Dropbox TOS snippet explained!

Pretty close to the moment after I got my "Dropbox has updated it's TOS" email, I started seeing a whole bunch of posts, all across the internet, about the "Broad Copyright" grabs that got put in. The snippet I keep seeing cited is: 'By submitting your stuff to the Services, you grant us (and those we work with to provide the Services) worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicenseable rights to use, copy, distribute, prepare derivative works (such as translations or format conversions) of, perform, or publicly display that stuff to the extent we think it necessary for the Service.'

So I thought I'd translate it for the non-lawstudent/Computer Science dual majors: The way Dropbox works, as opposed to a traditional "cloud storage drive" is savings through asset sharing. When you go to upload a file to Dropbox, the program first takes a hash (like a fingerprint) of your file and checks to see if Dropbox already has a copy. If your hash is unique, your file gets uploaded. If your hash is a copy, then instead of uploading YOUR copy, Dropbox just makes a note in your account saying "He has this file". This does two big-savings things.

1. Dropbox has to pay for storage. Less storage used, less cost for Dropbox. If 3000 people have "the same file" then Dropbox only stores one copy. Dropbox saves money.
2. Dropbox pays for bandwidth by quantity used. If Dropbox already has a copy of your file, it doesn't waste money getting another copy from you.

With that established:

worldwide: Dropbox can be accessed from all over the world. So this makes sense.

non-exclusive: If it were exclusive, then as long as you were granting these rights to Dropbox, you wouldn't be able to grant them to anyone else! So, they're actually doing you a huge legal favor here.

royalty-free : Basically, they're not going to pay you for providing you a service. This will make much more sense at the end.

sublicenseable : Dropbox leases storage from various providers, all over the net. When those providers perform their services, Dropbox needs to be able to extend them these same use rights.

rights to : Here's the list of what they are getting the right to do.

use : This sounds broad, but legally, to perform any service with an asset (like store it and transfer it over the internet) you have to "use" it.

copy : If your dropbox is linked to two computers (mine is linked to 5) and you drop a file into one; Dropbox has to copy your file to send it to the other linked computer.

distribute : The copy that went to your 2'nd computer? Dropbox distributed it.

prepare derivative works (such as translations or format conversions) of : The Dropbox app on iOS can open a viewer of some files within the app itself, often for filetypes that iOS does not have a default viewer for. To do this, Dropbox must create a derivative work. Another example is that a thumbnail image of a picture is a scaled version of that picture and thus a derivative work.

perform : If you upload a music track and share it with a friend who then listens to it with the Dropbox player... Dropbox is legally considered to have "performed" that music and could be liable for damages if you decide to be an asshat and sue them for no good reason.

or publicly display : You can "share" your Dropbox files with others by generating a link which they can click on to download the file. This link doesn't require any verification that the person has the right to download your file. This "public display" clause prevents you from suing Dropbox because you generated the link and then put it somewhere you shouldn't have.

that stuff to the extent we think it necessary for the Service. : Another big boon for the user. It restricts Dropbox by placing a sanity clause on Dropbox's rights. So if you brought suit against Dropbox for selling one of your pictures for use in a cigarette ad, this TOS wouldn't protect them (Dropbox).

So you see. It's not so bad really. Especially as far as these things usually go! If you want to read one of these posts from me that is TWICE as long... ask about the rights jacking TOS of Facebook.