Photoshop Express Terms of Use Cause Stir, Will Be Revised

Earlier this week, we discussed Adobe's beta launch of Photoshop Express, a free, online version of the popular image editing software. However, as a number of readers pointed out, the terms of use included language which granted Adobe a wide range of rights to any photos that were made available on the site. Now, after receiving a great deal of feedback from potential users, Adobe has stated their intent to rewrite the terms of use, as Ars Technica reports. David Morgenstern of ZDNet also notes the impending change, and briefly discusses the privacy and ownership concerns involved with content you post online.

Comments

Even if they "fix" it ..

[ScrewMaster]

who's to say they won't change it back again at some point in the future? This really highlights all the problems with using someone else's equipment to host and processes personal data files.

Re:Even if they "fix" it ..

[Vellmont]

who's to say they won't change it back again at some point in the future?

Anything is possible. But what's more important is what's likely.

Adobe has really little to gain by changing it back to current incarnation of the license. They're in the business of producing and selling software, not tricking people into given them rights to sell stock photography. They won't change it back because it'd be a pretty obviously dumb business move by Adobe.

This really highlights all the problems with using someone else's equipment to host and processes personal data files.

No, it really highlights the fact that many software companies don't really understand the legal implications of hosting someones data. They likely just called up the lawyers and said "make sure we don't get burned somehow by hosting this content". The lawyers pulled out some boilerplate language and changed it around a little bit, not thinking that the guy submitting content might actually want to retain some of his rights (end users have right? Who'd have thought that!).

Not every company is trying to screw you over at every single moment. They tend to pick and choose those times carefully ;).

Just use the GIMP

[Anonymous Coward]

Certainly Photoshop has a few remaining strengths over the GIMP when it comes to professional editing. However, the audience that Photoshop Express is marketed too have much simpler needs, and when they might need something a bit more powerful, the GIMP can step in and help. I'm ever more delighted as I discover the power that GIMP has for photo editing on an amateur basis, and it's all free and Free.

All it really needs is a better manual--the GIMP docs are much less friendly than e.g. Beginning GIMP .

Re:Just use the GIMP

[ScrewMaster]

Certainly Photoshop has a few remaining strengths over the GIMP

Regardless of the technical merits, the reality is that Photoshop has the acceptance of professionals everywhere, and that kind of inertia will be hard to overcome even if GIMP ultimately exceeds Photoshop in capability and usability. "Free" means little to people that use something as a business tool that can be written off their taxes, and which they must trust to get the job done. That said, Photoshop is hardly perfect, Adobe is an obnoxious company, and I sincerely hope that the GIMP makes it out of amateur status and truly does go head-to-head with Adobe's stuff. Sooner or later it will, I think.

Re:Just use the GIMP

[Brian Gordon]

"All it really needs" is to send all of its devs over to GTK for a month and make that not suck, or cut it altogether and use a decent widget library.

Re:Just use the GIMP

[chunk08]

I have used both (GIMP at home, Photoshop at school). I can see several areas where gimp needs to catch up with Photoshop. Most of these should be made much easier to implement by GEGL

1. Text scaling: use actual font rendering for scaled text instead of image scaling
2. Adjustment layers: won't be needed when GEGL's non-destructive editing is implemented.
3. layer effects: Useful for adding text to images, among other things
4. clipping masks: Also useful for adding text, especially when combined with layer effects
5. brush sizes: do away with "brush editor" for everyday circle/square brushes and get a toolbar. I hate using a dialog to adjust size/hardness/transparency.
6. CYMK etc. color support

If GIMP gets these things, it will surpass Photoshop. I personally enjoy using software that I'm required to pay for a license for, or be bound to use on only 1 or 2 computers. Also, I can't wait to get my hands on non-destructive editing.

Re:Just use the GIMP

[Virgil Tibbs]

If they are already proficient with Photoshop, pimp Gimpshop to them.
Otherwise, like you say, show them, The GIMP with some good tutorials.

Re:Just use the GIMP

[NeverVotedBush]

GIMP sure takes a beating for being unfriendly. I disagree with that label, though. I think GIMP is easy to use and does a great job. Plus it is free. It's a very capable and easy to use graphics editor.

I think the real issue is GIMPs interface is just different. It looks a lot like PaintShopPro at least used to. I was a PaintShopPro user for some time and switching to GIMP was easy.

I like the GIMP. Anyone interested in GIMP ought to just download it and try it out for themselves and see what they think. Give it some time. It always takes a while to learn a different interface. I think people would be pleasantly surprised if they would just try GIMP for a while instead of being turned off that its interface isn't the same as Photoshop's.

