Google Claims User Content In Multiple Products

An anonymous reader writes "Google last week removed some language in its Chrome browser's terms of service that gave the company a license to any material displayed in the browser, but that language remains in several other Google products, including its Picasa photo service and its Blogger service."

Comments

Uh Oh!

[eldavojohn]

... including its Picasa photo service ...

You mean they own my bestiality pics?

... and its Blogger service.

And my death threats?

Man, they are going to have some serious legal issues ... and they aren't even going to be from me!

Re:Uh Oh!

[pdboddy]

They retain the right to publish them. But also retain the right to refuse to publish them. It specifically says they do not own them.

Go ahead and post them, chances are the cops will be knocking in a few hours/days, and you'll have been hoisted by your own petard. :D

Re:Uh Oh!

[RealGrouchy]

Don't worry, they also own the free amateur legal advice I posted on my blog.

- RG>

Re:Uh Oh!

[StormDragoness]

This interpretation is utterly wrong. Google themselves have clarified that the legalese is just fancy talk for needing a license from you ( the content creator ) in order to format and present your rightful content, it still belongs to you and Google cannot use this license any other way. The language which the EULA is written in, is alien to most people, even though it looks english.

Not a story

[AKAImBatman]

How is this a story? The language is fairly common among services that allow user materials to be uploaded. It has been in Google's standard TOS for years now. The only reason why it came to light with Chrome is that the language didn't make a lick of sense in that context. Since you weren't uploading user-generated content, Google's TOS read as if they auto-claimed the entire internet.

"View this page and it's ours! MWHAHAHA!"

Not only is that an unenforcable statement, but it's a downright ridiculous statement, as well. That is why it was removed. Nothing more, nothing less.

The only difference I see between the standard content license that Google uses and the license of their competitors is that many competitors choose to limit the license to the length of your membership. After such a time they "make a reasonable effort" to remove any content you request removed. It's up to you, the consumer, to decide if a perpetual license is more bothersome than a "best effort" license limited to the period that you maintain membership.

Re:Not a story

[Anonymous Coward]

Google's official explanation to why it was in Chrome was "Ah, it was left there as remains from our other services. Sorry, we'll remove it from that one.

And a week later, Slashdot realizes that it actually is in Google's other services.

Re:Not a story

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not a story, it's more of an attempt to cause hysteria against Google. The sad thing is, many lemmings are going to buy into this as "new" and be up in arms, ignorantly thinking that other companies aren't doing the same with their EULAs.

Re:Not a story

[Anonymous Coward]

It's really stupid to think this is any kind of a story. These TOS are not about Google appropriating anyone's intellectual property. It's just a bit of legal CYA.

Without provisions like these, it's possible to imagine an interpretation of copyright law under which Google's copies of your uploaded content constitute infringement. Obviously that's not the way Google or its users intend the law to be construed, but it's best to have these things explicitly spelled out.

Re:Not a story

[Bogtha]

How is this a story? The language is fairly common among services that allow user materials to be uploaded.

It's not a story. It's stupid fearmongering perpetuated by blazing fuckwits who like to hop on the hate bandwagon.

These kinds of terms are necessary for services where copyrighted material is hosted. Otherwise, they don't have permission to serve your content to other users, which is the whole point of the service.

From Slashdot's terms of use :

In each such case, the submitting user grants SourceForge the royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive, transferable license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform, and display such Content (in whole or part) worldwide and/or to incorporate it in other works in any form, media, or technology now known or later developed, all subject to the terms of any applicable license.

Everybody who thinks this is some kind of evil scheme by Google to rob content should now leave Slashdot, for they are doing exactly the same thing.

Re:Not a story

[Danga]

Google's official explanation to why it was in Chrome was "Ah, it was left there as remains from our other services. Sorry, we'll remove it from that one.

And a week later, Slashdot realizes that it actually is in Google's other services.

My question is why was this in ANY of their services TOS? I thought Googles motto was "Don't be evil"? Well to me trying to get free rights to others content is evil, I don't care if that is how other similar services are setup either, Google should be different or lose the motto.

If I were to setup something like Picasa then I would want to word the TOS in a way such that the ALL rights to uploaded pictures stay with the original owner. I think hijacking those rights (what percentage of users actually look at the TOS?) in a stupid legal document is just about the definition of evil (even if nothing is done with the user content)!

