Concerns raised over content ownership, terms with Adobe Photoshop Express service

New questions are cropping up about the terms of use for Adobe Systems' new photo editing software service, Photoshop Express. The company says it owns the rights to some of the content you make with Adobe Photoshop Express. And then there's the Big Brother concerns.

In the Use of Your Content section, Adobe states that it doesn't claim ownership of user content. However, any content you share on the site is under its perpetual thumb.

However, with respect to Your Content that you submit or make available for inclusion on publicly accessible areas of the Services, you grant Adobe a worldwide, royalty-free, nonexclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, and fully sublicensable license to use, distribute, derive revenue or other remuneration from, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, publicly perform and publicly display such Content (in whole or in part) and to incorporate such Content into other Materials or works in any format or medium now known or later developed.

Adobe blogger John Nack posted a response from the Photoshop Express team. It may be that the lawyers got out in front of the marketing message.

This afternoon I got the following note from the Photoshop Express team:

We've heard your concerns about the terms of service for Photoshop Express beta. We reviewed the terms in context of your comments - and we agree that it currently implies things we would never do with the content. Therefore, our legal team is making it a priority to post revised terms that are more appropriate for Photoshop Express users. We will alert you once we have posted new terms. Thank you for your feedback on Photoshop Express beta and we appreciate your input.

However, users of the SaaS (software as a service) should understand that working on images over the Internet isn't the same thing as in the privacy of your own office (and/or bedroom).

In addition, customers should understand that the company can pull the plug on your use of this SaaS at any time.

Adobe reserves the right to revoke the authorization to view, download and print the Adobe Materials and User Content at any time, and any such use shall be discontinued immediately upon notice from Adobe.

In addition, there's a long, long list of the things that you agree "not to use, or to encourage or permit others to use" to do with Photoshop Express. Of course, some cover illegal actions, IP rights, hate speech and other obvious problems of social sites. And users are warned not to attack Adobe servers or infiltrate the site with malware.

But then there's stalking (not that I'm into stalking but it's about who makes the determination). And what about not a rule not to "impersonate any person or entity, or falsely state or otherwise misrepresent your affiliation with a person or entity.

Here are the reservations at the bottom of the list:

•Disrupt, interfere with, or inhibit any other User from using and enjoying the Site, Services or Materials, or other affiliated or linked sites, services or Materials; •Access or attempt to access any Material that you are not authorized to access or through any means not intentionally made available through the Site or Services; •Market any goods or services for any business purposes (including advertising and making offers to buy or sell goods or services), unless specifically allowed to do so by Adobe; •Reproduce, sell, trade, resell or exploit for any commercial purpose, any portion of the Site, the Services or any Materials, use of any Service or Materials, or access to any Service or Materials; and •Use any data mining, robots, or similar data gathering and extraction methods in connection with the Site, Services or Materials.