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There Are Some Super Shady Things In Oculus Rift's Terms of Service (gizmodo.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Gizmodo: While the [Oculus Rift] is cool, like any interesting gadget, it's worth looking through the Terms of Service, because there are some worrisome things included. Quite a few of the items in the document are pretty typical in any sort of Terms of Service agreement. These include details like waiving your right to a juried trial and agreeing to go into arbitration instead. Oculus can also terminate your service for myriad reasons, and third parties can collect information on you. However, there are some even more devilish details in the Rift's full Terms of Service. If you create something with the Rift, the Terms of Service say that you surrender all rights to that work and that Oculus can use it whenever it wants, for whatever purposes. Basically, if you create something using the device, Oculus can't own it, but the company can use it -- and they don't have to pay you for for using it. Oculus can use it even if you don't agree with its use. Oculus can collect data from you while you're using the device. Furthermore, the information that they collect can be used to directly market products to you. As UploadVR noted, the Oculus Rift is a device that is always on (much like Microsoft's Xbox One Kinect feature) which leads to further concerns about when the information will be collected.
I don't think anyone is surprised.
This x1000. The article is making mountains out of mole hills it appears. Only content the end-user chooses to submit to the oculus services is treated in that way, as you have pointed out.
The summary really makes this whole thing seem worse than it is by insinuating that all user-generated content will be owned by oculus. Have the slashdot "editors" (and I use that term loosely) even taken the time to READ the actual Terms of Service? If you didn't then you are lazy and inept and shouldn't be in the job you are in. If you did then you are deliberately misrepresenting the facts to suite your own narrative.
So BeauHD, which are you? Incompetent or Malicious?
You'll never believe this amazing stuff we've uncovered
more after the break...
YouTube transmits user generated content without requiring a "worldwide, irrevocable, perpetual (i.e. lasting forever), non-exclusive, transferable, royalty-free and fully sublicensable (i.e. we can grant this right to others) right to use, copy, display, store, adapt, publicly perform and distribute".
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
The terms of service are almost identical to those of, for example, Steam. Which is also "always on" by default. And nobody seems to have a problem with it. So could we please be rational, and stop pretending that Oculus is doing anything special here? And a lot of clauses highlighted in the article are pure boilerplate, and actually required for the service being allowed to publish, for example, your reviews or your screenshots. Yes, you can raise privacy concerns, but you would have to do so against any software storefront that lives in your system tray. This is worth discussing, but it is definitely nothing "Super Shady". And if you want to put on your HMD, and instantly see your home screen (or hit the xbox button on your controller), there needs to be some background service watching. The same goes for notifications / multiplayer invites / chat requests. You don't want that? Go to System Settings/Administrative Tools/Services, select "Oculus VR Runtime" and hit "stop". There, it's gone.
Uh, yeah, here's the problem-
The service agreement doesn't specify this in solely in connection with transmission, but a rather a vague we-can-do-whatever-the-hell-we want as long as it is "in connection with services," which sounds sufficiently vague to be litigated, but you already signed away that right. Ooops.
Discogs recently updated their privacy policy with no other choice offered but "I agree", which perked up my paranoia sensor, and after reading through the policy, came across this choice chestnut:
By using Discogs’ Services, You consent to Discogs’ use and disclosure of Your personal information, including any information that identifies You, directly or indirectly, including by reference to an identification number, to one or more factors specific to Your physical, physiological, mental, economic, cultural or social identity, and data elements such as Your IP address, geolocation, and username and password (“Personal Information”) as described in this Policy.
You've got to be fucking insane.
Of course they explained very nicely how this was to be used in their forums, and how this cart blanche surrender would never be abused, except THAT ISN'T A PART OF THE FUCKING PRIVACY POLICY NOW IS IT?
Part and parcel of these agreements is to specify exactly how information is to be used, in what context, and what limitations circumscribe the authors. Instead we get I'm alright Jack, it just a standard contract term, and won't you trust us never to have an interpretation that does you harm.
Fuck 'em.
It doesn't bother me that much because whatever I post I intend to make public anyway. If reading and posting to Slashdot required an app that snooped on everything I do, I'd be outta here.
So, they need some of this language just to do what you're signing up for.
No they don't. They don't need permissions to use a device for its purpose. If I hire a recording studio (who employ third-party technicians & rent some of the equipment from 'the cloud'), then I don't need to give them any "rights" so they can store temporarily the music I make. good or bad - that music is MINE.
If I rent a phone answering machine for my company - I don't need to grant any permissions even if they're storing stuff 'in the cloud'. I may sing my copyrighted song into the answering machine - they still don't need any 'permission' to reproduce the performance for whoever I was calling.
Oh, and in the same vein: If I use a 'Rift' with a custom avatar and sing my song during a meeting, they need no 'boilerplate' permission for delivering that song to the other participants. No more than the phone company need permission when I sing over the phone. (The phone is digital and involves 'the cloud' too these days.) It is all lies – they only need these permissions to 'steal' stuff for using for their own purposes. Of course, it won't be stealing if you sign away your rights like a sheep . . .
making mountains out of mole hills it appears.
Because no human has exploited any legal loophole ever.
"Basically, they need that clause to transmit your user-generated content without it leading to copyright infringement."
No, they need a clause similar to that to allow their service to work as users expect. As is, it takes much more than needed. For instance, if a user decides to remove their content, Oculus doesn't need to honor that, because they've received perpetual, irrevocable rights. There's absolutely no need for that, or for them to be able to sublicense perpetual, irrevocable rights.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
I'll go ahead and field this one: Steam is a games-distribution platform owned by Valve, a privately-held company that has continually demonstrated a commitment to providing an excellent product and service that exceeds any of their peers, while at he same time showing remarkable transparency of operations and who have a history of responding to their users.
Facebook is a data collection and advertising firm masquerading as a social media company. The purpose of their existence is to harvest yor data, sell it to whomever, and advertise to you in the process.
Does this help explain the "hypocrisy" you see from us up on your high horse?
"Steam is a games-distribution platform owned by Valve,"
Steam is DRM. Sorry to say it steam/mmo's paved the way for lack of dedicated servers and level editing tools to largely stop being released with big budget AAA games. Platform/cloud is another name for "DRM". There's no logical need for steam to spy on everyone, no open up massive security issues with requiring steam wrapped around the game and exposing you to the internet.
As someone who gamed during the 90's, anyone who licks steams nuts has no idea what was lost from gaming in the 90's.
Slashdot is a service that publishes user comments. The Rift is a hardware peripheral that should run stand-alone, with a driver at most. What are all these services and why do I want them? What happens if I decline the EULA, does my hardware stop working?
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC