- Create a temporary security hole in your cloud based document storage system.
- Release new terms of service like this:
“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 reasonably necessary for the Service. This license is solely to enable us to technically administer, display, and operate the Services.”
That last sentence tries to make the new TOS seem benign, but the first sentence hand the Dropbox folks the rights to use your data for pretty much anything.
I think you underestimate the importance of the last sentence. It is not mere appeasement of the consumer; it is a part of the terms of service.
Dropbox has already issued a clarification, and it appears clear that your interpretation is incorrect.
The second sentence makes clear that you are granting Dropbox the right to make and display copies for the purposes of being Dropbox — a service that, after all, makes and displays copies of your files on the machines on which you want them displayed and copied.
Mark,
I disagree with your interpretation. The Terms of Service is a legal contract that users consent to in order to continue to use the Dropbox system. The official terms of service still carry the same rights assignment: https://www.dropbox.com/terms. I can not find any change to the TOS that modify Dropbox’s ownership of data uploaded to the service.
The second sentence in that paragraph in no-one modifies the the rights assignment in the first sentence. The TOS does not indicate what “enable us to…operate Services” entails. Also, the TOS grants Dropbox the right to make derivative works of your data. They suggest examples, but in no way limit the use by their suggestions.
This TOS is bad form. I think they are trying to cover their business in the broadest since. I don’t think they are malicious. But if they were acquired by another company, these TOS would grant the new owner unlimited access and use of each users data. I for one can will not take that risk.
Yeah, the second sentence doesn’t just try to make the TOS seem benign, it makes it look confused. Any dispute about that section is going to involve Dropbox pointing to the first section that lets them anything and the user pointing to the second part that limits what they can do.
If you’re looking for something that tries to make it look benign you should be complaining about the word “stuff”.