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Does Google Own Your Content?
Posted by
Zonk
on Wed Aug 29, 2007 11:23 AM
from the err-i-have-to-go-make-some-copies dept.
from the err-i-have-to-go-make-some-copies dept.
mjasay writes "ZDNet is reporting that Google has a potentially worrisome clause in its User Agreement for Google Apps. Namely, that any content put into the system and 'intended to be available to the members of the public' is free game for Google, reserving the right for Google 'to syndicate Content submitted, posted or displayed by you on or through Google services and use that Content in connection with any service offered by Google.' Google may not be evil, but giving it these (and other) rights to one's data should be ringing alarm bells in the Google Apps user base."
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Much Ado About Nothing (Score:5, Insightful)
That means that they're not applying this to private content, just stuff you intended to be publicly available.
The second key phrase is "you grant Google a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license..." Note the words "non-exclusive". That means that Google does not own your content. You own it. They just have the right to use it anywhere in the world for free. The remaining legalese covers their butts for the current methods that might be used to display or distribute the content, and any future methods they might use.
I used to manage the photo submissions at IMDb [imdb.com] and we used similar phrasing in our TOS. That way when we created IMDbPro, it could use the photos, we could put them not only in photo galleries related directly to the actor or film, but in themed photo galleries, in news summaries related to the actor, etc. If Amazon sold IMDb, or we merged with another film site, or we started another spin-off site, we'd retain the rights to display and use the photos.
Technology changes quickly and you'll find most large companies that display user-submitted content have the same kind of release. It doesn't deprive the content's owner of ownership, but makes sure that a lot of potential headaches that could come up in relation to the use and display of that content over the years don't come up.
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I think I'll start my own geek news site! With hookers and blackjack! In fact, forget the news site!
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Re:Much Ado About Nothing (Score:5, Informative)
From http://www.google.com/google-d-s/intl/en/terms.ht
Google claims no ownership or control over any Content submitted, posted or displayed by you on or through Google services. 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 Google services and you are responsible for protecting those rights, as appropriate.
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Re:Much Ado About Nothing (Score:5, Insightful)
It's just a big tempest in a teapot stirred up by people who having nothing better to do with their time than look for something else "evil" that Google has done, and will naturally put that spin on anything they find. A bit pathetic, really. Google does more than enough bad stuff already that there's no need to manufacture more, and crying wolf too often detracts from the seriousness of the real bad stuff when it is pointed out.
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Similar language appears in most grant contracts from USAID and other international development agencies. Basically, they pay for the services/work/etc., so they insist on getting a non-exclusive but permanent right to use the materials, but the contractee retains full copyright ownership and can permit/deny use by other organizations. They also have other contracts that are work-for-hire -- e.g. they own your work, copyright and all -- but you know that before you bid on the RFP.
I don't see how Google's
Re:Much Ado About Nothing (Score:4, Informative)
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That clause creates an express non-exclusive transfer of copyright. Essentially, this is a c
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Say I write a story - and, by extension, own it - and I publish it someplace where Google's non-exclusive transfer (or the non-exclusive transfer of anyone else with similar clauses) applies. Time passes, and some third party files my name off what I right and starts doing something actionable copyright-wise with it.
Who would get to go after that legally? Would it be me, Google (or whoever), both, whoever managed to shoot for it first...?
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Interesting question. Both would likely have a cause of action as both have the right, but once one engages, joinder could prevent the other (after a while).
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If I buy a product in a store, it doesn't matter what, I OWN it. Ford doesn't make me enter into a so called agreement, nor have they the right, to tell me I can only drive the vehicle they SOLD me on certain roads or only use it to transport certain items or people. I can resell that vehicle or whatever else I bought to anybody at anytime.
What body of law
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So there is another example where you spend your money for something, and you are told how you must use what you have purchased.
