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Why I have reservations about joining Google+ — 9 Comments

    • I do not think that is terribly accurate. Giving someone “license” to use something is *not* giving them “ownership”. Only an owner can give license. Consider when you purchase a song from iTunes… you do not actually get ownership of the song, you only get a license to listen to it on a particular number of devices or in a particular manner. Even though you “bought” the song you can’t go modify it and sell it, or use it to in a commercial for your parish.

  1. 11.1 bothers me, although the other two requirements are necessary for google to run the service (for instance, it may need to compress your video to transmit it over another company’s network to deliver it to one of your friends).

    With respect to 11.1, it bothers me too, but as the previous poster mentioned I think you’ll find every social networking site has something similar.

  2. From Facebook’s Terms (2.1):

    For content that is covered by intellectual property rights, like photos and videos (“IP content”), you specifically give us the following permission, subject to your privacy and application settings: you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any IP content that you post on or in connection with Facebook (“IP License”). This IP License ends when you delete your IP content or your account unless your content has been shared with others, and they have not deleted it.

  3. These are quite common Terms. Google needs your permission to be able to perform the services you’re hoping they can. (i.e. chatting, sharing photos with specific groups, etc.) I’m not a lawyer or anything but I do have a lot of experience as a web developer and here are some good reasons I think they might be asking for this permission:

    “perpetual, irrevocable,” – because it’d be a legal nightmare trying to keep track of which licenses have expired and who needs to renew one.

    “worldwide” – because they don’t want you taking them to court in some obscure place, and because the content will be displayed anywhere your friends login to Google+… they don’t want the technical nightmare of “oh, iPadre only allows us to share this picture in the USA, so we can’t display it in France”

    “royalty-free” – they’re not going to pay YOU so that you can share pictures with people]

    “and non-exclusive” – so you can also upload pictures to facebook, or sell them, or give them away or whatever. google doesn’t want to “own” your stuff

    “license to reproduce” – they backup servers and have multiple copies of everything, perhaps putting your images on servers in various data-centers around the world helps increase speed and reduce cost

    “adapt” – resize your profile pic for example

    “modify” – change from a .gif to a .jpg for instance

    “translate” – what if I’m using the German google+, it’d be cool if google could automatically translate your stuff. Might also be in relation to changing from a “gif” to “jpeg” or even PDF or whatever.

    “publish” – if you don’t give them permission to do this then they can’t show your friends ANYTHING.

    “publicly perform” – I’m fairly sure this is another way of saying publish. Perhaps some places consider the internet “public performance” legally.

    “publicly display” – ditto

    “and distribute” – again, this is vital to the performance of the service.

    I do not think that they would try to use your image for immoral propaganda. However, assuming they did I am sure that there is a bit of room to suggest that these terms apply to and were agreed upon with the understanding that the license was for the purpose of providing Service. I’ll bet that whoever is hosting iPadre.net has a similar agreement.

    Actually, even this comment and all the others on the website are governed by a license agreement with Disqus. (http://docs.disqus.com/help/29/) which includes such language as “Your use of a license [i.e. copyright etc.] in connection with your compilation does not affect Disqus’s right to access and use it in connection with the Services, the Site or otherwise in connection with our business.” 😉

  4. As others have already said, this is pretty much standard on social media. I understand Father Jay’s concern, but that concern must be universal and not just applied to Google Plus. I have OTHER concerns about G+, but I still think I am going to dive-in an early adopt for future use. It will improve as people use it. For some reason, I have more a trust “feeling” with Google, than with FB. Not sure why. Leo LaPorte and his TWIT crew explored this on a few shows, notably, “This Week in Google”. It may not be based on anything provable, and Google does make mistakes, but their “Don’t be evil” company motto means something to me.

  5. Not a Lawyer, but I don’t see anything nefarious here.

    Google + is integrated with search, archival, and other features, requiring the licence as written.

    If due prudence is used in what is posted (unlike the example of accepting friend requests from anti-popes), then there ought to be minimal concern about misuse.

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