Photoshop Express - Beware The EULA

EULA? What's a you-la? It's an End-User License Agreement and it contains all the things you agree to when you're installing software and click the "I Accept" button. Websites have the same thing but it's typically broken into two documents called "Terms of Use" and "Privacy Policy". Regardless of format, they serve the same purpose: grant as few rights to the end-user as possible without alienating them.

Why am I telling you this? Because Adobe got the "alienating" part backwards.

Yesterday Adobe released a web-based photo editor they've called Photoshop Express. Ignoring the fact that it resembles Photoshop as much as Notepad resembles Word, it's still a free 2 GB photo storage service and possibly a nice way to share your creations with others.

However, their EULA has a problem. There's one part of it that many are objecting to, and for good reason.

8. Use of Your Content.

a. Adobe does not claim ownership of Your Content. However, with respect to Your Content that you submit or make available for inclusion on publicly accessible areas of the Services, you grant Adobe a worldwide, royalty-free, nonexclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, and fully sublicensable license to use, distribute, derive revenue or other remuneration from, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, publicly perform and publicly display such Content (in whole or in part) and to incorporate such Content into other Materials or works in any format or medium now known or later developed.

Basically it means that although you retain ownership of your photos, you agree to grant Adobe a royalty-free license to reproduce your photos in any way they want. This is not good. Normally when a company needs photos they either hire an expensive photographer or pay top-dollar for stock photos which the original photographer gets paid for via royalties. However, if you take a stunning photograph and upload it into Photoshop Express, Adobe is legally able to use it for free for any purpose. You'll be giving away your creativity with no legal way to demand payment.

But why worry about this when other photo sharing sites like Flickr have been around for a lot longer? Because Flickr has an artist-friendly Agreement that leaves all rights in the hands of the photographer. If anyone wants to use your uploaded Flickr photos they are obligated to contact you for permission and you are allowed to request payment before granting permission. If they use your photos without permission you can sue them.

Adobe makes only creativity software so they know better than any company how business and art work together. Taking advantage of amateurs is abysmal. Until they change their agreement you should not use their service because it'll be likely those changes, if any, will not be retroactive.

Update, 2 days later - It seems Adobe didn't even read its own EULA and as a result of the backlash they'll be re-writing the section in question. Good for them, but it shouldn't have taken a barrage of negative press to effect such a change. My perception of them has now gone from evil to just stupid.