IMO no company should use user content for promotional purposes or for any other reason without explicitly asking them first. Having junk like this in the TOS just allows companies to have a free supply of advertising materials among other uses.

Re:Not a story

[morgan_greywolf]

Correct. In the United States and in any country honoring the Berne Convention, unless someone signs a agreement specifically stating what works are being transferred, how much they are being compensated for transferring the work, and then files that with the Copyright Office of jurisdiction, it doesn't matter what Google and their army of 'dimwitted lawyers' think they can get away with. There's no way to 'automatically transfer' all your works to Google by a click-through agreement that you most likely have not even read.

Re:Not a story

[David Gerard]

"We're Google. We know where you live. In a, like, totally non-evil way."

Re:Not a story

[Otto]

I wish I could mod you above 5 points.

Those terms are REQUIRED for Google to be able to display your content.

Let's examine them carefully, eh?
"By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display."

So, what exactly are we giving Google here?

Basically, it's a license to display the content. Hey, they sorta need that if I'm uploading photos for the purpose of them actually displaying it on the internet.

They have a "perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license". Meaning that they can display those pictures without paying me for them, worldwide, forever. Okay, the irrevocable part sucks, because if I take the content offline, I'd like it to be actually taken offline, but that's a minor legal thing that's probably there because they can't guarantee that what with their caching schemes and such.

They can "reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute". Reproduction is required in order to publish/perform/display/distribute the photos. Adapt, modify, translate applies to resizing, cropping, that sort of thing.

This is a non-story, people. They are not taking the copyright away, they are asking for the legal ability to do *what you want them to actually do*. Which is basically to host your content.

Re:Not a story

[42forty-two42]

The rights do stay with the uploader. But Google needs a license from the uploader to display the material at all - and that's the purpose of the relevant segment of the TOS. As for promotional images, it'd make sense that they can take screenshots and etc of their service, no? If you want a service that promises never to commercialize your content ever, you should be paying for it. And the promotional rights terminate as well "within a commercially reasonable period after such Content is removed"

Re:Not a story

[ubrgeek]

Agreed. I'm getting tired of people throwing out "but they said 'do no evil'." I swear, it's like the new version of Godwin's law. Don't like the TOS? Don't use the product. Find something else. And most of all, stop looking for conspiracies.

Re:Not a story

[caluml]

We know where you live

... what porn you search for, any medical conditions, who you email, who you IM and what you say, what regions you look at on maps.google.com, who views your pictures, what ads you click on, etc.

If I ever went for an interview at Google, I wouldn't need to tell them a thing - they can just look it up, and crunch it through some sort of suitability formula.

Re:Not a story

[pmontra]

As TFA points out, that means that Google might use your and mine pictures to publish a photo book without paying neither you nor me.

I'm not using Picasa, but if I did I'd use it to show my pictures to my friends, not to give Google the right of doing whatever they want with my content. Similar ToS apply to Google Docs too: that means that Google might mail me all your docs, after all that's part of publicly distribute but would you like it?

Google's Terms of Use are too broad and they give Google some rights that are unrelated with the service that they say are providing. This is the whole point of the article and I think that they have a story. The fact that other companies have similar ToS just makes all the story worse: it's not Google bashing, it's bashing a whole industry and it's about our privacy. I think that I'll start again to read ToS and select accurately which service to use and which not.

The docs I care about are moving out of Google Docs now.

Re:Not a story

[Danga]

The rights do stay with the uploader. But Google needs a license from the uploader to display the material at all - and that's the purpose of the relevant segment of the TOS. As for promotional images, it'd make sense that they can take screenshots and etc of their service, no? If you want a service that promises never to commercialize your content ever, you should be paying for it. And the promotional rights terminate as well "within a commercially reasonable period after such Content is removed

Yes, I understand the need for the clause to allow the site to function as intented but on the other hand I do have a problem when there is a free for all grab of ALL user content which can be used for ANY purpose. If the site is a photo-sharing site then the TOS should only try to retain a license to display images and maybe text, etc.

As to the promotional aspect I think it is lame of them to say they need the rights to all user content. Just have an employee make an account for promotional purposes, problem solved. If a user has a page that is really out of the ordinary and would work for promotional purposes then ASK THEM for permission, if the site is free they probably will allow usage of the content and if not oh well.

