Photoshop - Dangerous to use?

Do not throw caution to the wind. Anything you create or even edit with the new Photoshop® will become property of Adobe Systems®... for all intents and purposes.

Okay, let's clarify a bit here. Intellectual Property (I.P.) rights is a big issue in the world. It always has been. Just turn an eye at what the hoopla about the music labels and movie studios cracking down on all those who file-share.

The issue is no more important, but incredibly intensified within the world of Second Life®. I.P. issues are being raised with louder and more forceful voices. What you work hard to create is yours to decide what is and is not done with it.

You rightly should retain full control.

Anyone who copies your Intellectual property - especially the intangible stuff, such as artwork, textures and photographs - is plagiarizing you. It's theft by another word. It happens quite often in Second Life (SL) and real life (RL) quite often.

Now, back to Adobe: Adobe has seen fit for the last few releases of most of their software to cram down out throats a side-application called Adobe Bridge™. It can be useful, but personally, I think it's an overweight, bloated pig whose tasks are accomplished by better tools and utilities that are either built into the operating system or via lightweight free mini-applications available on the Internet.

One of the functions of Bridge was that it provided access to Adobe Stock Photos™. Now, Adobe didn't really own a stock photo library. Rather, it was simply a clearing house for about six or seven other stock-photo resellers. Adobe sold these for them on commission.

As of April 1, 2008, Adobe Stock Photos as a service is dead.

[Indemnification: the following is strictly my opinion and conjecture and not fact. It is the conclusions I have come to based solely on my own reasoning based on what I know, suspect and have heard. So, I may be way off-base here.]

Did Adobe kill it? I don't know and I don't care. I suspect the providers all simply pulled-out as soon as their contracts were up.

However, I also suspect adobe found it to be quite lucrative and it earned them a lot of easy money.

So, what to do? Find a way to host peoples artwork and photographs... much like Flickr or Picassa... but then how to gain the rights to use all that stuff, either for your own use, or to sell... in the same way the stock photo houses do? And, how to do it without paying a single cent in royalties?

Create an online 'lite' version of Adobe Photoshop, allow anyone to use it for free, and sneak the creepy language into the terms of service that no one ever reads.

Photoshop Express link: https://www.photoshop.com/express/

The terms basically say that anything you upload to Photoshop Express is free to use by Adobe... any damned way they please - including selling it and not paying you a single cent.

News article here: http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=1477

Now, the same basic terms apply to anything you pump into or create inside Second Life. However, the difference is this: Second Life is, as Prokofy Neva calls it, a "walled garden" - it's more or less blocked-off from the rest of the world. [Second Life TOS: Intellectual Property]

So this isn't as big an issue since anything you put into SL, stays in SL (provided you lock it down according to the permissions system.)

The huge uproar and backlash has Adobe reportedly reconsidering, or at least rewriting their terms of service.

Article is here: adobe-joins-list-of-companies-not-reading-own-eulas

So, do you read the terms of service every time you sign-up for some online service? Cloud computing is becoming increasingly popular. And remember, these services will write their TOS in a way that benefits them, not you.

What's your take on it?