[OSM-talk] Photobucket

[Etienne]

Having looked at the corresponding clauses of the Flickr (Yahoo) and
Photobucket terms of service, I think that the MS terms are *substantially*
different.

Here's the relevant bit from Flickr:

With respect to photos, graphics, audio or video you submit or make
available for inclusion on publicly accessible areas of the Service other
than Yahoo! Groups, the license to use, distribute, reproduce, modify,
adapt, publicly perform and publicly display such Content on the Service
solely for the purpose for which such Content was submitted or made
available. This license exists only for as long as you elect to continue to
include such Content on the Service and will terminate at the time you
remove or Yahoo! removes such Content from the Service.

And from photobucket:

Photobucket.com requires a license to your User Content so that it can host
your images and other User Content on its servers and otherwise perform the
Services. This license is *temporary* and will terminate once you remove
your User Content from Services. Accordingly, in connection with your use of
the Services, you grant to Photobucket.com a temporary, universal,
non-exclusive, royalty-free, transferable license to: use, copy, modify,
print, and display any User Content only as necessary to perform the
Services and to distribute your User Content in instances where you have (i)
made your album public, (ii) posted a link to your album or User Content on
another website or (iii) otherwise shared a link or the password to your
album or User Content.

And the complete clause for the www.wwmx.org site:

"Microsoft does not claim ownership of the materials you provide to
Microsoft (including feedback and suggestions) or post, upload, input or
submit to any Services or its associated services for review by the general
public, or by the members of any public or private community, (each a
"Submission" and collectively "Submissions"). However, by posting,
uploading, inputting, providing or submitting ("Posting") your Submission
you are granting Microsoft, its affiliated companies and necessary
sublicensees permission to use your Submission in connection with the
operation of their Internet businesses (including, without limitation, all
Microsoft Services), including, without limitation, the license rights to:
copy, distribute, transmit, publicly display, publicly perform, reproduce,
edit, translate and reformat your Submission; to publish your name in
connection with your Submission; and the right to sublicense such rights to
any supplier of the Services."

The three crucial differences I see are: 1) with the Microsoft agreement you
cannot terminate their right to use your photos, 2) Microsoft can use your
photos for *any* purpose and 3) Microsoft has a well-earned reputation when
it comes to intellectual property rights.

Remember, Microsoft is squaring up against Google and so they'll be coveting
this kind of data.  They may not even know what they want to do with it yet,
or how it will make them money, but they've ensured they will have the
rights to use the data when they want to.

Etienne



On 6/16/06, Simon Hewison <simon at zymurgy.org> wrote:
>
> Andy Robinson wrote:
> > Reading the full paragraph you are missing the first line which clearly
> > confirms that they do not own your photos but that they have the right
> to
> > use them.
>
> .. and to sell/otherwise provide them (sublicense them) to anyone they
> feel
> like is anything vaguely to do with the Internet.
>
> Seriously though, almost any shared web hosting service, especially a free
> one, would have something similar in the terms, effectively saying that in
> order for us to publish your content on the Internet, we need to have a
> licence to redistribute the content on your behalf, and that by uploading
> content to a publicly available web server, you're allowing the hosting
> provider to distribute as many copies as it sees fit to do so, to whoever
> it
> sees fit to do so.
>
> It also means that should you wish to delete the content because it's too
> embarrassing, or whatever, that all the other copies of the content that
> have been distributed so far won't magically be destroyed. All pretty
> straightforward stuff.
>
> Now pass those two paragraphs above to a lawyer, and they'll pad out an
> internet hosting agreement out to four or more pages, so nobody bothers to
> read it.
>
> --
> Simon Hewison
>
>
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>
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