YouTube
July 20, 2006
Well, it seems that YouTube has matched MySpace‘s level of suck.
Quoting from the YouTube Terms of Use, section 5.B:
“…by submitting the User Submissions to YouTube, you hereby grant YouTube a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicenseable and transferable license to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, and perform the User Submissions in connection with the YouTube Website and YouTube’s (and its successor’s) business, including without limitation for promoting and redistributing part or all of the YouTube Website (and derivative works thereof) in any media formats and through any media channels.”
I love going to YouTube and searching random things.. come up with some realyl stupid stuff (of course) but from time to time I find myself laughing so hard that I believe I’m going to faint.
Yep, and all those people who have submitted things there, along with artists who have submitted works to MySpace, have essentially given those away.
I’m not sure what’s wrong with that. As long as it’s part of the conditions, and it’s clear enough (and that’s pretty clear, as legalese goes), so? If someone doesn’t like it, they don’t have to submit to YouTube (and if someone submits something they don’t have the legal right to do so, such as music videos and TV commercials, that’s their legal problem — YouTube is pretty good at taking things down when the original artists complain, I understand).
Oh, I agree that it’s clear, but there are also a lot of people who don’t think of reading the ToS and will get screwed over in the end.
What I dislike is that YouTube (and MySpace) sells themselves on free and easy sharing, then slide such things into the ToS.
Sure. I’m bothered less by the language than I am by the audience, which is something I thought of after I posted. Teenagers with a lot of creative talent are giving away bits that they might later want to sell, because they don’t speak Legal. If that’s your beef, I agree.
That’s basically it… And… Well… This will sound bad, but people who simply don’t think to read such ToS’ such as many artists and such who just want to get their content on MySpace or whatnot.
Then again, MySpace has recently changed their ToS to state that the content can be wholly used only in the realm of MySpace Services…
As a photographer, I just don’t *ever* post my work somewhere without making sure I haven’t given the rights of reproduction away. 99% of the sites where you can post such things have those “fine print” ToS. People who care about their copyrights need to learn to read before they post. I don’t and won’t ever use any photo sharing service because “FREE” is just never really free.
That’s one of the core reasons why I host my *own* photo gallery. Granted, everything there is licensed Creative Commons Attribution, Non-Commercial, Share Alike, but that’s my choice and it (generally) ensures that others won’t profit from my work.