Outraged Art Zone Artists and Terms of Service
I was asked by chikako on the Meshbox NING about the controversy over the ArtZone terms of Service. ArtZone is a community site run by Daz Productions, Inc, a provider of high quality Poser compatible content and software vendor. The broad rights granted under the ArtZone Terms of Service to DAZ have outraged hundreds of artists who typically assume that ArtZone was governed by the same TOS as DAZ other sites. Let’s look at the section that is outraging people and why DAZ might require these rights.
NOTE: I am not a lawyer; don’t take this as legal advice. I have negotiated many contracts involving intellectual property in the 3D industry.
For all of your User Materials that you post or otherwise submit to the Site, including (a) comments to Communications Venues, (b) feedback, (c) bug reports, (d) piracy reports, (e) product suggestions or (f) gallery submissions, you grant DAZ 3D and the users of this Site an unrestricted, irrevocable, non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free and fully paid up license under all Intellectual Property Rights to use, reproduce, publicly display, publicly perform, copy, edit, modify, translate, reformat, transmit and distribute such User Materials, with or without having your name attached to such Images, in any manner or form and for any purpose, with full rights to sublicense such rights through multiple tiers of distribution, and you also acknowledge and agree that DAZ 3D is free to use any ideas, concepts, know-how or techniques that you provide for any purpose without any compensation to you. You acknowledge and agree that DAZ 3D shall not be liable for any failure to store User Materials on the Site at any time.
Lets start with the governed works: (a) comments to Communications Venues, (b) feedback, (c) bug reports, (d) piracy reports, (e) product suggestions, (f) gallery submissions.
This encompasses just about everything you would submit to any DAZ venue and roughly mirrors what you would find in any agreement with any book publisher or hollywood production or distribution company (provided you aren’t a Rowling or a Lucas!) before you actually meet with them - or something very similar. In short - this is the summation of anything you’d care to share with them through the specific venue. This is very important to understand - the venue. If you use the ArtZone venue - whatever you transmit is subject to these terms. This ensures to the publisher - in this case DAZ - can treat all content other than its own or what is transmitted through another venue, to be governed under the same umbrella agreement.
…an unrestricted, irrevocable, non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free and fully paid up license under all Intellectual Property Rights to use, reproduce, publicly display, publicly perform, copy, edit, modify, translate, reformat, transmit and distribute such User Materials…
This portion is also understandable. ArtZone is a branded venue, that it turn could be recompiled into future formats. Imagine if ArtZone were considered a single work - like a single edition of a magazine or book in a single language. What these rights granted do is allow ArtZone to be recompiled into various formats that could, in the future, be considered new creative venues. Consider a new version of ArtZone that streams data through a video configuration on an iPhone, which may, at runtime, modify file formats, separate user information onto separate screens. Or, consider the attachment of a translation module that reconfigures the site to automatically appear in a foreign language - foreign translations are typically considered derivative works, but not necessarily in every legal jurisdiction. Without securing these future venue rights, DAZ could find itself required to contact and renegotiate these rights with each individual contributor.
…with or without having your name attached to such Images, in any manner or form and for any purpose, with full rights to sublicense such rights through multiple tiers of distribution…
We already covered the name attachment above - a reconfiguration for new devices could result in a break between the work and the contributor, which even if by accident, could in turn be considered a breach of contract.
Sublicensing is tricky, especially with this multiple tiers of distribution clause. DAZ is protecting itself in case it needs to sublicense ArtZone in whole or in part, for it to reach new venues in a clean way. Such a sub license may be necessary if DAZ wanted to have a Chinese partner that wanted run a collective DAZ China/ArtZone China.
…you also acknowledge and agree that DAZ 3D is free to use any ideas, concepts, know-how or techniques that you provide for any purpose without any compensation to you…
The inner artist is screaming - how dare you steal my ideas, DAZ - but this is a necessary protection both for you, as an artist, and for DAZ. When it comes to ideas and processes, there are legal jurisdictions to consider regarding rights. This is simply to avoid any question of ownership under any legal jurisdiction. This is an end-run around messy legal confrontations that could occur that could bring its business down.
If you are in the United States, you are probably already aware of the huge number of frivolous lawsuits that end up crushing the innocent under legal costs -the innocent that are just trying to defend themselves.
So - how does this protect you? Set your expectations about the information you share in any public venue, that your ideas were meant to be shared freely and willfully. If you come up with a technique which is critical to your success as an artist or designer - your secret sauce - don’t share it on ArtZone or any public venue that you do not own yourself.