Re:Just use the GIMP

[richard.york]

That said, Photoshop is hardly perfect, Adobe is an obnoxious company, and I sincerely hope that the GIMP makes it out of amateur status and truly does go head-to-head with Adobe's stuff. Sooner or later it will, I think.

Well, they might start by calling it something other than GIMP....

Which of the more common definitions do you think people associate with this fine product?

Gimp: lameness: disability of walking due to crippling of the legs or feet

Gimp: is a usually derogatory term used to refer to a (male or female) sexual submissive person, typically dressed in black leather (or rubber), often in a gimp suit, and wearing a bondage hood or mask of the same material. ...

Courtesy of http://www.google.com/search?q=define%3A+gimp

Your average Joe isn't going to know that it means GNU Image Manipulation Program.

For God sake, the most common definition implies that it is crippled! I haven't used the GIMP much, my company bought a copy of Photoshop just for little ol' me. So to me it makes no difference if the GIMP is free or not, setting aside its ridiculous name, I didn't have to pay for Photoshop anyway.

Re:Just use the GIMP

[Anonymous Coward]

It IS unfriendly. Why should we give ourselves hassle with headaches when we can just do what we always do, download a copy of Lightroom and Photoshop CS.

GIMP? Please, come back to me when they pull their arses from their heads. All "Its just different" bullshit you shout won't change a thing.

Gimp is udder cows balls until they get their act together and get a good Useability story. Meanwhile, stay in your mamma's basement.

Re:Just use the GIMP

[TheGratefulNet]

as a serious amateur in photography, can I let you in on a secret?

the 'new hotness' is raw; meaning 16bit color (per channel). not 8 but 16.

can gimp do that? not really.

and HOW many years has it been?

believe me, I'd like to see gimp win over pshop, but if they can't convert their base over to 16bit/channel color, no serious photog is going to consider gimp.

and yes, I'm a linux/bsd user by trade, but mostly am stuck to xp JUST because of pshop/cs2 (and its plugins such as neatimage and noise ninja, that also really aren't native on unix).

gimp is fine for informal work but nothing really serious. for serious work, I shoot raw and that NEEDS a full 16bit color in EVERY step. every one. just like audio editing, you need to keep high precision math all along the processing chain or the errors will accumulate. 8bit color is NOT good for edit (and edit and edit). its fine for viewing, but consider 8bit color an 'object format' or an output format and NOT an intermediate edit format!

Re:Just use the GIMP

[gad_zuki!]

7. Change the name.
8. Offer a UI skin that is more like ps.

Re:Just use the GIMP

[Solra Bizna]

I don't use GIMP on the Mac for two reasons.

1. No nondestructive layer effects. I abuse those so hard in Photoshop it's not funny.
2. Horrible, horrible OSX port. (Running under X11 is NOT a port.)

That said, I use and am satisfied with GIMP on Linux, simply because it's not that bad and there's no real alternative.

-:sigma.SB

Re:Just use the GIMP

[Brian Gordon]

Because it's ugly! Have you ever seen microsoft's widgets? Droool, especially their Office 07 stuff. Even cocoa is much slicker than GTK.

Re:Just use the GIMP

[Culture20]

7. Change the name. Agreed... Suggestions anyone? Photo
Image
Manipulation
Program
?

Re:Just use the GIMP

[Jarjarthejedi]

Photoshop is much easier to use. I say this as a person who desperately wanted to drop photoshop in favor of the GIMP. I still have it installed, but for a hundred small reasons I can't come up with offhand it simply is not as easy to use. It's the standard problem with open source really, I'm sure there's a ton of features that surpass photoshop hiding somewhere in the GIMP, and that it's every bit as powerful. I don't have the hours necessary to adapt and discover those things, however, when I can just as easily use photoshop.

Re:Just use the GIMP

[MidnightBrewer]

I agree that the name is crucial. The GIMP is never going to gain mainstream acceptance for as long as it has a name that some people might actually find offensive. GIMP developers: I'm sorry, it's not cute. Even if it wasn't offensive, it says horrible things about your software's abilities. Per the New Oxford American Dictionary:

a physically handicapped or lame person.
  a limp.
  a feeble or contemptible person.

Performance and functionality issues aside, I can't even bring it up in any kind of social setting without first having to apologize for the name.

I'm starting to wonder...

[tech10171968]

I'm starting to wonder if "someone at Adobe" really thought this was a bad policy? Or, is this a case where Adobe tried to sneak one past the public and got busted (because someone did the unthinkable and actually read the EULA)? You'll have to excuse my cynicism: dealing with the EULA-based trickery of another particular software company (whose name I won't bother mentioning) is precisely what drove my ass to FOSS in the first place. Sure it's free as in beer, but the "free as in speech" part is more important than people will ever give credit for, and situations like TFA are a perfect illustration of this.

