Adobe revises PhotoShop Express terms

[krissel]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/cmp/20080405/tc_cm...PwpnF3R0RAE1vAI

[Xairbusdriver]

Obviously, too many people can read English! Maybe Adobe will start using something else next time.

[Paddy]

The link in the Yahoo article goes only to the general TOS - not to the specific Photoshop Express "Additional Terms of Use"  found here:

https://www.photoshop.com/express/pxterms.html

When I saw the first link, I wondered what on earth made it any better than the first version of the TOS! That general one is still pretty alarming.

[tacit]

QUOTE(Paddy @ Apr 6 2008, 12:05 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

The link in the Yahoo article goes only to the general TOS - not to the specific Photoshop Express "Additional Terms of Use"  found here:

https://www.photoshop.com/express/pxterms.html

When I saw the first link, I wondered what on earth made it any better than the first version of the TOS! That general one is still pretty alarming.

What do you see that's alarming? I've read the ToS, and don't see anything particularly remarkable about them.

[Paddy]

QUOTE(tacit @ Apr 8 2008, 05:25 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

What do you see that's alarming? I've read the ToS, and don't see anything particularly remarkable about them.

Um - the ORIGINAL TOS said:

QUOTE

"Adobe does not claim ownership of Your Content. However, with respect to Your Content that you submit or make available for inclusion on publicly accessible areas of the Services, you grant Adobe a worldwide, royalty-free, nonexclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, and fully sublicensable license to use, distribute, derive revenue or other remuneration from, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, publicly perform and publicly display such Content (in whole or in part) and to incorporate such Content into other Materials or works in any format or medium now known or later developed."

I was far from alone in being alarmed at the apparently broad rights that this gave Adobe to everyone's photos - rights not many people are willing to give up for free!

The "revised" terms of service only added a line about "any Additional Terms of Service":

QUOTE

Adobe does not claim ownership of Your Content. However, with respect to Your Content that you submit or make available for inclusion on publicly accessible areas of the Services, and unless otherwise specifically agreed in any Additional Terms that might accompany individual services (such as Photoshop.com/Express), you grant Adobe a worldwide, royalty-free, nonexclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, and fully sublicensable license to use, distribute, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, publicly perform and publicly display such Content (in whole or in part) and to incorporate such Content into other Materials or works in any format or medium now known or later developed.

Those Additional Terms of Service WERE NOT linked to the Yahoo article - I had to go hunting for them. Stupid reporting, frankly, since nothing they linked to was in any way indicative of the changes Adobe made to their TOS for PS Express through these additional terms:

QUOTE

6. Use of Your Content

This section hereby replaces Section 8(a) (“Use of Your Content”) of the General Terms.

   1. By Adobe

      Adobe does not claim ownership of Your Content. However, we do need certain rights from you, with respect to Your Content, in order to operate the Service and in order to enable you to do all the things this Service affords you the ability to do. Therefore, with respect to Your Content, you grant Adobe a worldwide (because the internet is global), royalty-free (meaning we do not owe you any money), nonexclusive (meaning you are free to license Your Content to others) fully sublicensable (so that we can permit our affiliates, subcontractors and agents to deliver the Service on our behalf) license to use, reproduce and modify Your Content solely for the purposes of operating the Service and enabling your use of the Service. With respect to Your Shared Content, you additionally grant Adobe the rights to distribute, publicly perform and publicly display Your Shared Content (in whole or in part) for the sole purposes of operating the Service and enabling your use of the Service and to sublicense Your Shared Content to Other Users subject to the limitations of Section 7 below. These limited licenses do not grant Adobe the right to sell or otherwise license Your Content or Your Shared Content on a stand alone basis. Further, you may terminate Adobe’s right to distribute, publicly perform and publicly display Your Shared Content by making it no longer shared. You may terminate the remainder of Adobe’s rights by removing Your Content from the Service. (Detailed instructions on how to do these things can be found at http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/webforums/for...forumid=74& catid=684&threadid=1351324&enterthread=y). Upon removal of Your Content from the Service or upon making Your Shared Content no longer shared, Adobe shall have a reasonable time to cease use, distribution and/or display of Your Content. However, you acknowledge and agree that Adobe shall have the right to keep archived copies of Your Content.
   2. By Other Users

      You hereby grant Other Users a worldwide (because the internet is global), royalty-free (meaning that Other Users do not owe you any money), nonexclusive (meaning you are free to license Your Content to others) license to view, download, print, distribute, publicly perform and publicly display Your Shared Content subject to the limitations in Section 7. If you do not wish to grant these rights in Your Shared Content then do not share Your Content with Other Users. While you have the ability to remove Your Content from the service and/or the public areas within the Service and thus prevent future licenses from being granted, you acknowledge and agree that once Your Shared Content has been shared, Adobe can neither monitor nor control what Other Users do with it. (Detailed instructions on how to remove Your Content from the Service and/or the public areas within the Service can be found at http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/webforums/for...forumid=74& catid=684&threadid=1351324&enterthread=y).

