Free Photoshop, For a Price
Adobe has launched Photoshop Express beta. It's a stripped down version of the very popular photo/graphic software program. It's free to sign up and use. But with all the photo-related things I join online, I read the full Terms of Use and went straight for usage of the content the end user uploads:
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.
b. "Publicly accessible" areas of the Services are those areas of the Adobe network of properties that are intended by Adobe to be available to the general public. However, publicly accessible areas of the Services do not include Services intended for private communication or areas off the Adobe network of properties such as portions of World Wide Web sites that are accessible via hypertext or other links but are not hosted or served by Adobe.
Translation: any photo you upload to PSx is Adobe's to whore out without your permission AND SELL without notifying you. You signing up and accepting the terms of agreement is you giving your express consent for Adobe to do what they want. Fuck that.
The Terms of Use are crazy. Not just for pros who may want to tweak an image on the road when they don't have their computer with a full version of PS on it. For the people on Facebook or MySpace or Photobucket or Picasa (there's a Facebook, Photobucket and Picasa login via PSx) it's troubling too. All those photos of you and your friends can be used as stock imagery now. It can be sold off, modified, published anywhere, anytime, forever and you can't take it back (that's the "irrevocable" part).
But Adobe "does not claim ownership of Your Content" - oh no not in the least. They wouldn't dare make such claims. Not when they can legalese their way around it. I see this release as impetus for even more people to use pirated copies of PS.
This is really pathetic.
via: A Photo Editor
UPDATE 3.28.08. Looks like Adobe's revising their legalese
Statement for Terms of Service Issues:
We've heard your concerns about the terms of service for Photoshop Express beta. We reviewed the terms in context of your comments - and we agree that it currently implies things we would never do with the content. Therefore, our legal team is making it a priority to post revised terms that are more appropriate for Photoshop Express users. We will alert you once we have posted new terms.
Thank you for your feedback on Photoshop Express beta and we appreciate your input.
-Adobe Photoshop Express Team
Kudos for Adobe for listening, but chroist were they asking for the backlash they got. via DP Review.
UPDATE 2 4.7.08: The Revised Terms explained by DP Review.
[email this post]Explore posts in the same categories: Web/Tech, Photography, People's Rights
March 27th, 2008 @ 2:45 pm
When I first got started on Flickr and was checking out groups, I joined a Nikon group that stated in it's Group Rules that ruled that any image that gets loaded into the group becomes, ultimately, property of Nikon to do with as it pleases.
Needless to say, the comments section was none too thrilled.
I quickly left that group.
April 4th, 2008 @ 5:52 pm
that's fucked up.