A word of warning for widget authors - widget uploading terms

A word of warning for widget authors - widget uploading terms

Some of you don't read "Terms for widgets" carefully when uploading, or read it once and don't check it for changes every time you upload or update a widget. Well, you really should. Here is a paragraph that was quite shocking for me:

By uploading Content to Opera’s site, you grant Opera an unrestricted, royalty-free, worldwide, irrevocable license to use, reproduce, display, perform, modify, transmit and distribute such material in any manner, including in connection with Opera's business, and you also agree that Opera is free to use any ideas, concepts, know-how or techniques that you send Opera for any purpose.

Which means you give away pretty much all rights to decide how the widget is used by this company. For example they can modify it, bundle it with Opera Mobile preinstalled on phones or use however they want to profit from it in business and you won't see from your work a single penny or can't disagree with the use if you don't like it. You can't even delete a widget from this site once it's uploaded. I don't know when this paragraph was added, but I am almost sure it wasn't in the terms from the beginning of widget.opera.com. I'll try to check it.

I wonder what other widget authors think about these terms. Personally for me this (I suppose) change of terms is unacceptable and I will be asking Opera Software to revert it or check when this paragraph was added to the "Terms for widgets" and delete all my widget files which were not uploaded/updated after the date or delete ALL my widgets if they will be so kind. Too bad.

BTW, the same paragraph is in the terms of my.opera.com. So you basically give rights for unrestricted use of your photos, texts and ANYTHING you upload to so called "1 GB Free Space" to Opera Software ASA. So be careful what you upload.

It would be interesting to hear why the Opera legal dept. felt it necessary to include this, as I'm not a very big fan of this kind of draconian control either. Why does Opera need all these rights, really?

I don't consider this agreement to override the licencing documents I have applied to all of my widgets, but if that's Opera's stance, I would have to consider asking for the removal of all my widgets as well. I'm perfectly happy distributing my widgets from my own website if necessary.

Google, Yahoo, Flickr, Youtube, Microsoft and every other company in the world has the exact same ToS.

Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft aren't social networking sites and Flickr definitely does not have a ToS like this:

... you grant Yahoo! the following world-wide, royalty free and non-exclusive license(s), as applicable:

With respect to photos, graphics, audio, or video you submit or make available for inclusion on publicly accessible areas of the Service other than Yahoo! Groups, the license to use, distribute, reproduce, modify, adapt, publicly perform and publicly display such Content on the Service solely for the purpose for which such Content was submitted or made available. This licence exists only for as long as you elect to continue to include such Content on the Service and will terminate at the time you remove or Yahoo! removes such Content from the Service.

If you decide to remove your pictures from Flickr, they can no longer use them for any purpose. Opera, OTOH, claims irrevocable ownership rights on uploaded widgets and other content.

If you have been a member of Facebook during the past year, you would have known that they were also recently dragged through the coals for attempting to implement a similar ToS, and were forced to change it due to public outcry.

Get the facts! They are out there!

Signed.

I don't see whats the big deal. widgets are not pre-loaded by default, user can add them

they are free to download and free to use, also open source which means anybody can change them

widget authors are given credit.

pios, I don't think you understand the issue here. According to the Terms for uploading widgets (and all other user content) to the Opera network, you are giving them licence to do anything they want with your content, even if the licence you put on your content says they can't. For instance, you could put a GPL licence on code you upload for a Unite application, but according to Opera's Terms, they can ignore your licence and include code you wrote in closed-source applications that they sell on the other side of the world. They don't need to tell you, ask you, or compensate you for any content they decide could be profitable to use.

It doesn't matter if Opera is "nice" and assures us they would never do something like that. As long as the Terms allow them to do it, they are being Evil™ and treating their loyal developers and users like nameless assets.

BTW, I have updates ready to post for my Crossword and Currency Converter widgets, but I do not feel comfortable uploading them until the Terms are relaxed.

Originally posted by Old ToS:

By uploading Content to Opera’s site, you grant Opera an unrestricted, royalty-free, worldwide, irrevocable license to use, reproduce, display, perform, modify, transmit and distribute such material in any manner, including in connection with Opera's business, and you also agree that Opera is free to use any ideas, concepts, know-how or techniques that you send Opera for any purpose.

Originally posted by New ToS:

By uploading Content to Opera's site, you grant Opera an unrestricted, royalty-free, worldwide, irrevocable license to use, reproduce, display, perform, transmit and distribute such material without charge on Opera's web sites. You also grant Opera the right to modify the content if such modifications are necessary for the content to run on Opera's platform.

Opera does not claim ownership in your Content, and uploading does not transfer ownership rights of the Content to Opera.

Well, if we ever decide to remove our widgets, Opera is not obligated to discontinue offering them for download. However, the rest is a welcome change and I can definitely live with this. Thanks for listening to us humble developers!

You probably mean "ownership of your Content" though. I haven't checked, but does this ToS change also apply to other Opera Community content?

We've updated the ToS on unite.opera.com as well - http://my.opera.com/unite/blog/2009/07/06/quot-terms-of-services-quot-updated

Thanks for the feedback guys, do keep it coming