In other social networking forums I’ve been involved with over the past several years, that language has become somewhat standard. It comes about in response from users who are enraged that the service is taking their copyright and imposing hard rules about user’s content. As a result, the TOU changes to give the service a license to show the content which has been uploaded by the user. The “in perpetuity” bit is intended to give the users flexibility to keep their content on the service, use it as they will, and not expect that it’s going to be automatically pulled at the end of the license or copyright term.

Actually, I’d be very interested to know if anyone has studied Web 2.0 licenses vs. standard copyright licenses? After being involved in two or three social networking/online gaming TOU working groups and having almost no experience in traditional copyright law, I have to admit that my perspective is somewhat… quirky!

Amalyah Keshet

I am not so sure *this* license is any better than There.com’s original demand that users transfer their copyright. It essentially grants all the rights of copyright to There.com (display, modify, reproduce, perform, …), and even goes one better (or worse, depending on your perspective) by claiming these rights in *perpetuity* (something you don’t get with copyright, although we seem headed in that direction…).

Licenses can be useful tools in the copyright game (witness Creative Commons licenses) or they can be used to subvert copyright law. This one seems like the latter to me…

Diane