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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
Does slashdot grossly sensationalise stories?
Yes, but think about this: you uploaded your video to YouTube specifically so it could be shown to others. But showing it to others constitutes a performance of that video by YouTube. Now, if they don't include in the terms something saying you give them the right to perform your video, how are they going to show it to others? They've no right to performance, you didn't give them one, so they can't do the very thing you want them to do with your video. Similarly, if you don't give them the right to present it in a different form, they can't include it on their front page or provide people the ability to embed the video (see any number of blog pages where, instead of a link to YouTube, the blogger embeds the actual video in a playable form). And if you don't give YouTube the right to make copies of your video, they can't make the multiple copies onto their cache and delivery servers at various points on the network close to the destination networks (think how Akamai works).
One can argue the exact wording (I prefer terms that make it explicit that the grant is for the sole purpose of providing content within the Web site and related operations and that uses outside the context of the Web site aren't part of the grant), but copyright law means that YouTube and the like have to ask you for certain rights simply to be able to legally do what you want them to do.
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.