Samuel A. Lewis, a member of Cozen O’Connor’s Intellectual Property Litigation group, discusses the importance of reading license agreements online before accepting the terms. While a website’s license agreement may be extensive, Sam says, “The reality is that many courts will have little sympathy for someone who enters into an agreement without reading it.” In particular, Sam discusses the controversy surrounding Pinterest’s user agreement which says, “Pinterest’s users agree that any content they pin won’t violate any law or infringe the rights of third parties and users grant a license to the pinned material.” However, Sam says that granting a license is problematic for Pinterest users because, “Just as you can’t lawfully sell property you don’t own, you can’t grant a license with any greater rights than you have.”
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