Slashdot Mirror
Does Google Own Your Content?
mjasay writes "ZDNet is reporting that Google has a potentially worrisome clause in its User Agreement for Google Apps. Namely, that any content put into the system and 'intended to be available to the members of the public' is free game for Google, reserving the right for Google 'to syndicate Content submitted, posted or displayed by you on or through Google services and use that Content in connection with any service offered by Google.' Google may not be evil, but giving it these (and other) rights to one's data should be ringing alarm bells in the Google Apps user base."
First off, the first key phrase is "By submitting, posting or displaying Content on or through Google services which are intended to be available to the members of the public..."
That means that they're not applying this to private content, just stuff you intended to be publicly available.
The second key phrase is "you grant Google a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license..." Note the words "non-exclusive". That means that Google does not own your content. You own it. They just have the right to use it anywhere in the world for free. The remaining legalese covers their butts for the current methods that might be used to display or distribute the content, and any future methods they might use.
I used to manage the photo submissions at IMDb and we used similar phrasing in our TOS. That way when we created IMDbPro, it could use the photos, we could put them not only in photo galleries related directly to the actor or film, but in themed photo galleries, in news summaries related to the actor, etc. If Amazon sold IMDb, or we merged with another film site, or we started another spin-off site, we'd retain the rights to display and use the photos.
Technology changes quickly and you'll find most large companies that display user-submitted content have the same kind of release. It doesn't deprive the content's owner of ownership, but makes sure that a lot of potential headaches that could come up in relation to the use and display of that content over the years don't come up.
Start a happiness pandemic
If you make your content available to the public via Google Services then Google can use your content anyway they see fit to promote their business.
Interesting. Does this include promoting Google's partners? (sounds like it does) What if you are in direct competition with a Google partner? What if your business is Internet search or online advertising? What if your content criticizes Google? What if Google expands their business to new areas after you publish your content (e.g. you publish content and then they change their business and you WOULD NOT HAVE published your content had they been in that business at the time of publication)? Sounds like we're seriously entering the golden age of lawyering...
The NSA: The only part of the US government that actually listens.
IMHO if you have "content" that is worth something, you should never use a web 2.0 type social site to host it. If your content is worth money, start your own site, or sell it to a site you want to be associated with.
I think it is meant to mean that if you submit content to Google which you intend to be displayed to the public, you um, give them the right to display it to the public however they choose, which is pretty standard stuff. But I'm not sure it actually does say that.
ccalam - acoustic versions of new songs.
RTFArticle Summary. It applies only to public information, not to private communication. Man, it used to be that people didn't RTFA--now they don't even read past the title. :(
I thought not.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
The summary says any content that is intended to be available to the public, which email pretty much never is.
Even so, I try to avoid using Google or any other online service to host anything of a particularly personal (or business critical) nature. I just don't trust some entity I have no control over to host these sorts of things. Sure, if they screw with my data I may have legal recourse, but whatever they did to my data is already done and likely irreversible, so being able to sue them about it is not much of a consolation.
> put into the system and 'intended to be available to the members of the public' is free game for Google
Oh noes! Your public domain material will be in the public domain!
cf. "Your Rights Online" - if this really bothers you - just don't use it (tm).
Does slashdot grossly sensationalise stories?
"... reproduce, adapt, modify, publish and distribute..."
"Modify" means that, if you say you love your wife, Google can change that and say you hate your wife.
That's how it looks to me.
The full paragraph which clearly states that Google does not own your content. Please stop spreading lies.
Your Rights
Google claims no ownership or control over any Content submitted, posted or displayed by you on or through Google services. You or a third party licensor, as appropriate, retain all patent, trademark and copyright to any Content you submit, post or display on or through Google services and you are responsible for protecting those rights, as appropriate. By submitting, posting or displaying Content on or through Google services which are intended to be available to the members of the public, you grant Google a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to reproduce, adapt, modify, publish and distribute such Content on Google services for the purpose of displaying, distributing and promoting Google services. Google reserves the right to syndicate Content submitted, posted or displayed by you on or through Google services and use that Content in connection with any service offered by Google. Google furthermore reserves the right to refuse to accept, post, display or transmit any Content in its sole discretion.
Seems to be the gist of every other EULA I've ever read...
What that means is that starving musicians could upload their work to a music hosting service, only to find that the site ends up selling CDs of their music, or licensing it for advertising jingles.
MySpace's TOS were this way until someone there organized a big protest. Let me find a link... ah, here we go - videos at YouTube too. And I quote:
Now, knowing the sort of folks that post their creations on sites like MySpace and YouTube, how many of them are likely to have even read the terms of service, let alone thought through their consequences?Request your free CD of my piano music.