Google specifically states in the UTOS a license to use user content for promotional purposes in section 11.1 and that is my biggest gripe:

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.

State what you need to state in the TOS to let the site FUNCTION, but adding in extra rights by default in order to get free promotional material among other uses is BS.

Re:Not a story

[mhall119]

1: If Google needs your permission to display the content, they can say "You grant Google permission to display or present the content on your behalf, within the scope of the service you are being provided." See how neatly that takes care of the situation WITHOUT claiming any rights to your work?

Claiming unrestricted copyright gives Google better legal protection, that's really the only reason they chose that instead of your version. The extent of "the scope of the service you are being provided" can be argued about in court, a blanket right to reproduce can not.

Re:Not a story

[Corwn of Amber]

I'm not sure that kind of legalese is supposed to make sense. It's supposed to give all rights on the most possible content to the company who commissioned the writing of the ToS, whether that's enforceable or no.

My attitude is "fuck that, I'll do what the hell I want with any content that interests me and I'm too poor to be sued out of billions."

I know the standard answers to that, yes. I'm irresponsible, stupid, yadda yadda, living in a dream world where companies won't try to force me out of billions I'll never ever have a snowflake's chance in Hell to own - look at it this way : If I ever write some music or draw some piece that $EVIL_CORP steals and make billions off of, well, I couldn't have dreamt of marketing it that well.

Case in point : innovation in chocolates. I work in a small chocolate factory, we have five range of highly varied products, most of which are true innovations, as in "never been done before". And yesterday, browsing teh intartubez, I found an other, much more recent firm, that markets their products really, really well (that is, "much better than we even dream of"), based on ideas that are ALL in our production for at least several years, and much better done. (A champagne praline? How cliché. Try Marc de Champagne. A cognac praline? Come on, use Armagnac instead!).
I suppose that, in the US, we could sue them into oblivion [if we could afford better lawyers than theirs], but we (me & my boss) just shrugged and admired the superior craftmanship of their pralines. (They're Japanese and thus can afford to produce very pretty designs that would have insanely prohibitive labour costs here in Belgium.)
And we kind of laughed to see that they were spinning their marketing around ideas we had thought of years prior (save two innovations of theirs, of which one would be insanely pricey to make here in .be, and the other would entail launching our sixth range of products), but we just silently included in our normal ranges.

My point is, innovation is easy. I, for one, have ideas all the time. What about a matrix of, say, chocolate truffles made from various chocolate origins flavoured with various coffee origins? I found that one six months ago, can't wait to see someone implement it. (_We_ would do it better anyway, because we're only ever buying the best quality available in the world - that's our most basic design principle.)

Ideas are cheap. Better : they're free. And they want to be free. They're information.
But if you want to make money, you have to implement them, which is an investment, and, most importantly, market them.
How much money you make is directly proportional to how good your marketing is.

Now back on topic. If I ever produce digitizable content, that is, content that can be produced for an up-front cost and then be copied and distributed for a cost of zero, I still have to market it, no matter how good it is, or how much market penetration it can have (if I write, say, "psychedelic jazz/doom-metal for oboe and electric harp plus a violin", its penetration in the music market will be very near zero no matter how good it is). And if $EVIL_CORP steals my content, decides it will be the Next Big Thing and puts it up on heavy rotation on MTV, then they're marketing it much better than I can dream to ever do.

Now, who deserves the money? Me, or $EVIL_CORP? I'd say it's them, not me. It may be that without me there wouldn't be content, but without them, there would be no awareness of its existence. And THAT is why the companies in the RIAA don't pay their artists : they're very aware that THEY are making the MONEY. They know thhey are not making the content. And yes, no matter how much it hurts the artists' feelings, the "content of the content" does not matter - it really is work for hire. Morally ass-backwards? Yes. But that's how it works. I'm not saying that history justifies them, it's a totally different argument. I'm saying that the content itself -basically information- is worthless in dol

Re:Not a story

[Kleen13]

The rights do stay with the uploader. But Google needs a license from the uploader to display the material at all - and that's the purpose of the relevant segment of the TOS. As for promotional images, it'd make sense that they can take screenshots and etc of their service, no? If you want a service that promises never to commercialize your content ever, you should be paying for it. And the promotional rights terminate as well "within a commercially reasonable period after such Content is removed"

That was refreshing to hear. Take your free stuff and move along. All paying customers please complain in an orderly manner.

