their own countries. It's happened in my life time under the Soviets even in the US and it can happen again. I'm neither paranoid nor kidding.

[spikewriter]

I'm walking away. Something in the new agreement just...grates. I've been thinking about it since my server moved to Russia, but this is just the final push. First, I'm going through and deleting the private and family posts. Sure, there's likely backups on their servers, but I'd rather delete those first before deleting the account and letting it hang in suspension for 30 days. And no, I don't think I'm being paranoid, either.

[jesuswasbatman]

People have posted that it's possible to log-in and delete your journal without signing the agreement by turning off Javascript (and it's partly the fact that they make it impossible to even delete your journal without agreeing to the new ToC's that makes it seem so sinister).