Does &quot;so as to&quot; limit the application of a permission, or define it as a possible use case I have been asked to sign an employment agreement which includes The Employee irrevocably appoints the Employer as the Employee’s lawful and authorised attorney to sign a document or do any thing and generally to use the Employee’s name so as to give to the Employer the full benefit of this clause. in the clause relating to Intellectual Property. My main concern here is that so as to reads to me as if it was an example of possible usage, and not a limitation of authorisation. Something along the lines of "appoint us as your attorney so we can sign paperwork, such as those required for this clause, on your behalf." Using the example from https://english.stackexchange.com/a/129573 Ensure that the firewall is properly configured so as to prevent an attacker from infiltrating our network. could seem to support this since a "properly configured firewall" can do more than just protect your network from infiltration. If the phrase for the purposes of was used instead it would read as though authorisation was being granted, but would be restricted to this one specific use case. In terms of legal documents (and probably everywhere else?) does so as to restrict the authorisation to only the provided purpose?
Contractual terms must always be read in context. Given the context, it is unlikely that the term could support the definition that you are worried about. It is clear that the purpose of you appointing the company as your attorney is to allow them to perfect the IP rights you have given them by the other parts of the clause; not to allow them to sell your house or make end-of-life decisions. If you are worried about it, ask them what they mean and ask for the clause to be clarified to your satisfaction.
Use of SE is subject to the terms and conditions specified here. Section 3 says "You agree that all Subscriber Content that You contribute to the Network is perpetually and irrevocably licensed to Stack Exchange under the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike license." That means that your contributions can be used forever. That means the stuff is there, end of story. Section 11 on Termination says "Stack Exchange may also terminate, block, or suspend any and all Services and access to the Network immediately, without prior notice or liability, in its sole discretion, for any reason or no reason at all, including but not limited to any Subscriber breaches of any of the terms or conditions of this Agreement". That means you can be banned. So, yes, what they did is legal.
Assuming Chegg own the copyright, then they can restrict the activities that copyright protects The statement you quote is no more or less than the rights granted to them by copyright law. Basically, it's their stuff, they get to decide how you can use it. However, that does not necessarily mean that the uses that you have nominated are prohibited. For that, we would have to look at the specific fair use or fair dealing exemptions to copyright protection where you are. It's likely that both of your usage scenarios would meet fair use and probably fair dealing (which is harder to meet). You may also find that, buried somewhere in those massive terms of use, is something that deals with this directly.
There is no general answer: it's a state-by-state question. Texas Occupations Code 1001.301(b) says that a person may not, unless the person holds a license issued under this chapter, directly or indirectly use or cause to be used as a professional, business, or commercial identification, title, name, representation, claim, asset, or means of advantage or benefit any of, or a variation or abbreviation of, the following terms: (1) “engineer” etc. You cannot call yourself that, in Texas. Subsection (f) provides for an exemption: Notwithstanding the other provisions of this chapter, a regular employee of a business entity who is engaged in engineering activities but is exempt from the licensing requirements of this chapter under Sections 1001.057 (Employee of Private Corporation or Business Entity) or 1001.058 (Employee of Certain Utilities or Affiliates) is not prohibited from using the term “engineer” on a business card, cover letter, or other form of correspondence that is made available to the public if the person does not: (1) offer to the public to perform engineering services; or (2) use the title in any context outside the scope of the exemption in a manner that represents an ability or willingness to perform engineering services or make an engineering judgment requiring a licensed professional engineer. 1001.057 does allow an exception for &quot;products manufactured by the entity&quot;, which under the law includes computer software. Whether or not (1) and (2) apply to a given employee / business depends on what they do: you can't open up a code-writing shop for the public and use the term &quot;engineer&quot;, but you can be a software engineer for Shell Oil. In Washington, RCW 18.43.010 says that it shall be unlawful for any person to practice or to offer to practice in this state, engineering or land surveying, as defined in the provisions of this chapter, or to use in connection with his or her name or otherwise assume, use, or advertise any title or description tending to convey the impression that he or she is a professional engineer or a land surveyor, unless such a person has been duly registered under the provisions of this chapter. which is not as clear as Texas law (I would not have thought that a &quot;software engineer&quot; is a &quot;professional engineer&quot;. The term &quot;professional engineer&quot; is defined in RCW 18.43.020 as a person who, by reason of his or her special knowledge of the mathematical and physical sciences and the principles and methods of engineering analysis and design, acquired by professional education and practical experience, is qualified to practice engineering as defined in this section, as attested by his or her legal registration as a professional engineer. Having kicked the can down the road a bit, &quot;professional engineering&quot; is defined as any professional service or creative work requiring engineering education, training, and experience and the application of special knowledge of the mathematical, physical, and engineering sciences to such professional services or creative work as consultation, investigation, evaluation, planning, design, and supervision of construction for the purpose of assuring compliance with specifications and design, in connection with any public or private utilities, structures, buildings, machines, equipment, processes, works, or projects. If &quot;software engineering&quot; is a kind of &quot;professional engineering&quot;, you must register, and here are the requirements, which ultimately refers you to the PE Electrical and Computer exam, which includes EE-type stuff that probably few software engineers know, and some software-related stuff including general computer architecture that is also not general knowledge among computer programmers. Judging from advertisements for &quot;software engineer&quot; position in Washington, jobs state qualifications as as having a degree and knowledge of software, but not possession of a license or being registered as a &quot;professional engineer&quot; (and the exams only happen twice a year so it's not a trivially satisfiable formality). Either there is a massive conspiracy to mislead applicant or scoff at the law or, more likely, software engineers in Washington are not considered to be &quot;professional engineers&quot;. This includes huge numbers of jobs with Microsoft, which are open to students who are years from being able to satisfy the 8-year experience requirement.
