[yuvadam]

Oh please, not again.

Absolutely any and every product you use has ridiculous Terms of Service.

These documents are drafted up by lawyers. Their job is not to please the end users who care to read through the legalese. Their job is to create a document that will protect the product vendor in court, if and when the time comes.

Lets put an end to finding eccentricities in ToSs/EULAs, it's getting kind of redundant. If this is some sort of game to see who can find the most absurd clauses in these documents, we're all losing.

[Terretta]

For "content" creators, these are not absurdities, these are terms that can make or break your ability to get paid for your work and put food on the table.

A photographer having to go to court to defend his ownership of photos they'd exhibited through twitpic and get paid by newspapers who claimed the ToS said he'd released his rights, demonstrates this is not a "please not again" problem, this is ongoing, big corps are misusing these at the expense of individual artists, and the problem's getting worse.

Every day I talk to artists who have no idea that posting their latest music video to a video sharing site could give that company performance rights in other media, or, as in this case, that pinning their own photos to Pinterest would let Pinterest publish a "Best Pins of 2012" book w/o compensating the artist.

This needs to be called out and both consumers and creators deserve to be informed.

[pork]

Let me rephrase GP's comment, since I felt the same thing as them. Allow me to set out a hypothetical.

You find that Pinterest's terms are awful, and stage a very successful revolt with your own site, sans the offensive terms. Users flock to your site, and Pinterest dies a sad death. One of the copyright owners of your "pinned" content decides to go after you, and decides to sue the pants off you. So you freak out and hire a top-notch lawyer, who will draft a new set of terms for your users to shield you from the liability you now realize you have.

Repeat, iterate, and before you know it -- your top-notch lawyer guarantees that you will face no more expensive liability, but you now have the onerous terms set out in practically all sites that allow user-generated content.

Basically, these terms allow you to bump the liability from yourself to the user who uploaded it (because they have pinned the pictures in bad faith, in violation of your terms, etc.)

So there's really no point railing against the terms -- they aren't going away, and the best you can hope for is very minor modifications of wording with sufficient popular pressure. Good luck on that.

[alxp]

This post we're discussing _is_ the popular pressure. And yes, I also wish them good luck because the pendulum is currently far too in the direction against fairness to end-users.

[growingconcern]

Exactly. Saying that this is just the way it is is ludicrous. They could under sufficient pressure change the wording so that they aren't assuming ownership or unlimited use and that it is something more akin to fair use.

[Someone]

"Repeat, iterate, and before you know it -- your top-notch lawyer guarantees that you will face no more expensive liability, but you now have the onerous terms set out in practically all sites that allow user-generated content"

If that lawyer exists, the Pirate Bay should hire him/her. I do not see how what they are doing is any different from what Pinterest does. Or am I overlooking something?

[soundslikeneon]

You're missing a big point though. Does Pintrest need to internalize and take ownership over all of the content on the site in order to protect themselves legally? It seems that would open them up to far greater liability. And then in the same breath they foist that liability onto their users simply for doing what they are 'supposed' to do (pin things they are interested in).

As others have said, Flickr does not have the same "we own it now" stipulation so don't suggest that this is simply the way it has to be. If Pintrest were so inclined, they could keep the indemnity boilerplate but stop taking ownership of posted content. This would move their site much closer to Fair Use territory, which would in turn help minimize the legal risk taken on by users who pin and comment on content that isn't their own. Instead, Pintrest want to make sure they don't close a potentially lucrative door and don't mind if they abuse everyone involved in making and sharing content while they explore their options.

[andrewfelix]

>they aren't going away, and the best you can hope for is very minor modifications of wording with sufficient popular pressure. Good luck on that.

Sounds like what a lot of people said about SOPA.

[pork]

Nope, SOPA was another (succesful) attempt by user-generated content sites to deflect liability away from themselves. That's my point, these onerous terms are pretty much in the same spirit, from an Internet company's point of view, as the SOPA protest.

[prewett]

It seems like there is an easy solution, just never post something on the web in a format you wouldn't be ok with others using without. Post 800x600 images with a contact me link, or put your name/contact on the picture so that it is attractive but still a little bit annoying, etc.

[shawnc]

This is the absolute wrong way to look at things. This is the sort of reaction that gets Cameras on every street corner, or searches without a warrant, or SOPA passing, or higher gas prices.

You see - When something is presented to us, and at first we yell. Well, 'they' listen, and tone it down. But 'they' bring it up again, and we yell (but not quite as much, or as loud). Eventually, the original goal is implemented, but with no fuss because we've been wore down.

To react with 'please not again' and to paint the person that is doing the finger pointing, as the bad guy - is the reaction that gets things FAR WORSE than this happening.

