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Well, ToS are rarely to be taken at full value. It obviously differs between countries, but in many countries, ToS cannot override the law, or might even already be invalid, if they contain things that a customer can not reasonably expect to be in there. So, no selling of souls through ToS.

Similarly, it is perfectly valid to take your grievance to the media, if the ToS contain such bullshit. Almost no one reads the ToS, so a company asking you to sign off your rights in it, is an asshole company that deserves shaming.




A casual home user sure, but this is a professional commercial film producer. This can hardly have been the first time he'd had to deal with contractual distribution rights. If anyone should have been able to understand the consequences of that EULA, he's clearly one of them. However it does seem this usage was not covered by the EULA.


I suspect this is more of a PR issue than a legal one. Google might not want too many youtube users than necessary realizing what they lose by posting their videos on youtube (you kind of still own it, but we can use your video pretty much any way we want, too). Too many unhappy users invites regulation


As another example, many record companies upload very popular music artists to youtube. Also large media companies such as disney upload their songs and animations. If google turned around and started selling these for a profit, we would all conclude google was getting a bit ridiculous.

In fact, you could say that the lawyers from these companies quite rightly determined that google's TOS are legally unenforcable and go against the spirit of the law.




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