Re:Not a story

[Anonymous Psychopath]

Truly. If the TOS for a service doesn't work for you, use something else instead. Not reading and understanding the TOS is on you, not them. It's not like Google is trying to hide what they are doing from anyone.

Re:Not a story

[the_womble]

I call BS on that one.

1: If Google needs your permission to display the content, they can say "You grant Google permission to display or present the content on your behalf, within the scope of the service you are being provided."

RTFA, that is roughly what they do. The agreement goes on to day:

"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."

Re:Not a story

[Sinbios]

That sneaky Anonymous Coward guy!

Re:Not a story

[BIGELLOW]

No, because a "deletion" is covered by "modify". Remember, this is computer-speak that the lawyer-speak is trying to cover.

Nothing in computers actually gets DESTROYED... merely REARRANGED BITS. Delete a file, and bits are deallocated so that other bits can file that same space. Perform a virus scan, and there is a chance the bits may need to be rearranged if a virus needs to be quarantined.

If you upload a Word doc to be hosted in Google Docs, the original binary is "adapted" and "modified" to conform to Google's data structure for such files with the original binary file not being guaranteed to remain intact or be recoverable exactly, bit-for-bit, as-is.

So, really... what is being asked is that the lawyer-speak be more "humanized" to sound proper to laymen. The problem is, when you do that, then it doesn't cover the court's definition of words. Remember, just because we define a word a certain way does not mean the court defines it the same way, based on case law.

An example is the term "voluntary." To most people, this would be assumed to mean that it is "optional." So, in the case of TAX law... income tax in the United States is collected "voluntarily." This has led many fanatics to interpret this to mean "I don't have to pay taxes if I don't want to." However, this is not the way it is meant. Instead, in this context, "voluntary" is the way the courts define the fact that it is up to each citizen to calculate the amount of their own taxes and to submit their own taxes "voluntarily." This doesn't mean it is optional... it IS REQUIRED... but the collection process is a voluntary method.

So, either you're fighting to have the entire legal system re-write words and definitions and case law... or you're singling out a single corporation (Google) for some reason.

Re:Not a story

[idontgno]

Specifically stating the license grants them promotional usage of all user content seems pretty evil in my eyes, they do not need that right in order for the site to funtion.

"Function". "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

You seem to think that "function" means "satisfy the user's intended purposes". What "function" really means, from the service provider's perspective, is "make the company money", and promotion is a critical and non-negotiable part of that function.

It's a natural mistake, really. If you can sustain a long-term, mutually beneficial relationship with a company, you come to see it as a friend. The company, being a fictitious person with no personal existence, doesn't make that mistake, and would be entirely happy to throw you under the bus if it could make more money that way. (OK, not "happy"; that's too anthopomorphic. And anthropomorphizing is the root of this expectation problem.)

Google is not your friend. Google is not your buddy. Google is not your service animal (seeing eye dog, helper monkey, etc.). It's a publicly-traded for-profit corporate entity. It makes money by offering valuable services to users, but that's just part of the "how". The "why"? Making money, and that's still job 1.

Don't forget: Google doesn't has users; it has eyeballs and page impressions and clickthroughs. It's not going to go that far in compromising its ability to make profits and enhance growth, "Make money without doing evil" notwithstanding. At least they clearly and explicitly warned you, which is a step away from evil in my book.

Re:Nothing to see here shortly...

[geoffspear]

I will. If you don't grant them a license to your photos when you upload them to Picasa, they can't legally display them on the service without infringing your copyright.

Re:Nothing to see here shortly...

[geoffspear]

...and, by the way, Slashdot's own TOS say that by posting here you grant "SourceForge the royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive, transferable license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform, and display such Content (in whole or part) worldwide and/or to incorporate it in other works in any form, media, or technology now known or later developed, all subject to the terms of any applicable license." Sounds just like Google's terms. OMG, Slashdot is evil!

Bah

[zulater]

From how I read the TOS (INAL and all that), it seems that they just own the rights to reproduce your stuff onto other people's screens not that they own the "stuff" indefinitely or even at all. They are just covering their butt so you can't say "I never gave you permission to display this to x person".

