Dropbox Changing TOS

Allan-p

We sometimes need your permission to do what you ask us to do with your stuff (for example, hosting, making public, or sharing your files). 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. You must ensure you have the rights you need to grant us that permission.

http://www.ghacks.net/2011/07/03/time-to-drop-the-box-dropbox-modifies-tos/

Thoughts?

dfacto

"royalty-free" more or less sums this all up.

They want their cake and you can't have any.

EDIT: Ok yeah, overreaction, but the wording certainly makes it seem like they can get away with using your work for whatever they want. Deviantart has the same wording in their TOS, and I can't say I particularly like that.

Kwramm

and that's why I don't use services like dropbox

Although I'd love to have a good script for dropbox like sharing which I can run on my own webspace so I can send stuff to other people.

eld

Actually, they changed it because some tin-foil hatters had read their previous TOS and started a shitstorm, their TOS was always there to protect THEM against any potential lawsuits and such.

!!super fun link --->

http://blog.dropbox.com/?p=846

<--- super fun link!!

Moosey_G

Yeah I just deleted my account after I got this email. It's not THAT good.

Edit due to confusion: I was joking.

rooster

I think I'll wait till I see an example of them abusing this before dropping (hehe) them. Because it does seem logical that they would need your consent to publicly share your files (as you do when you put stuff in the public folder)

Grimmstrom

I actually a paid for a years subscription last month but now that I've read this I'm not sure if I want to continue using it as I use it to store all my personal work, am I within my rights to get a refund? (I presume I am because they've changed there ToS after I've paid but I'm sure they'll have a loop hole that gets round it)

Kwramm

rooster wrote: »

I think I'll wait till I see an example of them abusing this before dropping (hehe) them. Because it does seem logical that they would need your consent to publicly share your files (as you do when you put stuff in the public folder)

arguable - if I make a public folder on dreamhost, I'm not giving any rights to my work to the company that runs dreamhost.

I still have a high opinion of dropbox for non sensitive data, but I certainly would not put anything work related on services like this without explicit consent of our IT department. I just have the feeling they may have an issue signing over even partial usage rights to a 3rd party. As for my own data....damn you China for blocking every single usable web service.

Blaizer

So, the internet is becoming a better place?

I just share a few pics and some password protected zipped files (7z) i delete after my friends download them, so TOS apart... i won't be deleting my account

eld

Once again, read what dropbox said, in the link I posted earlier, it explains most of it.

r_fletch_r

eld wrote: »

Once again, read what dropbox said, in the link I posted earlier, it explains most of it.

Yeah, Its nowhere near as bad as people are saying.

eld

r_fletch_r wrote: »

Yeah, Its nowhere near as bad as people are saying.

We have to be reasonable, they'd lose everything if they were to pull any kind of trick abusing their TOS, they want to keep their customers.

passerby

ah i use it for sharing screenshots with people im working with and for quickly linking images to fourm posts, so i don't really care, anything i do beyond that i use my own server for.

and a lot of the agreement is similar to what you get with gmail and gdocs.

mostly just dropbox protecting them-selfs against users claiming mis-use of there data and from users posting stuff that could be break laws in certain countries.

im still going to be keeping my 50gb dropbox account.

EzMeow

I thing this is mostly done for a technical legal reason, the same agreement has to be accepted on shapeway to make them able to print your model in 3D, even if it's only for you.
I guess dropbox need the same kind of "permission" to be able to manipulate your files to create a public link.
Now that said, I could be totally wrong... just the way I did understand the thing.

Andreas

LOL at people who are deleting their accounts over this... good luck pulling your hair out when your external HDDwith your whole portfolio on goes flying cause you didn't keep an online backup! Hope you backed up to DVD ...

Del

~ You guys need to relax. They're not trying to make money off of people's stuff. They're just lawfully protecting themselves. Nobody's going to see your "Awsum 3D" and then try to make money out of it.

You're all being ridiculous.

Dropbox is just a service like it was before. It's just protecting its ass with this disclaimer.

Andreas

Dropbox wrote: »

[Update - 7/2] – We asked for your feedback and we’ve been listening. As a result, we’ve clarified our language on licensing:

You retain ownership to your stuff. You are also solely responsible for your conduct, the content of your files and folders, and your communications with others while using the Services.
We sometimes need your permission to do what you ask us to do with your stuff (for example, hosting, making public, or sharing your files). 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. You must ensure you have the rights you need to grant us that permission.

