Part 2: my morning so far: gooogle video, blogs and lifehacker

jacobs email to me:

Hey Zack --

Thanks for your feedback.  I certainly may be misreading the TOS -- I'm
not a lawyer by any stretch of the imagination -- but I do think I have
some legitimate concerns with the TOS.  I've sent a 
letter to Google
asking the questions I have directly (also posted at
http://jacobian.org/recipes/archives/2005/04/14/open-letter-to-
google/), and I think that clarifies most of my objections.

I don't really have any problems with the searching, 
indexing, or in
any way using my content in aggregate, but their TOS 
allow them to, for
example, splice their own commercials into your video.  
Now, if I've
made a movie then has some really killer pacing, I'm 
not going to be
very happy with a 30 second ad for mouthwash halfway 
through the
pivotal scene.

Ads being shown *along side* the content are par for
 the course these days, but the TOS is vague about 
exactly what types of advertising will be used.

There's a similar amount of vagueness in the clauses
about revenue sharing and bandwidth.  You're right that it's perfectly reasonable for
them to try to defray their costs, but there's no indication about what
constitutes "exceptional" bandwidth consumption, or how much they'd
charge.  If I upload a video that gets slashdotted, for example, Google
is allowed to bill me -- but nowhere do they indicate what they're
allowed to charge.  If my video is popular, I could end up with a bill
for *any amount* that I would be obligated to pay *just because I
agreed with the TOS!*

Do you really not see the problem with that?

As for the reverse engineering clause: first off, it's may be illegal
-- see, for example, "The Law & Economics of Reverse Engineering" at
http://ist-socrates.berkeley.edu/~scotch/re.pdf.  Secondly, I'm not
sure of your level of technical expertise, but as a programmer myself
let me assure you that the only way for someone outside of Google to
create a third-party version of the uploader will be to reverse
engineer the program or protocol.  I'm one of those weirdoes who
doesn't have a Windows machine, so even if I figure out how to write my
own version of the uploader (hint: it's not a very difficult task), I
could get sued if I use said program, and probably would if I
distributed it.

As for "spamming wont be stopped by being pissy about what site does
what with the info" -- you're completely right, but I'm not going to
voluntarily give my information to a company that explicitly states it
won't protect my privacy.  You're also right that Google's usually
pretty good about this sort of thing; the Google Video TOS is really
the first departure from very strict privacy policies.  That's why it's
important.

Again, thanks for your feedback,

Jacob

And then, my email back to him. as i say in the email, i feel like most of his arguements are pretty relative. but he is misreading something, and thats whats important. to me at least.

my email:

> There's a similar amount of vagueness in the clauses
> about revenue
> sharing and bandwidth. You're right that it's
> perfectly reasonable for
> them to try to defray their costs, but there's no
> indication about what
> constitutes "exceptional" bandwidth consumption, or
> how much they'd
> charge. If I upload a video that gets slashdotted,
> for example, Google
> is allowed to bill me -- but nowhere do they
> indicate what they're
> allowed to charge. If my video is popular, I could
> end up with a bill
> for *any amount* that I would be obligated to pay
> *just because I
> agreed with the TOS!*
>
> Do you really not see the problem with that?
>

hey -

everything else is pretty relative, but in this case...i think youre misreading the ToS.
they say they reserve the right to charge a fee if the bandwidth gets to be too much. they DONT say they are charging YOU a fee, as the the uploader.
the system works like this:
you upload.
if you want, you charge a fee to anyone who wants to view.
if you dont want to charge you dont have to.
if you dont charge, and the video is slashdotted, then google has the right to set a fee on their on - for viewers. not for you, as the original uploader...

could i be wrong? sure.

do i answer my own questions? sometimes.

thanks

zack