Re:Thing is

[reebmmm]

I believe the terms apply to Google's web version of Picassa; not to the fat client. For that purpose, the terms make perfect sense the moment you put an ounce of thought into it. Without the license (either expressed or implied), Google couldn't distribute (e.g. transmit it to a web browser) because that would be a copyright violation.

And, for clarity, you don't transfer ownership of your copyrights and give Google a LICENSE for a very specific purpose:

11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. 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.

Re:Thing is

[Neon Spiral Injector]

So you went with WordPress which has this in their ToS:

"By submitting Content to Automattic for inclusion on your Website, you grant Automattic a world-wide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, modify, adapt and publish the Content solely for the purpose of displaying, distributing and promoting your blog."

Which is the same thing Google is saying. Every blog/photo/user-created-content service out there has to have that language in their ToS, else they couldn't serve your data. The only way around it is to host the data on your own server.

Uh, Google NEEDS those terms...

[nweaver]

Otherwise, they, well, couldn't distribute your blog or your photo album!

Uuuh, yeah, standard language.

[pdboddy]

Check just about any service that allows you to upload content. Facebook. Geocities. MicroSoft sites are covered by a blanket TOS/TOE/EULA as well, with almost the exact same language.

This is a story how?

A few years too late.

From Slashdot's terms of use, linked there at the bottom of the page...

6. LICENSING AND OTHER TERMS APPLYING TO CONTENT POSTED ON THE SourceForge SITES:

Use, reproduction, modification, and other intellectual property rights to data stored on the SourceForge Sites will be subject to licensing arrangements that may be approved by SourceForge as applicable to such Content. For the SourceForge Site SourceForge.net, use, reproduction, modification, and other intellectual property rights to data stored in CVS or as a file release and posted by any user on SourceForge.net ("Source Code") shall be subject to the OSI-approved license applicable to such Source Code, or to such other licensing arrangements as may be approved by SourceForge.net as applicable to such Source Code.

With respect to text or data entered into and stored by publicly-accessible site features such as forums, comments and bug trackers ("SourceForge Public Content"), the submitting user retains ownership of such SourceForge Public Content; with respect to publicly-available statistical content which is generated by the site to monitor and display content activity, such content is owned by SourceForge. In each such case, the submitting user grants SourceForge the royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive, transferable license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform, and display such Content (in whole or part) worldwide and/or to incorporate it in other works in any form, media, or technology now known or later developed, all subject to the terms of any applicable license.

With respect to Content posted to private areas of the SourceForge Site SourceForge.net (e.g., private development tools or mail), the submitting user may grant to SourceForge or other SourceForge.net users such rights and licenses as the submitting SourceForge.net user deems appropriate.

Content located on any SourceForge-hosted subdomain which is subject to the sole editorial control of the owner or licensee of such subdomain, shall be subject to the appropriate license applicable to such Content, or to such other licensing arrangements as may be approved by SourceForge as applicable to such Content.

From Picasa's Terms of Service, section 4.

Your Rights

Google claims no ownership or control over any Content submitted, posted or displayed by you on or through Picasa Web Albums. 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 Picasa Web Albums and you are responsible for protecting those rights, as appropriate. By submitting, posting or displaying Content on or through Picasa Web Albums, you grant Google a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to reproduce, adapt, distribute and publish such Content through Picasa Web Albums, including RSS or other content feeds offered through Picasa Web Albums, and other Google services. In addition, by submitting, posting or displaying Content which is intended to be available to the general public, you grant Google a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to reproduce, adapt, distribute and publish such Content for the purpose of displaying, distributing and promoting Google services. Google will discontinue this licensed use within a commercially reasonable period after such Content is removed from Picasa Web Albums. Google reserves the right to refuse to accept, post, display or transmit any Content in its sole discretion.

Look at the two bold sections for Slashdot and Google respectively... looks almost exactly the same. You'll find that sentence, almost exactly the same each time, for every site that takes

Re:and for anyone who thinks...

[pdboddy]

Yet you post on slashdot, which has the same language in it's terms of services. OHNOES!!!!oneoneone

Re:All your bits are belong to us

[pdboddy]

Yet you're still posting on Slashdot, which has the same clause.

Re:Thing is

[Neon Spiral Injector]

Which is the same as Google's:

"...you grant Google a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to reproduce, publish and distribute such Content on Google services for the purpose of displaying and distributing Google services."

TANSTAAFL

[soxos]

TANSTAAFL

You really think Gmail's free?