Re:I'm starting to wonder...

[Vellmont]

Or, is this a case where Adobe tried to sneak one past the public and got busted

Adobe, like any entity, doesn't act as one. They might like to think they all made some big great decision about The Best Approach, but that kind of thing, if it happens, takes place over a period of time.

The most likely scenario is some group at Adobe said "we need a free product to compete with other free products, otherwise we risk being irrelevant!" The marketing people decided what features it needed, the software guys worked on their end, the lawyers did what they do and tried to protect Adobe from liability. Finally the product was released. The lawyers didn't think about marketing, the marketing people didn't think about the legal side of things, and so you got this really dumb EULA that gave all the rights to Adobe, and none to anyone else. It's an effect that often happens at large companies do to compartmentalization, and not enough people looking across the aisles.

Re:I'm starting to wonder...

[tech10171968]

Now that I think of it, you really do make a good point; we've all seen what happens when a corporation gets so damned big that the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is up to (think Sony, Motorola). But that doesn't take away from the fact that, whether this was a mere oversight or not, the trap is still there. That steaming pile of dung has still been left on the sidewalk just waiting for someone to step in it. Maybe you're correct in saying this was a mistake, but it's still the type of legal risk to which I'm no longer willing to knowingly expose myself.

Adobe's other EULAs don't make sense either

[proxima]

Anyone who chooses to upload anything to a public forum/gallery should be aware that some of these websites will claim the right to do whatever they want with that material. Back in 2003, I even stayed at a hotel where the internet access had such a clause; they claimed the right to reproduce whatever you uploaded through the system. How enforceable are such terms? I'm not a lawyer, but I don't think we've seen a sufficient number of court cases come out of license agreements like these.

Adobe's not exactly known for their reasonable EULAs. Just take a look at the EULA for Adobe Reader. This is software that Adobe is trying to get on all the computers it can. The license, however, permits only the installation on one primary computer and one mobile computer (note that "Permitted Number" is 1). I've gone so far as to contact Adobe customer service and ask them what's going on - this goes completely against their marketing policy. Amusingly, they send all their customer service responses via PDF over email. Their official response?

With regard to installing the software on more than two computers and
its use at the same time. I need to inform you that although Adobe
Reader is a free software, Adobe maintains its distribution rights.
Thus, as per Adobe policy there is no provision to use the software on
more than two computers simultaneously.

We apologize for the inconvenience this may cause.

Please note that, single-user Adobe branded product that is installed on
a computer at home, you can also install and use the software on one
secondary computer of the same platform at office or on a portable
computer. However, you may not run the software simultaneously on both
the primary and secondary computers.

It's clear that Adobe has no intention to actually try to enforce this restriction, but it suggests that organizations with computer labs and such are supposed to negotiate a volume license with Adobe. I think the Reader license is simply boilerplate recycled from other Adobe software, but it's clear that whoever is responsible for Adobe's licenses isn't in touch with what Adobe actually wants to have regarding its licensing (at least from a marketing perspective).

Photoshop.. slightly off topic

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm just curious as to why they call it Photoshop Express, it doesn't really have anything in common with Photoshop at all. It's more like Adobe's mixing iPhoto + ImageShack.

Re:Network Freedom.

[MrNaz]

I think that this is a foreshadowing of things to come. This is an indication of big corporates' desire to gain control or influence over not only the software that we use by turning into a subscription model (SaaS or whatever buzzword/buzzacro it is) but also ensuring that whatever we create using it is controllable by the providers of the software.

Taking this to its logical conclusion, SaaS providers such as Google may decide that they will muscle in on user data created using Google Apps with copyright tricks like this.

Just because the first attempt resulted in a big company backing down does not mean the heat in the pot hasn't risen a few degrees for the proverbial frog.

Visual C++ 2008 Express Edition license terms

[toby]

Here's the EULA. It is crystal clear from (2) that you are not permitted to offer anything you develop under an open source license. You may also be interested in the restriction on allowed runtime environment (Microsoft only). Also entertaining is the injunction that "You may not work around any technical limitations in the software."

All in all, it's the usual perfectly odious nonsense I'd expect from them.

As for enforceability: Well why don't you find out? Go mano-a-mano in court with their lawyers.

Better advice: Just don't go near any of their stuff!

