Dropbox TOS Includes Broad Copyright License 213
mrtwice99 writes "Dropbox recently updated their TOS, Privacy Policy, and Security Overview. Included in the TOS is the following statement: '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.' I think Dropbox is a great service, but what is the significance of granting them such broad usage rights?"
Elsewhere in the same Terms of Service, which are a few notches above the norm in both brevity and readability, Dropbox says both "Dropbox respects others’ intellectual property and asks that you do too," and "You retain ownership to your stuff."
Easy - encrypt it (Score:2, Interesting)
and don't give them the password.
Re:So they wont get sued by asshats (Score:4, Interesting)
Has nothing to do with that. Simple disclaimers fix that. They are doing it to profit off what they don't own.
For example? And by 'example', I mean an example of something they are actually doing and not just something you think they could conceivably do.
These sorts of clauses are almost always about trying to legally protect the way the site/service works. Why would Dropbox think it could just take your shit and sell it (what you seem to think they are going to do here)?
Re:So they wont get sued by asshats (Score:3, Interesting)
If I make a journal entry, uploading it to slashdot gives them permission to post it. It does NOT give them permission to reprint it in a printed magazine or another site. This clause gives them permission to do anything they damned well please with your material.
Not even under their control (Score:4, Interesting)