How to prevent the problem of a document changing its content after you signed it I just read this: The problem is that if there is a dispute over what was actually in the NDA later on, its going to be extremely difficult to establish what the NDA said. I'd refuse to sign an online NDA out of fear that some years from now, I'd be presented with "you signed this document" which looks nothing like the document I thought I signed. I think this is applicable to both online and hardcopy documents in the same way. For hardcopy, someone with enough sophistication could just either copy your signature, or graft it from one document to another. Likewise, for electronic media, you could easily just paste their electronic signature onto a different document, since it's just bits of 1's and 0's that the document is saved in the database or cloud with, so it's easily changed. I'm wondering how you can prevent these problems. If you are the one creating the document to be signed, wondering what must need to be done so that if you were in court the document would be considered valid, the content considered the original content and valid, and the signature considered valid. If you give a copy of the document to the person signing it, then they could use it to reference the original. But if they lose it, then they lose the protection. Also, they could just throw it away and say that they never got a copy, and say that you changed the original contract. I'm not sure how one would protect against this sort of stuff, what needs to be done on the document creator's part to maintain "legal validity" or "legal soundness". Seems like documenting the process somehow might help, but I can see loopholes there as well. Hoping one could outline/clarify what should be done here.
The USPS and other postal services have created a service called Digital Postmarks or EPCM (Electronic Postal Certification Mark) to address exactly this problem. Basically you can upload any document that you want to be "unalterable and time stamped". The service computes a hash (a number that will change if the contents change), and store the time stamp and the hash on a secure server. If, at some time in the future, you want to confirm the authenticity of the document, you can upload another copy - the fact that it produces the same hash proves it's not been tampered with.
There are not enough facts to draw a conclusion First, it’s not clear that the document you signed amounts to a contract. For example, what consideration did the school give you in return for the permission you gave them? Providing you with an education doesn’t count - they were legally obliged to do that already. If it is a contract then whether and how it can be revoked would depend on the terms of that contract witch I’m guessing you don’t have a copy of. Notwithstanding, as a minor, you have the right to void the contract until a reasonable time after you turn 18. Even if it is now many years since that happened, it might be reasonable since you only just discovered the website. If it isn’t a contract, then it would be revocable at any time. Practicalities Make a fuss and they may take the photos down even if they are not obliged to. They presumably have plenty of photos of kids who aren’t you and aren’t complaining and if you make it so it’s easier to change the website than to deal with you, thy’ll change the website. I suspect their inertia is because they once paid a web developer to create the site, it has never since been updated, they don’t know how to do it, and they don’t want to have to pay someone to find out. Otherwise, why would they have photos of ex-students rather than current students? If so, an offer by you to cover the costs, might solve your problem.
are there any safeguards you could take to preemptively block such behavior, such as a disclaimer inside the book cover that reads something like The safeguard you outline would be overridden as soon as the author enters any contract that requires assignment of copyright. (I would not delve in the differences between licensing and copyright assignment because that hypothetical author is dealing with a contract of adhesion which readily requires assignment; the author has no option to change the ToS to allow for licensing only) Under contract law, one of the essential prerequisites is that the conditions of a contract be entered knowingly and willfully. By deliberately clicking on a ToS page to move forward with the uploading a copyrighted work, the author is signaling his awareness and acceptance of the ToS. The fact that the author chose not to read the ToS is irrelevant and very unlikely to strike whatever entitlements the website owner formulated in the accepted ToS. For the same reason, the author's safeguard disclaimer does not bind the website owner: It cannot be said that the website owner was aware of that disclaimer at the time of the formation of contract between the author and the website owner. That is, the website owner did not knowingly and willfully accepted the author's safeguard. The website owner is not even expected to know about any safeguards which one of its potential user intends to establish. The length of a ToS document is also irrelevant because the website owner has the valid argument that "the user-author could have skimmed through the ToS or do a search (via Control-Find) of keywords such as 'copyright' or 'property', whence any allegation of 'inadvertent' assignment of copyright is untenable". Is there a way to protect your IP from inadvertently being licensed/stolen/assigned via TOS "agreements", without having to waste your life reading huge one-sided online "contracts" that are "subject to change without notice" anyway? Yes. That consists of not uploading one's works in such platforms. In contract law that would be expressed as "declining an exchange of considerations". There are many other alternatives for an author to promote his work without being required to assign copyright.
