A Life-hacker's Moleskine

DElyMyth segnala il post di un avvocato che spiega come sottoscrivendo – al momento dell’installazione – la EULA (End User License Agreement) di Chrome, il nuovo browser di casa Google, si concedono tutti i diritti su qualunque contenuto prodotto con Google Chrome (compreso questo post, se lo stessi scrivendo su Chrome, cosa che non è – sto usando Firefox).
Nella licenza d’uso di Firefox, tanto per fare un confronto col concorrente più diretto, non c’è nulla di simile.

Spiega l’avvocato citato da DElyMyth:

In other words, by posting anything (via Chrome) to your blog(s), any forum, video site, myspace, itunes, or any other site that might happen to be supporting you, Google can use your work without paying you a dime. They can go and edit it all they want. Even further, you’re claiming that you have the power to grant these rights. So no one who works for Conde Nast (Wired, Arstechnica), TechCrunch, Gawker, any of the other big web publishers, or a university where the employee is performing research can agree to the Chrome ToS because they most likely don’t have the right to give a license to the intellectual property (IP) they produce.

Most likely your employee or student agreement requires that your employer/university exclusively owns all IP that you make during your time there. Many employment contracts require that the employee signs away exclusive rights to all IP they create during work hours and anything created off hours related to their employer’s business. Students get their credit because the university typically gets copyrights to any writings and exclusive patent rights to any research and inventions. This means that many content creators (news writers, song writers, artists, copy editors, musicians, students) cannot legally agree to these ToS because they’d be in breach of their employment/student contracts.

Further, you probably can’t use your company or school email with Chrome, because your company probably exclusively owns your email, and you can’t give away a license to something you don’t own. You also can’t make representations to Google that you have the power to license this IP if you don’t.

And for the record, Microsoft tried this years ago with MSN messenger, where MS got an irrevocable perpetual license to all IP that passed through MSN messenger, and the net basically revolted. AOL did this too with AIM.

There are some people who have claimed that this is standard legal jargon for every piece of software. Not only is that simply not true, no clause even close to that is in the Firefox terms of service.

And unlike all these people who “are not a lawyer”, I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this post does not constitute an attorney-client relationship, but Chrome’s ToS are ridiculous. If you’re like me, you use your browser for a lot more than just web browsing. The web browser is an entire application platform (isn’t that the idea behind web apps?). Google simply cannot have a license to all of the IP that goes through my browser. I, as an attorney, cannot give that up, especially because some of it is confidential. The Rules of Professional Responsiblity (which all lawyers must abide by) easily prohibit this exact kind of thing. Until Google scales this back, I will NOT be using Chrome.

With more and more apps being shifted into web browsers, this is almost like MS claiming that it gets a license to any document in MS Word, Powerpoint, or Excel. What if MS got a license to patents, trademarks and copyrights of any software created with Visio or Visual Studio? What if Maya got a license to everything 3d model you made? What if Adobe got a license to everything made in Photoshop? We have to stand up and stop accepting these ridiculous EULAs.

Apparently, some people have misconstrued this to be saying that Google owns everything you pass through Chrome. That’s incorrect. 11.1 clearly states that you keep all your rights to everything passing through Chrome. But, Google does get permission to use anything you do pass through Chrome. The end part of 11.1 limits your permission to use your content for promotional reasons, but then 11.2 and 11.3 extend that (or “clarify,” take your pick) to mean that as long as Google or one of Google’s affiliates use your IP in connection with Chrome, they can do whatever they want.

The worst part is the software guys over at Google saying that it’s no big deal. Well, if it’s no big deal, and they’re not going to enforce it, then why is it in this contract? Take it out, and don’t put it back in. “Do no evil,” remember?

Insomma, si ripropone con Chrome quello che già succede, all’insaputa dei più, con YouTube: se andate a guardare bene le condizioni di uso del servizio vedrete che anche lì chiunque carica un filmato su YouTube concede al network di Google una licenza illimitata simile (identica?) a quella che appare nella EULA di Chrome.

Io, in attesa che la situazione si chiarisca, seguirò alla lettera il consiglio che dà l’avvocato David Loschiavo: interromperò immediatamente l’utilizzo di Chrome. Il mio consiglio è che lo facciate anche voi, fin quando Google non modificherà la licenza del suo browser – e, se non la farà, pazienza: Firefox, Opera e perfino Internet Explorer non sono poi tanto male, dopotutto.

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