Findaway's new terms of service are unacceptable
mwl.io
mwl.io
This ... is not that. This is facially overbroad, lacks any kind of even indicative usage limitations, and likely breaks a lot of standard negotiating and contracting for authors within the publishing (and related) industries. While I've seen bad and overbroad adhesion contracts that were cut-and-paste jobs not created by actual counsel, I don't think I've seen something this audacious that went through legal review. It's predatory.
This actually reads much like the typical internet ToS of 20 years ago, before it became standard to say “only as needed to provide the specific services” because people started rightfully freaking out.
Especially in the media world with its history of repeatedly bilking artists out of royalties whenever a new format comes around, this is quite an insensitive move.
I wouldn't be so sure about that; do non-tech people commonly understand "training" to mean "training of AI models"? I don't have a poll to prove it, but I would expect not.
Or they'll introduce softer changes, let everyone kinda chill out a bit, then clamp down on the same changes again when it's harder to move off-platform and users have little choice but to agree.
The quoted clause, as you stated, was absolutely perfectly clear! There was no vagueness or room for confusion. They covered every possible way that they now have full control over the authors works.
The next draft will probably just have more legalese, and be spread out over multiple clauses of their already long (~7500 word) terms of service so that it's harder to point at it and say "gross".
https://tosdr.org/ is a good site to compare. Any service over Grade E (Spotify, Facebook, the usual suspects are all Es) is (very likely to be) less bad. DeviantArt for example is a D, and doesn't include waiving your moral rights among some of the other overreach.
Some service terms are actually quite good (DuckDuckGo, Mullvad, off the top of my head). Though these aren't content sharing platforms so it's not really as fair of a comparison.
Much like ACX with Audible.
I also fairly liked Qobuz, a French service, but ended up dropping it because it didn't have the kind of "just play something I like" feature that Spotify and Tidal have made pretty standard now (daily mixes, etc). I hate the laziness of it but I've gotten used to it; there are days/times I just want to listen to music of a certain mood while I'm working on something and don't want to think hard about what to put on.
Actually, because you can play radio stations and some radio stations play news, news is on there.
> non-exclusive, transferable, sublicensable, royalty-free, fully paid, irrevocable, worldwide license to reproduce, make available, perform and display, translate, modify, create derivative works from, distribute, and otherwise use any such User Content through any medium, whether alone or in combination with other Content or materials...
I don't know how much of it is enforceable in court, but I wouldn't want to take that risk if I hosted anything as an indie.
`you also agree to waive, and not to enforce, any “moral rights” or equivalent rights, such as your right to object to derogatory treatment of such User Content`
> [...] Voices shall be free to use or disseminate such Content for the purpose of promoting the audio recordings of its works either by Voices, its affiliates, or its partners, and you grant Voices an irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, nonexclusive license to use, reproduce, distribute, transmit, display, distribute, and market such Content (including in digital form). You represent and warrant that you have proper authorization for the worldwide transfer and processing among Voices, its affiliates, partners, and third-party providers of any information that you may provide on the Site.
[1] http://web.archive.org/web/20190115070453/https://my.findawa...
Part one: Voices shall be free to use or disseminate such Content for the purpose of promoting the audio recordings of its works either by Voices, its affiliates, or its partners,
Part two: and you grant Voices an irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, nonexclusive license to use, reproduce, distribute, transmit, display, distribute, and market such Content (including in digital form). You represent and warrant that you have proper authorization for the worldwide transfer and processing among Voices, its affiliates, partners, and third-party providers of any information that you may provide on the Site.
Under this tos if I were an author and read a book for the audio book spotify could:
1. Use my voice for a reading of Mein Kampf, Turner Diaries, etc. advertise it and not compensate me.
2. Sell an AI version of my voice such thst its indistinguishable for any book, for no compensation.
3. Have some kind of ai generated versions of my book sold, for no compensation.
“But exposure,” some folks will say. People die of exposure.
so this is not a surprise...this the saga of the swan song they started when they lost the plot and chased after shortcuts instead of value.
Then look for clauses that say, 'we can do A or B or C specific things, or anything we deem necessary in order to ...'. Again, there's no effective contract.
IANAL, so maybe there are some benefits. I wonder how much you can argue that what they do with the data you provided on Jan 14, 2022, depends on the agreement in force then.
In a regulation-averse environment, about the only thing I know that the public can do about abusive corporations is to act on principle with individual behavior, in large numbers.
