Dropbox TOS Includes Broad Copyright License

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Re: Dropbox TOS Includes Broad Copyright License

#71

Post by code_duck » Sun, Jul 03, 2011, 5:40 PM UTC

cma wrote: post #17

code_duck wrote: post #8

This is exactly like the broadly misunderstood TOS for Facebook, Etsy and other services. They need a license to your work in order to distribute it, and display it to others or perhaps even you. These clauses have been in TOSs for years and years, and only now people have taken notice. The average person doesn't know much about IP though, and probably couldn't tell you the difference between a copyright and a patent…

Just because it is standard doesn't mean it is acceptable.

Looks like HN has another part of IP law to dislike.

If service providers didn't secure a license from the uploader/creator of a work, this could happen:

  - Jim McJones uploads his photo to flickr   
  - flickr displays his image to the public  
  - Jim McJones sends flickr a cease and desist or sues for copyright infringement

Which leads to... huh? Obviously the intent when you upload a photo to flickr is to have them display it for you. But they need a license, and since this is a legal issue, it needs to be written in a legally specific way. Thus, that's what everyone has done.

DropBox's clause relating to this was already decent and fair in my opinion. Of course, I am not a lawyer or legal expert, just someone who both creates content and runs websites which distribute other peoples' works.

Re: Dropbox TOS Includes Broad Copyright License

#72

Post by stan_rogers » Thu, Jul 07, 2011, 12:04 AM UTC

sunchild wrote: post #67

stan_rogers wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"... to the extent required ..." would leave them open to liability related to the methods they use to implement the system; if it can be established that the service could have been implemented in any way that did not require them to expose, transform, etc., the information in question the way they did at a particular stage, they are suddenly in violation of copyright license.

Indeed. That's the point I want to make!

No, it isn't -- trust me. An approach that seems to be the only way to do things at point A, an approach that was arrived at that was the product of somebody's best thinking, but later turns out to have only seemed so at the time it was implemented (everybody has blind spots), is still a good-faith effort. The word required means that good faith (in the legal sense) and the limits of technological knowledge at any given period in time are insufficient defense for for actions brought on the basis of knowledge that did not exist at the time of the alleged infringement. That is an unreasonable and onerous burden; the service (or any similar service) could not be provided under those terms.

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