I dunno about you, but I generally don't get a great deal of delight from others stealing my work. If I'm asked, I will gladly share (for non-commercial use) but Adobe's original terms were nuts, and without the additional terms, the revised basic TOS agreement was still nuts.

[Xairbusdriver]

I finally see an advantage to being artistically challenged! No problems with sharing/licencing my works!

[tacit]

QUOTE(Paddy @ Apr 13 2008, 02:17 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I dunno about you, but I generally don't get a great deal of delight from others stealing my work. If I'm asked, I will gladly share (for non-commercial use) but Adobe's original terms were nuts, and without the additional terms, the revised basic TOS agreement was still nuts.

Nobody is stealing your work, though I do understand why people believe that the TOS reads that way.

The TOS gives Adobe the right to use and to make derivative copies of your work. Why? Because it HAS to. Think about it.

When you use Photoshop's online service, you are putting a copy of your picture into the memory of a computer owned by Adobe. If you did not give Adobe the right to make a copy of your work, they could not load your picture into their computer's memory--that would be illegal. A copy of a work stored in computer memory is a copy as far as the law is concerned.

Then you press buttons on a Web browser. As a result of the buttons you press, the copy of your work stored on Adobe's computer is changed. If Adobe did not have the legal right to make derivative works, then that would be against the law.

So you are essentially telling Adobe, "I give you the right to make a copy of my picture into the memory of a computer that you own. I give you the right to make changes to my picture." The program would be illegal without that.

The rights are worldwide because you might not be in the same state, or even the same country, as the Adobe computers. The way international copyright law works, if you are in Canada and the Adobe computer is in Seattle, you must give them worldwide rights to copy and make derivative works from your picture in order for it to be legal for them to run the service.

You give them the right to display your work because otherwise it would be against the law for Adobe to take the derivative work they created inside their computer memory and show it on your Web browser, and it would be illegal for them to let other people see your Web albums, if you make one.

You give them these rights perpetually and irreversibly because otherwise you could take a picture with your digital camera, upload the picture to the Adobe server, then slap them with a lawsuit by saying that you rescind the permission for them to have a copy of your picture in their computer's memory.

You grant them royalty-free permission because otherwise you could take a picture with your digital camera, upload it to their computer, then demand that they pay you money for making a copy of your picture in their computer's memory.

Note the TOS terminates the instant you quit using the Service. As soon as you are finished editing a picture and you close the browser window, poof, their rights are gone. They can not steal your picture and use it in their advertising or whatever. The agreement stays in effect for each photo only for so long as you are using their service; when you're done, the agreement is over.

So like I said, I can understand why people believe that the TOS is scary, but I can also see why it is nothing to worry about.

[Paddy]

Yes, you certainly can certainly explain away the terms of service this way, but the fact remains that the original terms of service DID grant Adobe "a worldwide, royalty-free, nonexclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, and fully sublicensable license to use, distribute, derive revenue or other remuneration from, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, publicly perform and publicly display such Content (in whole or in part) and to incorporate such Content into other Materials or works in any format or medium now known or later developed," with absolutely no explanation or limitations.

Under these terms Adobe were free to do whatever they liked with photos people posted - beyond any needs imposed by simply operating the Photoshop Express service. It's reasonable to assume that they probably wouldn't have used people's work in their advertising or on the box for the next version of Photoshop or whatever it was that people were afraid of, but that's not the point. The terms allowed Adobe rights that people didn't want to sign away.

Apparently both Adobe and their lawyers agreed, because they've substantially and quickly rewritten the TOS since the objections were raised, adding explanations and limitations more or less similar to your explanation of why they need certain rights. Again - no issues with that and it makes sense. The original terms as written could have been used to justify all sorts of things one doesn't normally associate with posting one's photos online - whether or not Adobe ever took advantage of them.