Last week I discussed the Adobe Photoshop Express terms of use (ToU) and how the wording was nothing short of a rights grab (see Adobe Photoshop Express & The Mindless Photo Rights Grab). By weeks end John Nack posted an update, regarding the ToU, that “the Photoshop Express team has made some changes”.
Reading the paraphrased revisions on John’s blog post alleviated what concerns I had, but when I read the revised ToU I was left scratching my head wondering what the hell I just read.
First John’s post linked to the General ToU which I think has edits, but they’re not marked so I can’t be sure what they are. Text as seen at the top of the General ToU:
Last Updated on April 3, 2008.
Changes are not marked in red. Please read entire document. Please also note that these revised Terms will apply to all of Your Content as of the Effective Date.
If you do not agree with these revised Terms, please remove Your Content from the Service by the Effective Date.
What people need to certainly reread is the Adobe Photoshop Express Additional Terms of Use which has (2) two edits. On this page I get the edit about advertisements in Section 10, but I’m left confused by the most important edit to Section 8.
8. Use of Your Content.
- Adobe does not claim ownership of Your Content. However, with respect to Your Content that you submit or make available for inclusion on publicly accessible areas of the Services, and unless otherwise specifically agreed in any Additional Terms that might accompany individual services (such as Photoshop.com/Express), you grant Adobe a worldwide, royalty-free, nonexclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, and fully sublicensable license to use, distribute, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, publicly perform and publicly display such Content (in whole or in part) and to incorporate such Content into other Materials or works in any format or medium now known or later developed.
I’ve reread this at least ten times and each time and the edit in red makes about as much sense as when I read it the first time. Didn’t I just read this in the “Additional Terms of Use”? Why is the Additional ToU referring to the Additional ToU? Is this not circular loop? I still don’t see how this matches up to the paraphrased note from the Photoshop Express team as noted on John Nack’s blog.
- Adobe’s Rights - Adobe has retained only those limited rights that allow us to operate the service and to enable you to do all the things the service offers. If you decide to terminate your Photoshop Express account, Adobe’s rights also will be terminated. We don’t claim ownership of your content and won’t sell your images.
- Shared Content – We clearly state the rights you’re granting other users when you choose to publicly share Your Content.
Although the edit in red still confuses the hell out of me one element of my confusion was addressed, but only after some detective work. What isn’t in the edited license is (6) striked out words that were in the previous version of the ToU “derive revenue or other remuneration from”. Previously in the context of…
…you grant Adobe a worldwide, royalty-free, nonexclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, and fully sublicensable license to use, distribute, derive revenue or other remuneration from, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, publicly perform and publicly display such Content…
With these words out of the ToU I can see how the claims in John Nack’s post “We don’t claim ownership of your content and won’t sell your images.” are valid.
Perhaps this all makes sense to a lawyer, but the edit to the ToU was hardly an easy thing to figure out and to be honest I’m still not 100% on what the edit now means. At least the “distribute, derive revenue or other remuneration from” text has been removed.
Once again this goes to show…
1. Terms of Use are hardly readable to the common user.
2. The photo community rallying for their rights can instigate change.
Now if only Adobe could make these edits a little more clear so they’re as easy to understand as the paraphrased text in John Nack’s blog post.
Technorati Tags: Adobe, Photoshop Express, rights, copyright, software, technology, web, terms of use, rights grab, edit, revise, John Nack
This past week Adobe launched beta of Photoshop Express, a little over 1 year since Adobe announced its intention to put Photoshop online (see Photoshop In A Software As A Service (SaaS) Model?). Unfortunately for Adobe what proved to be most noteworthy about this new application is not its functionality, but the rights grab they’re making for each image that is processed in the online application.
Adobe makes available a very short and general Terms of Use document for Adobe Photoshop Express users to review. What new Express users see initially during the registration process is only the higher level Adobe.com Terms of Use. Surprisingly Adobe buries their Photoshop Express Terms of Use in a link from their general Terms of Use document concealing the following information:
8. Use of Your Content
a. Adobe does not claim ownership of Your Content. However, with respect to Your Content that you submit or make available for inclusion on publicly accessible areas of the Services, you grant Adobe a worldwide, royalty-free, nonexclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, and fully sublicensable license to use, distribute, derive revenue or other remuneration from, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, publicly perform and publicly display such Content (in whole or in part) and to incorporate such Content into other Materials or works in any format or medium now known or later developed.
For myself a few questions came to mind immediately after reading this.
1. “What the hell is Adobe thinking?”
2. “Are corporate lawyers really this out to lunch?”
3. “Why wasn’t greater thought put into supporting the rights of their users and managing the trust behind the Adobe brand?”
4. “Why would Adobe bury the meat of the Terms of Use as they’ve done?”
For the sake of full disclosure I have worked with creative agencies that have done work for Adobe in the past. It’s been a over 18 months since I last worked on anything Adobe related, but one thing is well known about Adobe… they take their brand very serious. By “brand” I mean the corporate perspective of what Adobe stands for and the reputation that they project. From a “brand” perspective this rights grab dramatically undermines the foundation in which their brand had been built upon namely “trust” and “empowering the creative professional”.
I’d like to think that Adobe’s lawyers made a mistake, but knowing how corporate lawyers work every clause of a contract is meticulously reviewed and approved. Nothing a corporate legal team does is an accident. Someone defined, reviewed and approved the terms with a lot of thought. What is certain is that effort was not brought in line with those that manage Adobe’s brand and products. With out a doubt Adobe’s staff was likely under the gun to produce and to give credit where credit is due… to turn out a product like this in a little over a year is an impressive feat. I have the greatest respect for Adobe to accomplish this, but with out hesitation I can say that Adobe really dropped the ball with their Terms of Use. In this day and age as an amateur or professional creative it is nearly impossible to not use Adobe software on a project. To this point an implicit bond and trust has been in place between Creatives and Adobe. If you can’t trust Adobe then who can you trust?
To quote Adobe from their Acquisition of Macromedia FAQ:
“What is Adobe’s mission?
Our mission is to revolutionize how the world engages with ideas and information. By acquiring Macromedia, we are strengthening this mission by making it easier for customers to create, manage, and deliver their ideas and engage with information of all types — in print, on the web, in video, and across mobile devices. We believe in enabling powerful, effective, and meaningful digital experiences across multiple operating systems in the broad span of diverse industries we serve.”
Adobe consistently walks a fine line on many issues facing their customers and partners, but in this instance they have egregiously treaded on their customers rights. To give Adobe credit they’ve recognized their mistake and are trying to make right as noted in John Nack’s blog post A note about PS Express terms of use. None the less once treaded on users undoubtedly will be and should be sensitive to this point and should rightfully keep a close eye even on Adobe.
I hope that Adobe is able to avoid making this mistake twice and given their leading role in this industry perhaps to re-establish their trust and leadership they could take it upon themselves to spearhead defining thoughtful standards and Terms of Use that are respectful of the rights of Creatives; standards and terms that other companies might then adopt as the norm rather than the exception.
Now to watch how quickly Adobe moves to revise and correct their Terms of Use. How fast they move surely will be a sign of how serious they’re taking the issue.
Kudos to fellow JMG-Galleries blog reader Ben Bailey for raising my awareness to this development.
Technorati Tags: Adobe, Photoshop Express, rights, copyright, software, technology, web, terms of use, rights grab