You would be amazed at how vanishingly few the number of cases are where a signature is disputed. Signatures are easy, quick and don't require you having inky fingers all the time. They are so useful that to throw them out to deal with infinintesimally small fractions of disputes over their veracity (bearing in mind that 99.999999999% of contracts never have a dispute that gets to a court [or at all]) is ridiculous. When it does happen, handwriting analysis is probably not going to be put into evidence anyway. Testimony like "I saw him sign it" is way more likely to be used.
If you own the copyright (because you wrote the book), you can do whatever you want with it. If someone else has the copyright, you have to get their permission to do what you propose. That could be the author, the author's estate, or some other party. It then depends on what the interest of the rights-holder is: they could say "No way!", "Sure, for a payment of $100,000", "At $1 per copy, here is how you must keep track of copies", "Okay, as long as you include this notice that prevents further re-distribution" or "Huh, I never thought of that. Sure, I grant you complete license to do whatever you want". A publisher is relevant only when the publisher requires a transfer of copyright to the publishing company, or if the rights-holder has granted them a certain type of license (e.g. an exclusive license). If the author has granted someone else an exclusive perpetual right to distribute, then they cannot also grant you a license to distribute for free. That is really the author's problem, though, since the publisher doesn't hold the copyright so can't sue you, instead the publisher would sue the author for breach of contract.
The copyright owner is whoever first put the material in fixed form. It is most likely that that is the note-taker (you). It is possible (and highly unlikely) that the lecturer read (had memorized) a prepared script and you copied that script mechanically, and if that were the case, he would hold copyright and you infringed by making a copy. Typically, a note-taker follows the logic of a lecture and expresses those ideas in his own words (the notes do not match a plausible verbatim class lecture). Since expression is protected and ideas are not, that makes it most likely that you would prevail in a suit. The equations are almost certainly not protected.
The employee must, during and after employment, without limitation in time, observe a duty of confidentiality regarding [...] the Company's internal affairs such as business plans, profitability, pricing, employees, methods, processes, routines, code and the like as well as other information that the Company typically wants to keep secret The pure information that the company had at some time a security problem with their product is internal knowledge you only gained through working there. By what is written here, you are indeed prohibited from speaking about it. If it were public knowledge, you could point to a press release and say &quot;I did that, that was me fixing the problem&quot;. That would work. Because it doesn't share anything that isn't public anyway. But you cannot share things the company wants to keep secret. Finding out whether that contract is legally enforcable in your country and juristiction is the job of a real lawyer, but just as written, they are right. You signed a contract to not do that, not talk about it an certainly not publish it on the internet. So you should not do that, unless a good lawyer you trust tells you otherwise. That said, &quot;I found a security flaw&quot; is about as impressive as &quot;I found a dollar on the floor&quot;. Maybe you can talk about your knowledge to prevent something like it happening. That says nothing about whether or not it happened in your old company, and for me as an employer it is much more valuable to have you on board with structured knowledge you can apply, than with your memories of being lucky once.
There's existing copyright infringement and future copyright infringement. Let's say you sold a million records with infringing contents. That's copyright infringement. It has happened, you can't undo it. Now you get sued. If you think you will lose, it would be a good idea to change the music to be not infringing, so the next million records are not infringing and add to the damages. It doesn't fix the infringement that has already been done, but makes sure there is no further infringement. And infringement after you were told about it and asked to stop might be punished more harshly.