To use an API over a network connection (as opposed to, e.g., the Windows API), a user communicates a request to the API host, or server, and awaits a response. The host of the remote API can refuse to serve requests from users for probably any reason. Such services often require users to accept a license as a condition of using the service, and they may charge a fee as a condition of the license. A license to use a service is obviously not necessarily bound to a license for the use of its source code, just as the ability to reach the service is not dependent on the ability to see (let alone use) the code in any format, whether it be the source code or some compiled form of the code. In essence, source licenses and service licenses have different primary goals, at least inasmuch as the source license seeks to restrict someone who has actual physical access to compiled code, and possibly source code. Service licenses do not have that concern, though I have seen service licenses that also prohibit decompiling. This is probably the result of a CYA attitude among lawyers: the language is already in the standard software license text, and it doesn't hurt anything to leave it in, and it could help if a service user somehow managed to download the program code.
That would likely be treated as a preamble. These have been held in some jurisdictions to not have any weight. For example, see Sherbrooke Community Centre v. Service Employees International Union, 2002 SKQB 101: The preamble to a contract is nothing more than an introduction to that about which the parties have actually agreed. It puts the agreement into context. It describes the goals of the agreement. It speaks to what went before and the spirit in which agreement was achieved. On the other hand, it does not contain any promises. It does not contain any restrictions or commitments. It could be removed entirely without in any way altering that which was agreed to and set out in specific terms. [...] this clause in the preamble does not create or eliminate rights or obligations Granted, the introductory phrase in your hypothetical clause is not literally a preamble, but it has the same characteristics cited in the above decision: &quot;it describes the goals&quot;, &quot;it does not contain any promises&quot;, &quot;it could be removed entirely without in any way altering that which was agreed to&quot;. If you wanted the clause to only take effect if toilets overflowed, use an alternative wording, like: Company B may not resell any products purchased from Company A at a discounted price in a manner that causes toilets to overflow.
On what grounds would you sue? Contract Well, I think that you would struggle to find the necessary elements (see What is a contract and what is required for them to be valid?) In particular, you would struggle to prove that there was intention to create legal relations on their part and possibly on yours. Are you able to identify in your "back &amp; forth" a clear, unequivocal offer and acceptance? Without knowing the details of the "back &amp; forth": I was hoping that someone at $organization might be willing to write an article explaining what you do, the history of the organization and how it works appears on the face of it to be a request for a gift; not an offer to treat. Promissory Estoppel If you don't have a contract then it is possible (IMO unlikely) that they induced you by your actions to commit resources (your time in writing) in anticipation of a reward (them publishing what you wrote). To be estopped they would have to have known that you were writing the article in the expectation that it would have your organisation's name in it, that they did not intend for that to happen and that they allowed you to invest those resources notwithstanding. If you can prove all of that then you can require them to do what they promised. The big difficulty I see in this is did you tell them that a) you were writing the article, b) it would have your name in it and c) you expected it to be published in that form. Copyright If they publish the work or a derivative work without your permission you can sue for breach of copyright. As it stands, they probably have an implied licence to publish and you would need to explicitly revoke that. Options There are two reasons to go to court: Money Principle If you are going to court for money then this is at best a risky investment and at worst a gamble: balance your risk and reward carefully. If you are going to court for a principle then I simultaneously admire your principles and think you're an idiot. Make a deal Explain that the reason that you wrote the article was a) to support their fine publication and the fantastic work it does (even if you don't) and b) to garner good publicity for your organisation. You understand and admire their strong editorial stance (especially if you don't) but the article involved a considerable amount of work and could they see their way clear to give you a significant discount (~80%) on a full page ad facing the article.
Law (regardless of its type) supersedes contract, provided it has jurisdiction over the persons bound by that contract. Contract provisions that are counter to law are generally held to be void. State law has authority over an employer's policies or hand book. However, there may be exceptions in state law (so I would double check). A frequent exception (at least in California law, which I am most familiar with) is for very small businesses. Another exception, from C.R.S. § 8-4-101(5), is if you are considered a "contractor" rather than an employee, per the government's determination. It is possibly worth your time to let you employer know of this conflict before termination if possible, so that they can adjust their policies, rather than in an adversarial position after termination, if only to avoid the headache.