Coming to all July 1, 2015, All Your Copyrighted material, Trademarked, Intellectual Ideas, and Much More will belong to Paypal if you use their services.
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https://www.paypal.com/ie/webapps/mpp/ua/upcoming-policies-full?locale.x=GBAmendment to the PayPal User Agreement.
Intellectual Property
We are adding a new paragraph to section 1.3., which outlines the licence and rights that you give to us and to the PayPal Group (see paragraph 12 below for the definition of “PayPal Group”) to use content that you post for publication using the Services. A similar paragraph features in the Privacy Policy, which is removed by the addition of this paragraph to the User Agreement. The new paragraph at section 1.3 reads as follows:
“When providing us with content or posting content (in each case for publication, whether on- or off-line) using the Services, you grant the PayPal Group a non-exclusive, worldwide, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, sublicensable (through multiple tiers) right to exercise any and all copyright, publicity, trademarks, database rights and intellectual property rights you have in the content, in any media known now or in the future. Further, to the fullest extent permitted under applicable law, you waive your moral rights and promise not to assert such rights against the PayPal Group, its sublicensees or assignees. You represent and warrant that none of the following infringe any intellectual property right: your provision of content to us, your posting of content using the Services, and the PayPal Group’s use of such content (including of works derived from it) in connection with the Services.”
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I’m switching to Google Wallet or something else. Paypal lost me.Wow lost me too, PayPal. That’s seriously uncool.
Wait WAIT. Although I strongly dislike PayPal and avoid using it for my transactions because I dislike their business model and methods, this situation is a mistaken reading of legal user agreements. It is a common misunderstanding. I used to write and edit contracts for artists and other guests in the gallery I worked for 6 years so I’ve explained similar misunderstandings many, many times… The most important thing to remember about “legalese” is that every word literally counts, and also the context of the section in which the line is included. Also, the words “license” and “rights” are much, MUCH different than “copyright” in a legal document, even though we use them interchangeably in common speak.
The key line here is “when providing us with content or posting content using the Services”.
Context: This is Section 15.5, in Section 15. Capitalized letters have specific definitions in Section 15, and the definition of “Services” is “all payment services and related products available through the PayPal website(s).”
Section 15.5 are both referring to “content” as in the words/descriptions, images like your business logo that you will soon be able to upload to their services and content aka the name of your business that you filled in the “Business Name” box, etc. The content is basically the words and pictures you fill out in their forms for them to make the transaction happen.
From their wording and seeing as how they are splitting from eBay this year, it is likely they’re going to make a eBay/etsy/aliexpress/Amazon/redbubble/Society6/zazzle-style marketplace site. For the record, most services, companies, profit and non-profit galleries, etc that allow you to upload or submit content have similar wording in their agreements, because to cover their ass when they show your logo on their website and services.
Your intellectual property and copyright on your website are unaffected by this, as are the copyright over the sales you make. They are using legalese to protect their ass for having your business’ logo on their system while you’re using their Services (using paypal).
“a non-exclusive, worldwide, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, sublicensable (through multiple tiers) right to exercise any and all copyright, publicity, trademarks, database rights and intellectual property rights you have in the content, in any media known now or in the future”
This is really long-winded (which is often needed for legal documents unfortunately because “common sense” and “assumptions” are subjective and subjectivity does not work in a court of law) but it is basically saying “this is copyrighted to you but we are allowed to have it on our server; don’t sue us.” So if you upload a thumbnail of an item you’re selling to their marketplace, or just submit the title of your business or comic book title or something, and they have it on their database or website, you cannot sue them for them having your copyrighted logo/title/content on their website.
I’ve had to explain this so, SO many times to artists that signed my gallery’s contracts…. I don’t discourage this, by the way, because I think it’s important to be vigilant about your rights and content. When legalese is written broadly it’s to protect the business the vast majority of the time from being taken advantage of, but there is that percentage that will take advantage of others, so reading legal documents and learning how to understand them is important!!!!
This is why the NEXT section, Section 15.6, is most important and directly refers to Section 15.5, and should not have been left out of the original post:
“15.6 License Grant from Merchants to PayPal. Section 15.5 notwithstanding, if you are a Merchant using PayPal Merchant services, you hereby grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, transferable, sublicensable (through multiple tiers), and royalty-free right to use and display publicly, during the term of this Agreement, your trademark(s) (including but not limited to registered and unregistered trademarks, trade names, service marks, logos, domain names and other designations owned, licensed to or used by you) for the purpose of (1) identifying you as a merchant that accepts a PayPal service as a payment form, and (2) any other use to which you specifically consent.”
Section 15.6 directly limits the license (of using your business name, logo, item titles, descriptions) only to the Paypal services and sites that you have consented to. This mean they are not talking about selling your logo and your item thumbnail to an advertising firm or using it for any other means than having it available for the service you are using it for.
Hopefully that will help clear things up for y’all. 🙂
Reblogging this because CONTEXT is among the most important things ever in a legal document, and people do not understand why it is a really bad idea to misconstrue by taking something in a legal document out of context.
ayyyyy check that out, thanks krillinside
Ok read this one instead