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Comment by dangrossman | Hacker News Reader

There's nothing unusual in that agreement. It sounds like every other social network. It's a non-exclusive license to use the work you post on their site. Meaning you can't sue them for copyright infringement for sharing what you've posted on your profile, even if you change your mind. A license is not ownership, and the non-exclusive part means you are not giving up your right to make licenses with anyone else in the world.

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"There's nothing unusual in that agreement. It sounds like every other social network."

I don't use any other social network, and this is one of the reasons why.

I have now deleted my profile on LinkedIn, which is a shame as I had a nice recommendation from a customer at a past job on there. Then again, the site has only ever generated me irrelevant junk mail from agencies rather than useful leads anyway.

Why does it matter if a social network has a non-exclusive license to content you post to their website?*

*This is a serious question.

Most any corporate site that allows user supplied content has similar terms. They need the legal ability to distribute what you provide them, which is why you need to license it to them.

Lots of them go a little more overboard than they should, I think, it's just the normal lawyer speak cover-your-ass thing.

OK, inserted the word "effectively" to the submission title (my opinion on the subject is @ http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1225271 )

"There's nothing unusual in that agreement. It sounds like every other social network."

Indirect, concepts, ideas...does it mean that if you help someone on LinkedIn answers section, they own the solution?

No, it means that you've licensed what you wrote to them so they can redistribute it (which they need if they want to show it to other people).

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