Avid Artist Community vs. Cloud Collaboration

[Marsdy]

I am wondering if the two are one and the same thing i.e. Are they both bound by the same license agreement?

I simply will not be able to use the services of the Avid Artists Community due to the terms of the license agreement. Namely this clause.

LICENSE TO POSTED CONTENT
By submitting the Posted Content for publication on the Site, you grant to AVID, and its subsidiaries, affiliates and cloud service providers, a perpetual, worldwide, royalty-free, irrevocable, sublicenceable, non-exclusive right to use, reproduce, display, modify, distribute, store and create derivative works based upon (in any format whatsoever) the Posted Content for any purpose.

This is in direct contravention to my existing publishing agreements. It makes this service totally unusable without being in breach of my agreements. That's not going to happen.

That's a shame but not a big problem because I am quite happy with my existing publisher.

My concern is, will the same license agreement, or something similar be applied to Cloud Collaboration? If so, Avid CC is also going to be completely useless to me and no doubt many other of your professional users.

[taylor4814]

Even though non-exclusive?

[Marsdy]

Originally Posted by taylor4814

Even though non-exclusive?

The point is, I have already assigned exclusive rights to my publisher. I am legally bound NOT to assign them anywhere else, non-exclusive or otherwise.

[Southsidemusic]

Same here.

Universal Music Group would never allow us to use anything that is bound by those words and meanings ever No Go here unless we only use our private demo ideas as those aren't bound by these restrictions.

[taylor4814]

Hopefully this does not apply to simply collaborating in Pro Tools via the Cloud...

[Marsdy]

Originally Posted by taylor4814

Hopefully this does not apply to simply collaborating in Pro Tools via the Cloud...

Indeed. Unfortunately the TOS mentions assigning rights to

cloud service providers

.

That implies to me a similar TOS may apply for CC.

PLEASE don't do this Avid. Has Avid built a significant infrastructure at significant cost here that many simply will NOT be able to use for contractual reasons?

I'm no lawyer but I simply don't understand why there has to be any such clause in the terms of service anyway.

I showed my publisher the Gobbler TOS which were very similar. He just laughed. I can't repeat what he had to say about it due to forum rules!

[nigelpry]

I may be missing something, but not doing it for contractual reasons doesn't seem to be the only reason not to post material up.

The terms as stated allow them to freely do whatever they want with whatever you post up, forever.

Contract or not, that sounds like a bad arrangement, and it is likely to be fatally detrimental to any future contract you may be offered.

Well clear is where I'm staying.

[mattrixx]

Mmm, that's just plain terrible. Be sure to spread the word about this people!!

[Marsdy]

Originally Posted by mattrixx

Mmm, that's just plain terrible. Be sure to spread the word about this people!!

Just don't use the service. If the TOS for Cloud collaboration is the same it's useless.

As for Avid Marketplace, nobody makes any money out of the Internet anyway. If I look at my online royalties compared to my broadcast royalties. Well it's a few pounds versus the price of an S6 to avoid paying unnecessary tax according to my accountant.

[dr_daw]

I tried to ask about this during the cloud collab webinar the other day and no one responded. They did respond that these two things will be closely knit. I think it's one of those things that we'll just have to wait and see. In the webinar Avid will not be setting up the market place in that capacity to pay artists, although it is in their plan. For the time being in reality, the cloud will simply be a more integrated 'Dropbox' system. As for the ToS, no one seemed to want to answer my questions.

For me it didn't matter once it was pointed out to me that SoundCloud, CBCmusic and various other free streaming products have much of the same terminology. I'm also not signed to any exclusive rights contracts with a publisher; I'm the rights holder. I do, however, understand the implications of this to those who are. Furthermore, how it disables those to participate...those who are the ones that we, the unsigned, would like to collaborate with! :P