answers to your questions about sponsored communities

[burr86]

Some of you might be interested in more detailed explanation of our stances on various issues surrounding sponsored communities. The previous post described what we're going to require of our sponsors, and we wanted to make those points clear without bogging them down in explanations and justifications. If you're interested in reading some more of

Comments

[tsarina]

Thank you for taking the time to lay all of that out. I feel reassured that y'all have been putting some serious thought into this issue. While ultimately I'm probably a bit sad that some forms of advertising have come into LJ-land, I feel good knowing that you are responsive to the concerns of your commmunity.

[museumfreak]

I would just like to say that I'm really glad that this first comment doesn't say "frist post!"

That said, I'd like to applaud the LiveJournal staff for actually reading all our comments, attempting to answer them, and being responsive and thinking about it. Guys, this alone proves that we are NOT MySpace, and not in danger of becoming it.

[redarius]

This is awesome, thank you for taking so much time to explain these changes to the overly dramatic and whiny minority that think this is the end of their little world.

I don't think anyone can doubt the sincerity or motivation of the folks behind the scenes at LJ. Sure, mistakes are made but the overwhelming response from the business side of things is great.

[component]

Call us "whiney" all you like. All I know is it bugs me when someone makes a promise and blatantly breaks it. If they hadn't promised not to have advertisments in the past, then maybe I wouldn't mind this so much. I mostly hate being deceived.

That said, someone should save this page somewhere else ;) *hint hint*

[ems]

Hmm-mm. Unfortunately, a bigger corporate prescence on LJ means a greater likelihood of those corporations finding our sad little icons or whatever and insisting we delete them. I know that by law, you are obliged to enforce this, but... augh. It sucks a bit. The day the Henson corporation come along and tell me to take down my Miss Piggy icons and layout is the day I leave livejournal. Heh. Hopefully Jim'll look down on us little people with benevolance and stop it happening.

[ems]

Oh, but the rest of the post was awesome reassurance, tyvm. :)

[ex_uniquewo]

Yeah but OTOH, the day fannish folks disappear from LJ is the day some - I would say quite a lot but I really have no idea - paid accounts will disappear too. Bad move for LJ so... let's hope it doesn't happen for everybody's sake.

[ems]

That is very very true. I'm sure the Harry Potter fans alone make up at leats 10% of LJ's paid account holders!

Hopefully the corporations will realise that someone having an icon of a film or tv show or whatever is free promotion for them...

[jubilli]

I can breathe a bit easier now.

[burr86]

Glad to hear it! Let us know if you have any other questions. :)

[elfgirl]

but their having a community here doesn't give them any extra visibility into LJ

I'll have to disagree with this statement. As long as LiveJournal exists as a separate entity away from the copyright holders, they have no reason to come looking here unless someone goes out of their way to point us out.

However, once a copyright holder has a presence here, it's much more likely (I'd say 100% more likely) they're going to run across some "misuse" of their copyrighted material on their own. At that point, they must take action if they feel it violates their copyright or risk losing the right to do so for any copyright violation.

[ems]

Mm, I agree.

[pbristow]

Legally, the situation is that you can't use them *at all* without permission from *all* the relevant copyright holders. Which always has been the case