Vultr backed down, but so what?

(Quick note, because very busy day.)

Vultr had a rights grab in their ToS. They just took it out, after community outrage.

So, is everything fine?

Nope.

This is exactly what Findaway tried. I’ve read the whole ToS. There is no misunderstanding.

The CEO has said that users are not lawyers. I am not a lawyer, true. But I deal with a lot of intellectual property contracts. My books are intellectual property, and I have to read ToS and contracts for every one of them. When reading a contract, you have to assume that the other party will be sold to a complete bastard who will exploit the contract as far as possible.

It’s highly unlikely that Constant Contact (Vultr’s parent firm) would use a book stored on my site to make a film. But suppose their parent company did so. A film I didn’t want made would come out, destroying the value of any film I might have made. I could sue, spending my money to fight a much larger firm. This is a losing proposition.

Perhaps Vultr’s lawyers are merely incompetent.

But their parent firm is a content company. And many content companies are doing rights grabs.

Rights grabs are becoming more common, though. I believe that the only way to stop them is to stop doing business with any company that attempts one. Backing down from a rights grab is too late.