[jemfinch]

Please show me in Picasa's ToS where it says you'll pay Google's legal fees if Google is sued on account of a picture you uploaded.

Please show me in Flickr's ToS where it says that you're giving Flickr the right to sell and relicense any photo you post there.

Pinterest's ToS go far beyond any other service I've seen. If you have examples of terms of service just as ridiculous as Pinterest's, by all means, please share them.

[Terretta]

Even Tumblr explicitly states that you own your content, and that you only license Tumblr the right to cache, republish, etc., "in order to provide the Services".

[kevinpet]

No, it's time to start saying "hey, that looks like a great service, but I'm absolutely not using it until you offer it on legal terms that I find acceptable".

[gbog]

With your reasoning we should sign blindly all papers and if any weirdies are found it is just to protect the service provider incourt, never its it a trick against the user, right?

[andrewfelix]

>Absolutely any and every product you use has ridiculous Terms of Service.

I've been using vi.sualize.us for quite some time. It has a very similar service to Pinterest but much better ToS. Have a read http://vi.sualize.us/help/terms/

[hristov]

These are not eccentricities, this is serious stuff. Last time I checked US law allowed for damages of up o $150 000 per violation for copyright infringement. This EULA includes an indemnification and hold harmless clause, which means that if pinterest gets sued for something you upload you get pay for their defense and for any judgments if they loose.

So if this EULA holds up, it means it can easily expose you to millions of dollars of damages. Yes there are many exploitative EULAs out there but this is the first one I have seen that can get easily get you on the hook for millions of dollars for an innocuous action.

[icebraining]

Do you really think any other content submission service - Youtube, Flickr, etc - doesn't have a disclaimer like this? That they make themselves liable for what their users submit?

And how is this abusive? Why should they be held liable for what their users do?

From Youtube's ToS:

    To the extent permitted by applicable law, you agree to defend,
    indemnify and hold harmless YouTube, its parent corporation, officers,
    directors, employees and agents, from and against any and all claims,
    damages, obligations, losses, liabilities, costs or debt, and expenses
    (including but not limited to attorney's fees) arising from: (i) your use
    of and access to the Service; (ii) your violation of any term of these
    Terms of Service; (iii) your violation of any third party right, including
    without limitation any copyright, property, or privacy right; or (iv) any
    claim that your Content caused damage to a third party. This defense
    and indemnification obligation will survive these Terms of Service and
    your use of the Service.

[eurleif]

YouTube, Flickr, etc. don't provide a bookmarklet for uploading other peoples' content.

[18pfsmt]

This is a good point, but it should not go made without mentioning the fact that we need some standards around TOS/privacy policies. Just like for OSS we have licenses that are "known", we have the GPL (v1,2,3), AGPL, BSD, MPL, APL, etc. Many of us now know how these differ. I started believing in this idea when I first read it purposed in a comment here (i.e.on HN). Standards and git-like-versioning seems the only way to bring transparency to these large, seemingly-opaque corporations.

It might be interesting to put the largest internet companies' TOS and privacy policies on github.

[ktizo]

If you are expected to be bound by terms that you cannot be bothered to read because that would take a lifetime, then you should hope that there are teams of nerds with OCD picking through them and weeding out nonsense on your behalf.

[billpatrianakos]

Thank you! So true. Slow news day? Read some TOSes and manufacture some fake outrage. It's so old now.

Concerned about copyright? First off, I'm surprised anyone here would be concerned about copyright seeing as how everyone loves to talk about music/software pirates like they're modern day revolutionary heroes. Secondly, file a damn DMCA takedown request. We're not talking about the Pirate Bay here. It's Pinterest, they'll probably comply pretty quickly. Don't have time to patrol Pinterest for violations? Well, I feel for you but realistically it's a simple site where people share cool stuff. More than any other type of sharing website Pinterest users have the most benign intentions and it's really unlikely either Pinterest itself or it's users intend to profit from or intentionally violate copyright.

I live near Chicago where earthquakes are unheard of but there is a fault line running through Illinois and we do get the odd tremor every so often. There could be a disastrous earthquake here tonight (scientists do say that one day there will be a big one here) but I'm not cowering in my home or running through the streets trying to warn people of it. It's the same with this Pinterest and copyright thing. Just because something is possible doesn't mean it's likely. Your time is better spent worrying about running your business and making it better rather than chasing around random Pinterest's users who could be... wait for it..l violating your copyright!!

Not to say copyright is a joke, I'm actually a rare supporter of it (to a degree) around here but seriously, it's friggin Pinterest, you're not losing a significant amount of money there.