Some time ago, when Google first announced this Apps product, I signed up for an account to take a look at what they had offered. Seeing as how I host my own vanity domain, I didn't see much use for it, and I decided to just ignore it until I needed it in case a machine here took a dump.
I ended up logging on and dropping the account. I also made the decision that until that term in their license changes, I probably will not consider Google Apps for anything else.
Now, I wonder how many other accounts will close?
I thought not. I think the concern is that the wording is ambiguous. As usual, the Slashdot headline takes the most sensationalist way of approaching the issue, but at its core it's a question of whose intent you're talking about. Is it, "services which are intended to be available to the members of the public," or, "content which is intended to be available to the members of the public?"
My sense is that Google means the latter (as most of us would expect), but the wording is ambiguous, and it might well serve them better to revise the agreement to eliminate that ambiguity.
If you're putting stuff up for the public through Google, about the worst Google can do to you is not show it. If you're worried about what the public (which includes Google and its partners) will do with your content, you shouldn't have put it up in the first place. (Google doesn't actually own your content, just the rights to distribute it however they wish).
Admittedly, Google not showing people your stuff could be a problem- but I think all hosting companies should reserve the right not to show anything they don't like (after refunding your money), because that's a lot easier than listing a bunch of things they won't show (like child porn and copyright infringement) so when they find things later they don't want to show (like ads for illegal services, phishing sites, snuff films, etc.) they can get rid of it without changing the contract.
You are reading a copy of my copyrighted post.
Why does this keep coming up, again and again, on nearly every site that lest you upload anything? It's not all that complicated to figure out:
Lawyer with little computer expertise learns that uploaded (and copyrighted) stuff is being reproduced and set out, as the user intended, and thinks (and not entirely without cause) "There are copyright implications to that, because we are, technically, making copies of copyrighted material." He writes a FUD memo to management, who read the subject line with glazed eyes (because it's from a lawyer, and therefore, too complicated for them to understand," and they respond with "What do we need to do?" Lawyer, who has no experience whatsoever at dealing with the general public on the internet, writes a TOS that covers this concerns. Management, who have almost as little experience at dealing with the public (rather than shareholders), rubber stamps is.
These things are intended to cover the Google's (or whoever's) ass for doing what they say they're going to do, and what their users tell them to do: store this stuff and offer it up to the web surfing world under the conditions you said you would.
And a quick perusal of Title 17 shows that copyrights cannot be transferred accidentally anyway. If Google (or whoever) tried to use a clause like that to claim they now owned someone else's work for any purpose other than what was intended by the copyright holder, they'd get their faces blown off by any competent lawyer. Such a clause would be found to be unconscionable, and would not meet the requirements for a copyright transfer even if it weren't.
This is nothing new, and no different than any other "OMFG! THIS TOS IS EVIL" story in the last ten years.
They can also draw mustaches and horns ALL OVER YOUR PICTURES! OMG!
Honestly, there are tin foil hat thoughts and there are just coming up with something to find a flaw, any flaw no matter how ridculous, thoughts.
How do you expect a corporation to display your material online if you don't give them permission to do so?
Google doesn't own something just because you give them permission to display it publicly, oh my goodness, what a stupid article.
Man, it used to be that people didn't RTFA--now they don't even read past the title.
I didn't even finish reading the title, my response was "Hell yeah, Google 0wnz!"
sic transit gloria mundi
You have to trust someone...at least to a point. Google is not trying to steal your content. If you attach a document to email because you're afraid Google will steal it, how many relays does it go through? That's how many other organizations would have the opportunity to steal the content. Trojans, spyware and key loggers can make your own computer vulnerable to snooping. If you keep it on your network storage, you're trusting your sysads and anyone else with access to the file.
And if you're still that worried then encrypt it. For simple text try http://www.fourmilab.ch/javascrypt/ and either use the site or download the javascript and make your own page, put it on SSL and even add a random virtual keyboard if you really want to go all out. Pick a pass phrase you can remember. Simple encryption will prevent casual reading, unless you think Google and the NSA are working together to spy on you...in which case you have bigger problems than /. can help with.
If anyone could ever prove Google snooped or stole content their business would evaporate overnight. They're likely very aware of that concern and probably more sensitive to it than you might imagine. Besides, with the volume of material they store, who has time to sit around and read your stuff?
