[LINK] Dropbox ToS Under Fire

[Kim Holburn]

Wouldn't an ownership grab like that leave dropbox open to claims of liability in copyright infringement claims?  I would have thought it could be potential quite dangerous for them themselves.  How could they claim safe harbour?

On 2011/Jul/06, at 8:35 AM, Roger Clarke wrote:

> [Following on from some work I did on cloud computing for 
> corporations and government agencies, I've done some analysis of 
> consumers' rights in their dealings with service-providers like 
> Google, MS, Dropbox, etc., incl:
> http://www.rogerclarke.com/EC/CCC.html 
> http://www.rogerclarke.com/EC/IU-SPE-1012.html
> http://www.rogerclarke.com/EC/IU-SPE-A1-Dropbox.html
> 
> [The article below shows that, at long last, there's some emergent 
> recognition of the massive threat that these corporations' Terms of 
> Service represent to businesses.]
> 
> 
> Analyst warns businesses off Dropbox
> 
> By Jennifer Scott on Jul 6, 2011 7:07 AM (1 hour ago)
> ITNews
> http://www.itnews.com.au/News/262729,analyst-warns-businesses-off-dropbox.aspx
> 
> Changes to terms and conditions cause consternation.
> 
> An analyst has warned businesses not to use Dropbox after the online 
> synchronisation service made controversial changes to its terms and 
> conditions.
> 
> Dropbox angered users over the weekend after appearing to lay claim 
> to documents and other files uploaded to the service.
> 
> "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," the company's 
> revised terms and conditions stated.
> 
> Dropbox was immediately forced to defend the new terms, claiming they 
> were necessary for features such as creating public links to files 
> and sharing folders with colleagues.
> 
> "We want to be 100 percent clear that you own what you put in your 
> Dropbox," the company stated on its blog.
> 
> "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."
> 
> Is that enough to put users' minds at rest? One analyst doesn't think so.
> Speaking to our sister site Cloud Pro, Clive Longbottom, founder of 
> Quocrica, said companies that run free services believe they can 
> tweak policies as much as they like and this could affect both 
> consumers and business.
> 
> "Even as a consumer, I'd be worried that Dropbox is essentially 
> saying that it 'owns' any documents that I drop through its service," 
> he said.
> 
> "As a business person, I'd be horrified - everything in those 
> documents could be intellectual property and it belongs to me at an 
> IP and a copyright level."
> 
> Longbottom claimed businesses should seek protection from service 
> level agreements (SLA), rather than fall victim to re-jigged T&Cs.
> 
> "Yes, it will mean paying for it, but managing an organisation's IP 
> has to be seen as a cost, not something to do along 'best efforts' 
> capabilities," he added.
> 
> "With any commercial system, you have to look at the T&Cs just as 
> much - make sure that they cannot be altered without agreement, 
> otherwise [the provider] will just wait until you've paid your 
> subscription (preferably 20 years in advance) and then change the 
> T&Cs to say 'Hah - it all belongs to us!'"
> 
> 
> -- 
> Roger Clarke                                 http://www.rogerclarke.com/
> 			            
> Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd      78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA
>                    Tel: +61 2 6288 1472, and 6288 6916
> mailto:Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au                http://www.xamax.com.au/
> 
> Visiting Professor in the Cyberspace Law & Policy Centre      Uni of NSW
> Visiting Professor in Computer Science    Australian National University
> _______________________________________________
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Kim Holburn
IT Network & Security Consultant
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