Google Video updates Terms of Service (TOS) |
Six hours ago, we received email notification that Google has made “minor modifications” to their TOS as well as outlining their “several innnovative features” since launch:
- A flash-based video player
- A brand new home page (http://video.google.com/)
- A larger format playback/viewing window with standard user controls
- “More videos” tab on playback page along with “Related” and “Popular”
videos links
- A Send link so fans of your video can send it to their friends
- A new video blog (http://googlevideo.blogspot.com/)
The problem with this email is it doesn’t explain what these modifications to the TOS are. As one of their users (see my test back when Google Video was launched here), I’d sure be interested in knowing specifically what any changes are/were to the TOS. Instead, I get a link to their video blog, which I subscribed to, but doesn’t tell me anything about the TOS changes either.
So I logged into upload.video.google.com to try and read what had changed. Using the EULAlyzer program, I analyzed the TOS text with the number of severity in parenthesis before the item:
(8/10) - Google reserves the right to display advertisements with any content [already knew that, check]
(4/10) - Google is granted non-exclusive, world-wide, royalty free license to use your name and logo (”brand features”) in connection with your authorized content and excerpts for advertising and promotional purposes. [check]
(5/10) - U.S taxpayers must have a valid Social Security Number on file [check]
(5/10) - Google reserves the right to syndicate authorized content to third party sites without limitation. [didn’t know this one]
(5/10) - Various third party stipulations including Google’s right to terminate the agreement if you don’t maintain any links supplied by you. Also how confidential inforamtion will be treated between third parties and your records (standard stuff, by court order only).
(5/10) - Google may terminate the agreement for any reason including repeat violations of their copyright polocy or other program policies.
Nothing shocking here really except that if you use this free video service, Google basically has a very liberal license with your creation — you still maintain full copyright of the work. Also, there is still the possibility of a success tax:
If our costs to play your video on Google are extraordinary, we may charge users a fee (if you’ve specified zero as the price for your video) or take a larger revenue share of the price (if you’ve set a price greater than zero for your video) to cover some of these costs … Please be assured, however, that we’ll let you know before we add a price or charge a higher revenue share for your video.
Still couldn’t figure out what minor changes were made to the TOS. Anybody else know what changes were made or have a link to a page which explains this?
There is a list of official Google blogs along the right margin of their video blog (I’m subscribed to all of them except the Korea one):
AdWords API
Blogger Buzz
Google Blog
Google Blog Korea
Google Code
Google Reader
Inside Adsense
Inside Adwords
Inside Google Desktop
Inside Google Sitemaps
Anybody reading that is regularly using this service? Selling any videos through it? How has it been working out?
Did this post make you go hmm?
(Hmm, no ratings yet)
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Unless you want to give Google the right to MODIFY (not just REFORMAT) your content and message, please do read the Google Video Terms of Service. Check this out and tell others who may be simply clicking ACCEPT without reading:
http://imran.com/media/blog/2005/12/google-has-right-to-modify-your-videos.html
Thanks.
Imran
Comment by Imran Anwar — December 23, 2005 @ 11:36 pm PST
Imran - I read your post and to answer the question at the end: yes, I do think you are reading too much into it.
I’m not a lawyer but I read the modify stuff to mean that Google maintains the right to add commercials to your video if they like. Perhaps as intros or outros. This doesn’t sound outlandish to me. I also think they will clip out sections of videos to promote.
The whole China thing is a whole other situation altogether and every publisher has this to deal with, not just Google. If you want to publish your videos over there then you may have to alter content. Heck, rating bureaus exist for movies. China has their own laws and Google has to comply or they won’t be able to keep their content running there for anybody.
I seriously doubt Google will be editing individual videos for other than adding commercials or snipping out promotional pieces which they should be able to do if they are hosting them for free, but if you can point ot actual documented cases where this is happening I’d be very interested to read about it.
Comment by TDavid — December 23, 2005 @ 11:58 pm PST