You can spend your hard earned dollars for a CD. You ca
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Google's clause in plain English... (Score:3, Interesting)
Interesting. Does this include promoting Google's partners? (sounds like it does) What if you are in direct competition with a Google partner? What if your business is Internet search or online advertising? What if your content criticizes Google? What if Google expands their business to new areas after you publish your content (e.g. you publish content and then they change their business and you WOULD NOT HAVE published your content had they been in that business at the time of publication)? Sounds like we're seriously entering the golden age of lawyering...
I still don't see much in the way of problems (Score:5, Interesting)
Admittedly, Google not showing people your stuff could be a problem- but I think all hosting companies should reserve the right not to show anything they don't like (after refunding your money), because that's a lot easier than listing a bunch of things they won't show (like child porn and copyright infringement) so when they find things later they don't want to show (like ads for illegal services, phishing sites, snuff films, etc.) they can get rid of it without changing the contract.
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I would say maybe not. If Google can do anything they want with the content to promote their business then they could use your content to drive their sales (for example). So, if you publicize all of your whiz bang stuff and people search for it using Google and Google redirects those search results to your competitors (Google's partners) then you can be seriously harmed. Seems like that could be a problem (just for one example).
Don't they ALL do this? (Score:3, Insightful)
Nothing to see here? (Score:5, Informative)
I think it is meant to mean that if you submit content to Google which you intend to be displayed to the public, you um, give them the right to display it to the public however they choose, which is pretty standard stuff. But I'm not sure it actually does say that.
Re:Nothing to see here? (Score:5, Informative)
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Hm (Score:2, Insightful)
Oh noes! Your public domain material will be in the public domain!
cf. "Your Rights Online" - if this really bothers you - just don't use it (tm).
Re:Hm (Score:4, Informative)
Oh noes! Your public domain material will be in the public domain!
Apart from the fact that the material in question does not have to be in the public domain, and that Google's wording doesn't imply that it will become so, the rest of your comment is absolutely right.
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Does Google Own My Content? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Nothing To See Here...Move along FUD train..... (Score:3, Informative)
Your Rights
Google claims no ownership or control over any Content submitted, posted or displayed by you on or through Google services. 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 Google services and you are responsible for protecting those rights, as appropriate. By submitting, posting or displaying Content on or through Google services which are intended to be available to the members of the public, you grant Google a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to reproduce, adapt, modify, publish and distribute such Content on Google services for the purpose of displaying, distributing and promoting Google services. Google reserves the right to syndicate Content submitted, posted or displayed by you on or through Google services and use that Content in connection with any service offered by Google. Google furthermore reserves the right to refuse to accept, post, display or transmit any Content in its sole discretion.
Do music hosting sites own your music? (Score:3, Informative)
What that means is that starving musicians could upload their work to a music hosting service, only to find that the site ends up selling CDs of their music, or licensing it for advertising jingles.
MySpace's TOS were this way until someone there organized a big protest. Let me find a link... ah, here we go [boingboing.net] - videos at YouTube too. And I quote:
Now, knowing the sort of folks that post their creations on sites like MySpace and YouTube, how many of them are likely to have even read the terms of service, let alone thought through their consequences?Re:Do music hosting sites own your music? (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, but think about this: you uploaded your video to YouTube specifically so it could be shown to others. But showing it to others constitutes a performance of that video by YouTube. Now, if they don't include in the terms something saying you give them the right to perform your video, how are they going to show it to others? They've no right to performance, you didn't give them one, so they can't do the very thing you want them to do with your video. Similarly, if you don't give them the right to present it in a different form, they can't include it on their front page or provide people the ability to embed the video (see any number of blog pages where, instead of a link to YouTube, the blogger embeds the actual video in a playable form). And if you don't give YouTube the right to make copies of your video, they can't make the multiple copies onto their cache and delivery servers at various points on the network close to the destination networks (think how Akamai works).