MICROSOFT SOFTWARE LICENSE TERMS
MICROSOFT VISUAL C++ 2008 EXPRESS EDITION

These license terms are an agreement between Microsoft Corporation (or based on
where you live, one of its affiliates) and you. Please read them. They apply to
the software named above, which includes the media on which you received it, if
any. The terms also apply to any Microsoft
* updates,
* supplements,
* Internet-based services, and
* support services
for this software, unless other terms accompany those items. If so, those terms
apply.

BY USING THE SOFTWARE, YOU ACCEPT THESE TERMS. IF YOU DO NOT ACCEPT THEM, DO NOT
USE THE SOFTWARE.
AS DESCRIBED BELOW, USING SOME FEATURES ALSO OPERATES AS YOUR CONSENT TO THE
TRANSMISSION OF CERTAIN STANDARD COMPUTER INFORMATION FOR INTERNET-BASED SERVICES.

If you comply with these license terms, you have the rights below.

1. INSTALLATION AND USE RIGHTS.
a. Installation and Use. One user may install and use any number of copies of
the software on your devices to design, develop and test your programs.
b. Included Microsoft Programs. The software contains other Microsoft
programs. These license terms apply to your use of those programs.

2. ADDITIONAL LICENSING REQUIREMENTS AND/OR USE RIGHTS.
a. Distributable Code. The software contains code that you are permitted to
distribute in programs you develop if you comply with the terms below.
i. Right to Use and Distribute. The code and text files listed below are
"Distributable Code."
* REDIST.TXT Files. You may copy and distribute the object code form of code
listed in REDIST.TXT files.
* Sample Code. You may modify, copy, and distribute the source and object
code form of code marked as "sample."
* Microsoft Merge Modules. You may copy and distribute the unmodified output
of Microsoft Merge Modules.
* MFCs, ATLs and CRTs. You may modify the source code form of Microsoft
Foundation Classes (MFCs), Active Template Libraries (ATLs), and C runtimes (CRTs)
to design, develop and test your programs, and copy and distribute the object code
form of your modified files under a new name.
* Third Party Distribution. You may permit distributors of your programs to
copy and distribute the Distributable Code as part of those programs.
ii. Distribution Requirements. For any Distributable Code you distribute, you
must
* add significant primary functionality to it in your programs;
* for any Distributable Code having a filename extension of .lib, distribute
only the results of running such Distributable Code through a linker with your
program;
* distribute Distributable Code included in a setup program only as part of
that setup program without modification;
* require distributors and external end users to agree to terms that protect
it at least as much as this agreement;
* display your valid copyright notice on your programs; and
* indemnify, defend, and hold harmless Microsoft from any claims, including
attorneys' fees, related to the distribution or use of your programs.
iii. Distribution Restrictions. You may not
* alter any copyright, trademark or patent notice in the Distributable Code;
* use Microsoft's trademarks in your programs' names or in a way that
suggests your programs come from or are endorsed by Microsoft;
* distribute Distributable C

Re:Visual C++ 2008 Express Edition license terms

[Tanktalus]

It doesn't seem clear to me at all that you can't use the Express VC++ to write, compile, or distribute open-source applications.

Open source, in my understanding, merely requires that you distribute your source such that someone can recompile it. It does not require you to distribute the compiler with it. Nor does it require that the compiler be open source.

Thus, if your code can compile with Cygwin and VC++, but you distribute the copy you created with VC++, I don't see what the issue would be. Users who want to compile it themselves, and/or modify your code to do something else would have no problems doing so, assuming they had a compiler that works for the code in question. It does not appear to me to be any different than writing code using the Win32 API directly - that can be OSS, too, so why not something compiled with VC++? I didn't distribute the code to the Win32 API, nor to the C runtime library(ies).

sorry, seems you're right

[toby]

Applies to their Distributable Code. Looks like I got it wrong. Oops...

Splashup is a competitor

[foniksonik]

If anyone is actually interested in using an online service for photoshop like work.... anyone?

There is a service out there called Splashup: linky link which offers a lot more that Adobe's offering...

Capitalized "Distributable Code"

[pikine]

The terms about "Distributable Code" refers to the bullet points in (2) (a) (i) in the license. One of the item listed there is MFC (Microsoft Foundation Classes), a C++ library for GUI programming, similar to QT. Since MFC source code is provided and they let you modify and redistribute it with your proram, I think it's understandable that they don't want to accidentally turn MFC into open source.

Google Terms - No Better than Photoshop Express?

[rwmille]

Is this any better than what Adobe just got caught doing? So basically any email or attachment I send though Gmail can be used by Google? Google Terms of Service http://www.google.com/accounts/TOS?hl=en "11.1 . . . By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive licence to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. This licence is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the Services and may be revoked for certain Services as defined in the Additional Terms of those Services."