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There Are Some Super Shady Things In Oculus Rift's Terms of Service (gizmodo.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the buyer-beware dept.

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.

6 of 186 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Pretty standard boilerplate... by Mashiki · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Some stuff that people(including the law itself) will likely have problems with: The irrevocable, perpetual, and non-exclusive and transferable stuff. Depending on where you live, this would be all contract clause statements. And stuff that can not be used in a EULA because it's considered "a waive of rights, protected by law."

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  2. Re:Pretty standard boilerplate... by Mitreya · · Score: 4, Interesting

    they need that clause to transmit your user-generated content without it leading to copyright infringement.

    I am not a lawyer, but why do they need this part?: fully sublicensable (i.e. we can grant this right to others).

    Also, is "waive-your-right-to-trial" now considered to be boilerplate?

  3. Re:Pretty standard boilerplate... by bloodhawk · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I don't think much of OR but these clauses are bog standard. They are irrevocable and perpetual as anything else would be insane and require additional work on their part to implement. They are their so that if as you say you do sell your device or stop using or anything else or suddenly decide you didn't like publishing XYZ they don't have to worry about running around ensuring your content is deleted from everywhere. You will find just about every forum or site where you post content too has pretty much exactly the same clauses, they are extensive and generic to ensure they don't have to worry about constant legal trouble from arseholes that want to claim copyright on item X after the fact.

  4. Re:Pretty standard boilerplate... by SharpFang · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Actually, any reasonable firm qualifies the above with a limitation of application: "for the purposes of providing the service, marketing and promotion of the service" - so they can e.g. include clips/screenshots of your work in their promo materials.

    Any license which omits this specific limitation is dodgy, because while they *explain* it's for "transmitting the content", in fact they reserve the rights in extreme excess of what is necessary for operation.

    It's like firefighters reserved the right to enter your house at any time, at will, for whatever purpose, how often and how long they desire, and with ability to sublicense this right to any third party. And explained they need it to save you if your house is on fire.

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  5. Re: Pretty standard boilerplate... by butzwonker · · Score: 3, Interesting

    He should send his modified copy back to the company. Everybody should do that. The worst thing that can happen is that you have to give the product back and get a full refund for it.

  6. Re:Pretty standard boilerplate... by butzwonker · · Score: 3, Interesting
    US contract laws favours companies over individual customers. That is what I said and none of what you are ranting about even speaks against this. To make this clearer to you, the difference to other laws is that in the US a frivolous clause such as a general rights waiver or 'do not sue' clause may be invalidated later in court, but is prima facie assumed to be valid when both parties agree. Also, even if it is invalid other clauses will remain intact. In other countries like Germany, for instance, a contract that contains frivolous clauses will be invalid in its entirety. The court might still decide to take into account other clauses of the contract in their verdict, but the contract is void. In fact, most EULAs of large corporations are void in Europe. The reason that this is not so well-known is that you first have to file a civil lawsuit in order for the contract to be nullified, and most end consumers do not have the money and stamina for such a civil lawsuit.

    When I said that US contract law favours corporations I've meant exactly that -- it de facto, as a matter of actual practise, favours corporations over end consumers, because the latter rarely suggest changes or explicitly disagree, and frivolous clauses are more easily enforced in the US than in Europe (see above). Why corporations and not companies in general? Well, it seems to me that there are still a lot of smaller companies that have reasonable EULAs, but perhaps I'm wrong about that one and you're right that "mom-and-pop creative services and products" plaster their contracts with the same frivolous rights waiver clauses. Anyway, I'm happy to live in a country where these EULAs are not worth the paper they are printed on and can be accepted without any consequences, because they are void. That's not the case in the US.