The terms are in a markdown file, so we have some alternative layouts for easier reading:

https://github.com/gratipay/gratipay.com/blob/new-terms/www/about/policies/terms-of-service.md
https://gitprint.com/gratipay/gratipay.com/blob/new-terms/www/about/policies/terms-of-service.md

@copiesofcopies isn't allowed to comment publicly here because of attorney-client privilege, but he's aware of this PR as well as #3390, and I'll be proxying the conversation back and forth between here and our private legal repo.

I printed out a copy and made a first pass through. In general I think they're great! I love that we're using terms like Participant and Team and Open Work. That really makes it feel to me like this is Gratipay's document and not just boilerplate (though there's plenty of that, too; why do lawyers always end up shouting towards the end?).

Tomorrow I'll take another pass through with a ✏️, at which point I'll post specific revisions.

cc: @colindean

Planning to take a look later today.

I think the terms are great and I'll have no problem to accept them.

@fenryxo Woo-hoo! Awesome! :D 📝

@colindean Cool, thanks. :-)

I skimmed the terms really quickly, and didn't see anything that stood out in a negative way. I'm also looking at this from the perspective of people I'd reach out to for support:

"If I ask a supporter to make a Gratipay account to support one of my projects, would this pull them in or push them away?"

The terms look professional and complete, and I feel they'd tend to give confidence to new supporters in making a Gratipay account.

Thanks @ehmatthes, good thought re: the impression these create for new users and especially new supporters for Gratipay Teams.

I made another pass through with a ✏️ and I've made a few commits to standardize the markdown. I'm going to make another commit with what I take to be non-controversial typos, and then I'm going to annotate the file with the rest of my questions/comments, to be discussed publicly here with whomever is listening, and privately with @copiesofcopies.

Additional points from @copiesofcopies:

• To take advantage of the DMCA safe harbor for infringing user content, you must file a form with the Copyright Office designating a person to serve as Gratipay's agent to receive infringement notifications. The form is here and the fee is $105. This is an important protection, and you should do this without delay.
• I think that you should offer clearer guidance about what Open Work is and what Teams need to include in their profiles to qualify. E.g., what is a "clear path" to doing work and receiving money for it? Does that mean specific, actionable tasks must be published somewhere? How much detail do Teams need to go into about how people will be paid? What kind of exceptions can they make? This extra detail doesn't necessarily have to go directly into the terms, it can be in a policy document somewhere, but the terms should link to it.
• We still need to include language giving Teams the right not to pay Participants for their work until some threshold established by the Team is met. Do you have an idea of what kind of latitude you want to give Teams on this point?

To take advantage of the DMCA safe harbor for infringing user content, you must file a form

Reticketed as gratipay/inside.gratipay.com#202.

The new terms also call for [email protected], so I reticketed setting that up as gratipay/inside.gratipay.com#203.

I’ll try to skim the new ToS later today and will be happy to share my view. If you don’t hear from me in a few hours, assume either a) I didn’t have time to do it; or b) I don’t have any issues with it. In both cases, do carry on.

Awesome, thanks @silverhook! P.S. I've posted an explanation why we can't use bitcoin anymore at gratipay/inside.gratipay.com#201 (comment), and I'll follow up via email with specifics for your case.

Terms are done! Last thing here is to clean up the formatting ...

Huzzah! 💃

!m @copiesofcopies et al.

OK, I managed to skim quickly through the ToS (excluding the PP and other referenced terms).

First of all, I find it very laudable that the ToS are easily readable and take only ~ 8 pages 👏

Regarding the content itself, I think it is fine, however there are some points I would like to have clarified (preferebly in the ToS itself) or I have comments about:

• In §2.1 you already mention “Teams” without defining them before. Later the ToS lay out how to estabilish a team, but do not explicitly define a Team. While it may be implicitly understood what it is, having an explicit definition would be good. If I understand §2.2 correctly, even one member is enough to constitute a Team. Also, it would be useful to explicitly define what the relationship between “You” and “Team” is.
• Is the primary aim of §5.3 to idemnify Gratipay or to hold Team Owners liable? The first part of the paragraph reads as if it is about idemnification of Gratipay, but the last sentence seems quite strongly to push the liability onto the Team Owner.
• Personally, I find using CC0 for Gratipay.com in §6.1 as a really nice touch and a fresh approach. I take it you do understand the implications of this, though.
• Staying on the topic of copyright, in §7.1 the copyright license that Participant grants to Gratipay is relatively broad to what Gratipay actiually needs at the time. While §7.2 clarifies what this license permits Gratipay to do, I would welcome a provision where it explicitly stated for which purposes Gratipay may use it.
• If I understand §4.3 correctly in connection with §8.1(2), it is not allowed to fund something like LOIC through Gratipay. (I’m just checking, not complaning.)
• The wording of §10.1 “subject to certain state laws” seems to be ambiguous whether an NPO (e.g. KDE e.V. or GNOME Foundation) would need to comply with laws concerning charitable solicitations in their own jurisdiction or State of Pennsylvania.
• Regarding the “without notice to you” provisions in §11.4 and §12.1, I would very much like to be informed of it, just as under §17.2.
• On that topic, it would be really nice if you could add a possibility for community involvement in the process of changing the ToS & PP, similar to the one in §4.5 (when a Team is being estabilshed).

Other than that, regarding content I have nothing to complain about. It looks pretty good to me 😸

As for the form, I very warmly recommend to read (and apply) the suggestions in this short blog post on how to make HTML legal documents (such as the MPL) look nice. I especially agree with the “no all caps” rule – no-one reads all caps paragraphs, so they are not emphesised, but hidden by it. 😝

Well, I hope this does not sound too grave. Non of there seem to me as deal-breakers, but it would still be nice to work on it, if possible.

Thanks @silverhook! We're going to run with the terms as deployed for purposes of #3399 and #3415. I'm happy to process your input with @copiesofcopies once things settle down.

@silverhook Reticketed as gratipay/inside.gratipay.com#204 so we don't forget. :-)

@whit537 I’m cool with that :)