I’m not diligent about reading user agreements or terms of service documents before clicking on the ‘I agree’ button. But some things NowPublic’s Co-Founder and CEO Michael Tippett said in a recent piece on NewAssignment.net got me thinking.
Here’s part of the interview, which focused on NowPublic’s upcoming deals with the Associated Press:
Q: So a plane crashes in nowheresville, Alabama. The AP benefits from the NowPublic connection — if anyone is there to take photos. What about putting citizen journalists at risk? I’m sure we don’t want them running into burning buildings.
Tippett: That’s obviously something we think about here. We don’t want people to endanger themselves and take personal risk, and we try as best we can to advise people of that. We encourage them to be cautious when it’s warranted. We have a code of conduct that people are required to agree to and sign, and it says they’re not going to take risks just to get the story.
Here’s the part of the user-agreement (I think!) Tippett is referring to (capitalization is NowPublic’s, not mine):
NOWPUBLIC IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES WHATSOEVER ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR MISUSE OF THE SITE OR THE SERVICES OR IN RELIANCE ON THE INFORMATION AVAILABLE ON THE SITE….
Basically, if you’re chasing a story and get hit by a car in the process, you can’t (theoretically) sue NowPublic. I haven’t heard any stories of non-war zone citizen journalists being harmed in the course of reporting. But it’s probably a good idea to protect the company, anyway. Thoughts?