One can argue the exact wording (I prefer terms that make it explicit that the grant is for the sole purpose of providing content within the Web site and related operations and that uses outside the context of the Web site aren't part of the grant), but copyright law means that YouTube and the like have to ask you for certain rights simply to be able to legally do what you want them to do.
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Do what I did (Score:3, Interesting)
I ended up logging on and dropping the account. I also made the decision that until that term in their license changes, I probably will not consider Google Apps for anything else.
Now, I wonder how many other accounts will close?
What a waste of time (Score:2)
I think that he is really reaching with this article.
Lawyers run amok and clueless, illiterate users (Score:4, Informative)
Lawyer with little computer expertise learns that uploaded (and copyrighted) stuff is being reproduced and set out, as the user intended, and thinks (and not entirely without cause) "There are copyright implications to that, because we are, technically, making copies of copyrighted material." He writes a FUD memo to management, who read the subject line with glazed eyes (because it's from a lawyer, and therefore, too complicated for them to understand," and they respond with "What do we need to do?" Lawyer, who has no experience whatsoever at dealing with the general public on the internet, writes a TOS that covers this concerns. Management, who have almost as little experience at dealing with the public (rather than shareholders), rubber stamps is.
These things are intended to cover the Google's (or whoever's) ass for doing what they say they're going to do, and what their users tell them to do: store this stuff and offer it up to the web surfing world under the conditions you said you would.
And a quick perusal of Title 17 shows that copyrights cannot be transferred accidentally anyway. If Google (or whoever) tried to use a clause like that to claim they now owned someone else's work for any purpose other than what was intended by the copyright holder, they'd get their faces blown off by any competent lawyer. Such a clause would be found to be unconscionable, and would not meet the requirements for a copyright transfer even if it weren't.
This is nothing new, and no different than any other "OMFG! THIS TOS IS EVIL" story in the last ten years.
Stop being so paranoid (Score:2, Interesting)
Google doesn't own something just because you give them permission to display it publicly, oh my goodness, what a stupid article.
Google is not trying to steal your content (Score:4, Insightful)
You have to trust someone...at least to a point. Google is not trying to steal your content. If you attach a document to email because you're afraid Google will steal it, how many relays does it go through? That's how many other organizations would have the opportunity to steal the content. Trojans, spyware and key loggers can make your own computer vulnerable to snooping. If you keep it on your network storage, you're trusting your sysads and anyone else with access to the file.
And if you're still that worried then encrypt it. For simple text try http://www.fourmilab.ch/javascrypt/ [fourmilab.ch] and either use the site or download the javascript and make your own page, put it on SSL and even add a random virtual keyboard if you really want to go all out. Pick a pass phrase you can remember. Simple encryption will prevent casual reading, unless you think Google and the NSA are working together to spy on you...in which case you have bigger problems than /. can help with.
If anyone could ever prove Google snooped or stole content their business would evaporate overnight. They're likely very aware of that concern and probably more sensitive to it than you might imagine. Besides, with the volume of material they store, who has time to sit around and read your stuff?
Hello from Google (Score:5, Informative)
I'm the engineering director for Google Docs (and one of the founders of Writely which became the Word Processor part). The comments here are pretty good for the most part - as has been discussed, this is just about re-posting content users have marked as public. Here's what I wrote on the original story, so you don't have to dig it out.
Here we go again ... (Score:3, Insightful)
The music recording industry is the poster child for this. Until recently, selling recordings required expensive production and distribution facilities. The owners of these facilities could say "You want people to hear and buy your music? Sign this contract and we'll make it happen." You might as well sign the contract, because it's the same for all the other distributors. And in the fine print, it says that you assign the copyright to the recording company. The result is that musicians can make a million-selling album and make no money from it at all. This is because the recording companies can say "If you want your stuff distributed, you must give it to us."
Almost all work "for hire" to corporations are of this nature. If you want to be paid, you have to assign ownership to your employer. If you're a university researcher, and you want to be paid, you usually must assign copyright and patents to the university. Unless, that is, you got funding on your own, in which case you must assign copyright and patents to the funder. And if you want your results published, almost all academic publishers have historically required that you assign the copyright to them. "If you want your stuff distributed, you must give it to us."
