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Never ever write software for Oculus

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Re: Never ever write software for Oculus

#11

Post by Bjartr »

eterm wrote: post #8
FussyZeus wrote: post #5

Nothing seems especially horrible here, they're basically saying that if you submit things to their distribution network (whatever it is, I honestly have no idea) that they can then distribute it worldwide. A little strange that they don't allow you to terminate it at some point but that's probably to ensure growth of whatever this Store thing is going to be. But I mean, no one had a gun to your head about writing Oc…

Among other rights it includes the right to "adapt" (i.e. modify), so it isn't just about distribution rights.

If you upload an image, and they want to re-encode it, or create a thumbnail for it, they need that right assigned to them it they're infringing copyright.

Re: Never ever write software for Oculus

#12

Post by onion2k »

eterm wrote: post #8
FussyZeus wrote: post #5

Nothing seems especially horrible here, they're basically saying that if you submit things to their distribution network (whatever it is, I honestly have no idea) that they can then distribute it worldwide. A little strange that they don't allow you to terminate it at some point but that's probably to ensure growth of whatever this Store thing is going to be. But I mean, no one had a gun to your head about writing Oc…

Among other rights it includes the right to "adapt" (i.e. modify), so it isn't just about distribution rights.

In the case of software content, that would include automatically recompiling the content that you upload to a new target format in the future, so if Oculus develop a new way of deploying content in 5 years time they won't have to bin everything people have uploaded. It's not really any different to Youtube asking for a license to transcode video content in to new formats.

They could ask only for the right to do that sort of thing, but a more broad language covers things no one will have thought of. It's not (necessarily) evil.

Re: Never ever write software for Oculus

#13

Post by threeseed »

eterm wrote: post #8
FussyZeus wrote: post #5

Nothing seems especially horrible here, they're basically saying that if you submit things to their distribution network (whatever it is, I honestly have no idea) that they can then distribute it worldwide. A little strange that they don't allow you to terminate it at some point but that's probably to ensure growth of whatever this Store thing is going to be. But I mean, no one had a gun to your head about writing Oc…

Among other rights it includes the right to "adapt" (i.e. modify), so it isn't just about distribution rights.

Creating a thumbnail, re-encoding, rounding corners, borders, auto enhance etc. I can think of a million ways websites modify user's photos. Likewise for uploaded text they filter for black words, auto trim, strip XSS/SQL attacks etc.

All of this is "adapting".

Re: Never ever write software for Oculus

#14

Post by [deleted] »

eterm wrote: post #8
FussyZeus wrote: post #5

Nothing seems especially horrible here, they're basically saying that if you submit things to their distribution network (whatever it is, I honestly have no idea) that they can then distribute it worldwide. A little strange that they don't allow you to terminate it at some point but that's probably to ensure growth of whatever this Store thing is going to be. But I mean, no one had a gun to your head about writing Oc…

Among other rights it includes the right to "adapt" (i.e. modify), so it isn't just about distribution rights.

[deleted]

Re: Never ever write software for Oculus

#16

Post by sjtgraham »

eterm wrote: post #8
FussyZeus wrote: post #5

Nothing seems especially horrible here, they're basically saying that if you submit things to their distribution network (whatever it is, I honestly have no idea) that they can then distribute it worldwide. A little strange that they don't allow you to terminate it at some point but that's probably to ensure growth of whatever this Store thing is going to be. But I mean, no one had a gun to your head about writing Oc…

Among other rights it includes the right to "adapt" (i.e. modify), so it isn't just about distribution rights.

Consider this example: If you upload some screenshots of your app to an app store for Oculus/Apple/Google/whoever to display with your app, what exactly do you think a thumbnail is? Or transcoding from JPEG to PNG? Legally, it's a derivative work, i.e. an adaptation. There is nothing sinister about it. Lawyers gonna lawyer.

Re: Never ever write software for Oculus

#17

Post by JabavuAdams »

bcg1 wrote: post #4
owenwil wrote: post #3

Better stop using Facebook/Twitter/et al then

Some of us don't use those things to begin with.

That's fine, but the article makes it seem that this is some kind of out-of-the-ordinary agreement. It's fine if you're opposed to such agreements as a matter of principle. It's just strange to single out Oculus for this. It's as though the original poster has never actually read a ToS document before.

Re: Never ever write software for Oculus

#18

Post by Turing_Machine »

bcg1 wrote: post #4
owenwil wrote: post #3

Better stop using Facebook/Twitter/et al then

Some of us don't use those things to begin with.

And some of us wouldn't get too worried even if Twitter did decide to use one of our 120 character bon mots for advertising purposes, or put it in a "best of Twitter" movie, or whatever.

That's an entirely different thing from giving up the rights to code that you may have worked on for months.

Re: Never ever write software for Oculus

#20

Post by hoechst »

It's easy to get mad about stuff you don't understand, read or research correctly.

It even states that "In the event you are a developer who submits User Content to Oculus, you acknowledge and agree that our agreements with you as a developer may supersede this section of the Terms."

In any case, this section of the ToS is not even about Software, but about User Content. There's a "Developer Distribution Agreement" for that: https://share.oculus.com/developer-distribution-agreement

Quote: "You grant to Oculus a nonexclusive, worldwide, and royalty-free license to: copy, perform, display, and use the Products for administrative and demonstration purposes in connection with the operation and marketing of the Store and to use the Products to make improvements to the Store, Rift, and any other Oculus products and services."

Valves Steam Distribution Agreement looks similar (if http://stuff.danbo.vg/sda.html is to be believed): "Company hereby grants to Valve a non-exclusive license to reproduce, publicly display and perform, transmit, sell, license and otherwise distribute the Applications in object code form via Steam and through any type of payment method to Steam Account Owners in the Territory."

Not trying to defend any companies here. Those terms might as well be shitty. I don't know, I'm not a jurist or anything. But at least get the facts right.

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