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
ICQ:
"You agree that by posting any material or information anywhere on the ICQ Services and Information you surrender your copyright and any other proprietary right in the posted material or information. You further agree that ICQ Inc. is entitled to use at its own discretion any of the posted material or information in any manner it deems fit, including, but not limited to, publishing the material or distributing it." (ICQ Policy)
AIM:
"However, by submitting or posting Content to public areas of AIM Products (for example, posting a message on a message board or submitting your picture for the "Rate-A-Buddy" feature), you grant AOL, its parent, affiliates, subsidiaries, assigns, agents and licensees the irrevocable, perpetual, worldwide right to reproduce, display, perform, distribute, adapt and promote this Content in any medium. Once you submit or post Content to any public area on an AIM Product, AOL does not need to give you any further right to inspect or approve uses of such Content or to compensate you for any such uses. AOL owns all right, title and interest in any compilation, collective work or other derivative work created by AOL using or incorporating Content posted to public areas of AIM Products." (AIM Terms of Service)
MSN:
"For materials you post or otherwise provide to Microsoft related to the MSN Web Sites (a "Submission"), you grant Microsoft permission to (1) use, copy, distribute, transmit, publicly display, publicly perform, reproduce, edit, modify, translate and reformat your Submission, each in connection with the MSN Web Sites, and (2) sublicense these rights, to the maximum extent permitted by applicable law. Microsoft will not pay you for your Submission. Microsoft may remove your Submission at any time. For each Submission, you represent that you have all rights necessary for you to make the grants in this section. To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, Microsoft may monitor your e-mail, or other electronic communications and may disclose such information in the event it has a good faith reason to believe it is necessary for purposes of ensuring your compliance with this Agreement, and protecting the rights, property, and interests of the Microsoft Parties or any customer of a Microsoft Party." (Microsofts Terms of Use)
I'm the engineering director for Google Docs (and one of the founders of Writely which became the Word Processor part). The comments here are pretty good for the most part - as has been discussed, this is just about re-posting content users have marked as public. Here's what I wrote on the original story, so you don't have to dig it out.
It's an old story. People in power find a way to prevent you and me from profiting from our own creations, by controlling the distribution channels.
The music recording industry is the poster child for this. Until recently, selling recordings required expensive production and distribution facilities. The owners of these facilities could say "You want people to hear and buy your music? Sign this contract and we'll make it happen." You might as well sign the contract, because it's the same for all the other distributors. And in the fine print, it says that you assign the copyright to the recording company. The result is that musicians can make a million-selling album and make no money from it at all. This is because the recording companies can say "If you want your stuff distributed, you must give it to us."
Almost all work "for hire" to corporations are of this nature. If you want to be paid, you have to assign ownership to your employer. If you're a university researcher, and you want to be paid, you usually must assign copyright and patents to the university. Unless, that is, you got funding on your own, in which case you must assign copyright and patents to the funder. And if you want your results published, almost all academic publishers have historically required that you assign the copyright to them. "If you want your stuff distributed, you must give it to us."
Now we have a new means of distribution, the Internet. That promised to give us a cheap distribution mechanism that wasn't controlled by the distributors. But For most of us, to use the Internet requires going through something called an "ISP". Those organizations, usually private companies, have a chokehold on your path to the Internet. Early on in the commercialization of the Internet, the ISPs started to realize what they had. Thus, a few years ago, we read the stories of msn.com (owned by Microsoft) using things from customers' web sites commercially. They mostly extracted images and used them in advertising. When customers discovered images of their children being used in ads, they understandably got upset. And msn.com pointed to the clause in the contract saying that any customer files stored on msn.com machines became the property of msn.com. After a bit of adverse publicity, the "gave in", in the sense that they publicly announced that they wouldn't do this again. But this was like any corporate promise: It was PR to mollify the current crowd of upset customers. After a while, people started noticing that that clause was still in the TOS. And it can be summarized as "If you want your stuff distributed, you must give it to us. You can't go to the competition, because their contracts say the same thing."
So this story is nothing new. ISPs are more and more realizing that they have a chokehold on customers' channel to the rest of the world. Most people have only one ISP, which is a legal monopoly. Even when there are two, they can easily make sure that their contracts are identical. Like various monopolists/oligopolists of the comm channels before them, they can say "If you want your stuff distributed, you must give it to us. You can't go to the competition, because their contracts say the same thing."
It now seems like google, the "Do no evil" company, has realized the same thing. They can provide customers useful tools that inprove people's access to the Internet. And they can hide "If you want your stuff distributed, you must give it to us" in their contract. You can't go to the competition, because their contracts say the same thing.
The only way around this is regulation that denies the controllers of the Internet any ownership of things that pass through their machines. But this sort of regulation has never been effective for any past distribution system. There's no reason to expect that it will be effective for the Internet.
So much for your rights to your own creations. Get used to it; it's the future. Just like the past.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.