[Update 2 - 7/2] – An update based on your feedback:
One of the main reasons we updated our terms of service was to make them easier to read and understand. It seems we’ve mostly accomplished that, which we’re thrilled about.
Some of you have written us with very understandable concerns about the legal-sounding parts. In particular, our new TOS talks about the licenses we need to run Dropbox. We want to be 100% clear that you own what you put in your Dropbox. We don’t own your stuff. And the license you give us is really limited. It only allows us to provide the service to you. Nothing else.
We think it’s really important that you understand the license. It’s about the permissions you give us to run the service, things like creating public links when you ask us to, allowing you to collaborate with colleagues in shared folders, generating web previews or thumbnails of your files, encrypting files, creating backups… the basic things that make Dropbox safe and easy to use. Services like Google Docs and others do the same thing when they get these permissions (see, for example, section 11.1 of Google’s TOS).
We wish we didn’t have to use legal terms at all, but copyright law is complicated and if we don’t get these permissions in writing, we might be putting ourselves in a tough spot down the road. Not to bore you with the details, but please take a look at the license term in the TOS. We think it’s fair and strikes the right balance: “This license is solely to enable us to technically administer, display, and operate the Services.”

OMG HURRY AND DELETE THE INTERNET!

glynnsmith

If you're still wearing your tinfoil hat over Dropbox updating their TOS to protect the way their service works, use something like this:

http://lifehacker.com/5816937/boxcryptor-encrypts-files-on-the-fly-on-windows-accessible-on-maclinux-works-great-with-dropbox

rolfness

Dreamer wrote: »

~ You guys need to relax. They're not trying to make money off of people's stuff. They're just lawfully protecting themselves. Nobody's going to see your "Awsum 3D" and then try to make money out of it.

You're all being ridiculous.

Dropbox is just a service like it was before. It's just protecting its ass with this disclaimer.

QFT

felipefrango

Good to see some sense in the art community where copyright issues are more likely to strike a nerve. Gonna continue using it as usual.

rooster

I've started to password protect my stuff via zip as Blaizer suggests, more because of the whole recent 'back door unlocked' thing

Ace-Angel

I was going to say that, why not Password protect your stuff? Just zip it up as 'storage' instead of doing any actual compression and just lock it, hell, why not even rename the packages extension to something else?

To make it more secure, why not use 7zip, and use one of those fancy encryption which will require to extract the files with 7zip again, with the right command.

EarthQuake

OH FUCK DROPBOX IS GOING TO SELL ALL MY LOLCATS PICTURES TO THE HIGHEST BIDDER!!

Time to delete my account, facists!

Lazerus Reborn

Theres the witch KILL IT! KILL IT WITH FIRE!

greevar

EarthQuake wrote: »

OH FUCK DROPBOX IS GOING TO SELL ALL MY LOLCATS PICTURES TO THE HIGHEST BIDDER!!

Time to delete my account, facists!

They are? Oh Shit! That tears it! IMMA FIRIN MAH LAZAR:

Ace-Angel

Well, I guess DropBox dropped the box again, hope the fragile outcome didn't break it.

dempolys

Ace-Angel wrote: »

Well, I guess DropBox dropped the box again, hope the fragile outcome didn't break it.

stop.

Andreas

EarthQuake wrote: »

OH FUCK DROPBOX IS GOING TO SELL ALL MY LOLCATS PICTURES TO THE HIGHEST BIDDER!!

Time to delete my account, facists!

THEY DUN STOLE MY EYE PEE!

Kwramm

just saying, you still want to think about using dropbox for anything work related. I just haven't come across any IT policy yet that allows use of services with similar TOS. Our clients would probably come over to kill us if we start sharing our/their work via 3rd party sites like this. And the TOS is exactly the reason why they'd do it. Then again most artists never read any IT policy anyway....arggh, all those words!

r_fletch_r

What's hilarious about all this is if they'd not made it easy to understand and just said nothing then this entire shit storm would have been averted.

monster

r_fletch_r,

I think they wanted people to be aware that if a user shares copyrighted material, the user is legally responsible in the case the copyright holder takes legal action, and not Dropbox.

But their wording was a little confusing at first.