Now we have a new means of distribution, the Internet. That promised to give us a cheap distribution mechanism that wasn't controlled by the distributors. But For most of us, to use the Internet requires going through something called an "ISP". Those organizations, usually private companies, have a chokehold on your path to the Internet. Early on in the commercialization of the Internet, the ISPs started to realize what they had. Thus, a few years ago, we read the stories of msn.com (owned by Microsoft) using things from customers' web sites commercially. They mostly extracted images and used them in advertising. When customers discovered images of their children being used in ads, they understandably got upset. And msn.com pointed to the clause in the contract saying that any customer files stored on msn.com machines became the property of msn.com. After a bit of adverse publicity, the "gave in", in the sense that they publicly announced that they wouldn't do this again. But this was like any corporate promise: It was PR to mollify the current crowd of upset customers. After a while, people started noticing that that clause was still in the TOS. And it can be summarized as "If you want your stuff distributed, you must give it to us. You can't go to the competition, because their contracts say the same thing."
So this story is nothing new. ISPs are more and more realizing that they have a chokehold on customers' channel to the rest of the world. Most people have only one ISP, which is a legal monopoly. Even when there are two, they can easily make sure that their contracts are identical. Like various monopolists/oligopolists of the comm channels before them, they can say "If you want your stuff distributed, you must give it to us. You can't go to the competition, because their contracts say the same thing."
It now seems like google, the "Do no evil" company, has realized the same thing. They can provide customers useful tools that inprove people's access to the Internet. And they can hide "If you want your stuff distributed, you must give it to us" in their contract. You can't go to the competition, because their contracts say the same thing.
The only way around this is regulation that denies the controllers of the Internet any ownership of things that pass through their machines. But this sort of regulation has never been effective for any past distribution system. There's no reason to expect that it will be effective for the Internet.
So much for your rights to your own creations. Get used to it; it's the future. Just like the past.
Re:Which content? (Score:4, Informative)
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I didn't even finish reading the title, my response was "Hell yeah, Google 0wnz!"
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I thought not.
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But does this apply to gmail?!
Is your gmail contents "intended to be available to the members of the public"?
I thought not.
I think the concern is that the wording is ambiguous. As usual, the Slashdot headline takes the most sensationalist way of approaching the issue, but at its core it's a question of whose intent you're talking about. Is it, "services which are intended to be available to the members of the public," or, "content which is intended to be available to the members of the public?"
My sense is that Google means the latter (as most of us would expect), but the wording is ambiguous, and it might well serve them bette
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I don't see how they could be less ambiguous. The title doesn't even make any type of assertion, just poses a question, which it then answers "No"
Re:Which content? (Score:5, Insightful)
Even so, I try to avoid using Google or any other online service to host anything of a particularly personal (or business critical) nature. I just don't trust some entity I have no control over to host these sorts of things. Sure, if they screw with my data I may have legal recourse, but whatever they did to my data is already done and likely irreversible, so being able to sue them about it is not much of a consolation.
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> which email pretty much never is...I just don't trust some entity I have no
> control over to host these sorts of things.
No, but you trust other entities you have no control over to transmit them right? The only time I ever have complete control over the entire channel, end to end, of a message transmission is here in the office...and even that's only if the recipient is in the office with me. Obviously if you're using
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Evil is slowly creeping into Google. Or rapidly? (Score:4, Funny)
"Modify" means that, if you say you love your wife, Google can change that and say you hate your wife.
That's how it looks to me.
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Re:Evil is slowly creeping into Google. Or rapidly (Score:4, Funny)
Honestly, there are tin foil hat thoughts and there are just coming up with something to find a flaw, any flaw no matter how ridculous, thoughts.
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So, pretty typical. (Score:3, Insightful)