Crazy.
you hereby grant Spotify a non-exclusive, transferable, sublicensable, royalty-free, fully paid, irrevocable, worldwide license to reproduce, make available, perform and display, translate, modify, create derivative works from (such as transcripts of User Content), distribute, and otherwise use any such User Content through any medium
by any means, method or technology, **whether now known or hereafter created**
The advent of AI has obviously changed the game, but "you get to do whatever you want with my work for $XXX" is established.
The issue here is the payments are not $XXX, they are potentially pennies or zero.
by continuing to use this product you agree to whatever we wrote here
I attribute it to:
- our hilariously primitive and archaic "implementation" of "democracy" (which most formal/legal matters are invisibly downstream of)
- our hilariously primitive and non-self-aware culture(s), whose individual members tend to be more inclined to insist on maintaining the very status quo that they constantly complain about (and from which mostly everything else is downstream of)
- our hilariously primitive and archaic system of "journalism", which is supposed to, and proclaims itself to, expertly inform the public of important goings on
- the magnitude of the gap between the content and nature of reality vs what we believe/proclaim it to be
- some other things that I have surely missed, or am too lazy to generate by spending more time thinking
- some other things that <redacted>
I wonder if any of these predictions are correct.
I look forward to being impressed, and having a new, superior standard to work towards.
Probably more than you might think. IANAL but the general operation of Spotify-like service, which I'd summarize as "making creative content digitally available to any user, anywhere in the world, on demand" requires a lot of that.
Permission to use content that you create and share: Some content that you share or upload, such as photos or videos, may be protected by intellectual property laws. You retain ownership of the intellectual property rights (things such as copyright or trademarks) in any such content that you create and share on Facebook and other Meta Company Products that you use. Nothing in these Terms takes away the rights you have to your own content. You are free to share your content with anyone else, wherever you want. However, to provide our services we need you to give us some legal permissions (known as a "License") to use this content. *This is solely for the purposes of providing and improving our Products and services as described in Section 1 above.* Specifically, when you share, post or upload content that is covered by intellectual property rights on or in connection with our Products, you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free and worldwide licence to host, use, distribute, modify, run, copy, publicly perform or display, translate and create derivative works of your content *(consistent with your privacy and application settings)*.
It's insane that it's accepted as normal that someone can send you an email with notice of a contract being altered (without even including those changes in the email) and you are deemed to have agreed to this new contract without even seeing it or taking any action whatsoever.
Companies that do this are shitty, and the people that run them are shitty people.
It's very clear that that construct's been allowed to facilitate rapid business transactions over any particular legal clarity or protection, so I wouldn't expect this behavior to face any additional challenges.
What happens if you try to challenge insanely overbroad terms in arbitration? Because you almost certainly signed away your right to sue. I'm not super-worked up about attorneys putting the most restrictive language that they can in a contract, knowing that in 'real' court a judge will simply throw a bunch of it out for being unconscionably one-sided. But if you never get a real court hearing, but instead are shunted into arbitration..... Do judges in arbitration even assess unconscionability?
- they don't realise they are allowed to do so.
- they are biased towards the businesses who pay them.
- it potentially invalidates the entire contract.
- one of the only valid reasons to appeal an arbitration award is "going outside the terms of the contract". If the arbiter invalidates portions of the contract then it potentially opens the entire decision up for appeal.
The really weird part of arbitration is that you're allowed to delegate "arbitrability" itself to the arbiter (whom may rule that it must go back to court)
I haven't come across any specific studies but this is my understanding from my reading [0] (n.b. I am not a lawyer).
Yep, they do (of course). It's in the very first section of the terms and, surprisingly, in all capitals so you can't miss it (assuming someone reads the terms, which, who ever really does).
The fun part of their forced arbitration clause is this friendly reminder:
>IN ARBITRATION THERE IS LESS DISCOVERY AND APPELLATE REVIEW THAN IN COURT.
It seems like a good way to deal with the copyright infringement of current and future AI models — all revenue is taxed 10% for an endowment for the arts.
Is this a crazy idea?
When people suggest something like an AI tax, techbros seethe about communism.
Since schadenfreude is apparently how society works now, make it a 40% tax and dial it up a percent or 10 every time someone whines?
> The classic work of Linux satirical erotica, complete and unabridged, now a Tilted Windmill Press exclusive!
> ... The latest trend Terry refuses? One adopted almost everywhere? Systemd, the replacement init.
> So Systemd comes for Terry.
> Wearing skin-tight leather pants.
Both the review and the sample of the book available through the book's marketplace listing leave me unable to describe either of them with any single word other than "inspired".
That review you cited was clearly written by someone who felt personally attacked. I have theories.
...not entirely related, but reminds me of this: https://wiki.wlug.org.nz/POSIX_ME_HARDER).