A PSA for those who use Dropbox...

[lagilman]

EtA: Apparently, Dropbox, seeing the swell of WTF rising through the netverse, amended their new TOS to say "This license is solely to enable us to technically administer, display, and operate the Services." I'm still not reassured, considering the other potential legal problems with the wording, and how easily they can change that wording again, but it's a Mileage Varies scenario. Be aware, and make your decision.



For those of us who use DropBox: They've just changed their TOS. You might want to check out paragraph 5, and reconsider your patronage...

"By submitting your stuff to the Services, you grant us (and those we work with to provide the Services) worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicenseable rights to use, copy, distribute, prepare
derivative works (such as translations or format conversions) of, perform, or publicly display that stuff to the extent we think it necessary for the Service."


Do I need to explain why these terms are utterly unacceptable to writers, photographers, artists, and anyone else who creates content for sale/license?

Comments

[sinboy.livejournal.com]

"that stuff"? Seriously?

[katfeete.livejournal.com]

Dammit, I just set up an account last week. :( And even though part of my brain is saying, "your stuff is not good enough to steal", I guess I should move my uploads out of the account and use something else instead. And it was so nicely designed too... *sigh*

[seachanges.livejournal.com]

Oh, man. WHY do sites think this is a good idea? They're not the first ones who've tried it, and the shit ALWAYS hits the fan as soon as the site's users find out. You'd think they'd learn.

[rosefox]

This is their attempt to "do away with legalese".

[lagilman]

I suspect they think that most of their users are not planning to license their work. And they're probably right. But for those of us who are/do, this creates a potential clusterfuck I'd rather not be part of.

I mean, if "Don't be Evil" turned evil and rights-grabby, why should I trust Dropbox to never exercise the rights they're specifically claiming?

[lassarina]

....whaaaaat. I. What. Thank you so much for that heads'-up.

[kita0610.livejournal.com]

OH FFS. I JUST GOT AN ACCOUNT TWO DAYS AGO.

Thanks for the heads up.

Dropbox Posted a Clarification

[lassarina]

....about ten minutes ago:

http://blog.dropbox.com/?p=846

(Last paragraph)

That's certainly an improvement.

Re: Dropbox Posted a Clarification

[lagilman]

Yes, I had already posted an EtA on that, above. It isn't MUCH of an improvement, tho, as it still sidesteps the entire question of WHY they need to claim those rights - what they're doing could be narrowed down to "derivative in order to compress" or whatever the technical wording would be, not the terms that echo waaaay too closely the standard rights term of a publishing contract.

Re: Dropbox Posted a Clarification

[lassarina]

Ah, sorry! I clearly did not scroll up/refresh enough, my apologies.

Re: Dropbox Posted a Clarification

[spiziks.livejournal.com]

ASFAIK, you can't sign away copyrights with a mouse click. That requires an actual signature. Though as also AFAIK, no one has tried this in courts.

Re: Dropbox Posted a Clarification

[lagilman]

I do not want to be a test case, nor do I trust the courts to rule in our favor (see: Google). They are claiming, on contract agreement, rights that a publisher would possibly pay me for. So I walked. As I said above, everyone has their own comfort level, I'm just alerting you to the new (as of yesterday) terms.

Ran this by G for the academic take, and he's wondering about their requirement that you 'own' the rights to everything you post... he uses Dropbox to share academic papers between his work computer and his tablet, for research....of course he can't say he "owns" any rights to them....

[msdori.livejournal.com]

I was poking around for Dropbox alternatives and found SpiderOak. Here's what they say about who can see your files:

https://spideroak.com/engineering_matters

There's also SugarSynch:

https://www.sugarsync.com/sync_comparison.html

I'm still looking for TOS for these two, though.

[lagilman]

I don't much care who can see my files, honestly - I didn't put any sensitive financial/personal information in cloud storage. It's the potential legal tangle and how fast it can get even more tangled that bothered me, here.

(if I were worried about security, I'd encrypt, even if I was pretty sure the site was secure)

[firynze.livejournal.com]

...I'm glad the amendment was made, but I'm still petrified to use the service now, especially since I'd been using it to sync my editing files for the press across multiple computers. NOT PLEASED. I was already sort of ansty relying on Dropbox anyway, but now? Meep.

Guess it's a good thing I bought that 1Tb pocket drive the other day.

[shui-long.livejournal.com]

It may not be quite as bad as you fear. Dropbox only asserts these rights "to the extent reasonably necessary for the Service" - i.e. to provide you with the cloud storage and access.

Simon Bradshaw (major_clanger) - a lawyer who specialises in this area - has a helpful analysis at LawClanger (http://lawclanger.blogspot.com/2011/07/dropbox-terms-of-service-not-actually.html)

[lagilman]

Oh, not being an idiot, I'm quite aware of what they intended. That does not negate the fact that the wording is far too close to the actual wording used in binding contracts to sell publication rights for my comfort - and the comfort of many other people who make a living licensing their IP rights. When someone says "oh, I'm only going to do X" but still insists on the right to do X + A.... (and does not NEED the right to do A) AND retains the right to change their TOS without notice, in a moment's revised posting and therefore could very easily change their mind at some point yet again?

(especially since they decline to define "service" in any binding fashion)

No, thank you. If I were only storing things of no potential commercial value I might not mind, but this is my livelihood and I will not risk legal confusion of even the vaguest sort. We thought Google played fair, too, until we were locked in a years-long (still ongoing) legal battle over their rights-grab, too.

But, as I've said over and over again, everyone has to find their own comfort level. Mine is to not play their game.