Gizmodo point us to a scary clause in the new Google Chrome Browser end license user agreement that looks like it says Google owns everything you publish and create while using Chrome. Hmmm. This does not look good, but hopefully someone will come along and explain that this does not mean what it seems to.
From the Chrome ELUA:
11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. This license is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the Services and may be revoked for certain Services as defined in the Additional Terms of those Services.
[via Gizmodo]
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It seems like you may be overreacting. Take into account the sentence immediately following the excerpt highlighted in bold that says this license is solely for Google to be able to promote the service that allowed you to produce the work in question. Within the highlighted area, it also states that this is a non-exclusive license meaning that even though Google has the right to use the content you created, that doesn’t preclude the creator from profiting from their work.
I’m no contract lawyer but that is my layman assessment. I do agree that it is weird they state this kind of thing in the EULA but if something that a user produces exemplifies their “Services’” benefits, it seems fair that they could use the content to promote said “Services.”
September 3rd, 2008 at 12:52 pm
It looks like Google has already rescinded this in their TOS, per ReadWriteWeb: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/does_google_have_rights_to_all.php
September 3rd, 2008 at 8:39 pm