[ NOTE: I am not a lawyer (just someone who reads TOSes and EULAs obsessively), and the following might not apply in your jurisdiction anyway, so it should definitely not be construed as legal advice -- if you need a legal opinion, please consult a lawyer, preferably one specializing in IP law. ]

On Tue, 2006-07-25 at 14:08 +0930, Janet Hawtin wrote:

cafe press now claims rights to your artwork.

I think that's a bit misleading -- the two rights claims in their TOS are ss. 4.3 and 6. First:

4.3 Licensing Your Content to CafePress.com. You will retain ownership of the Content that you upload to the Web Site. You hereby grant to CafePress.com a royalty-free, worldwide, transferable, nonexclusive, right and license to use such Content, in all media existing now or created in the future, as CafePress.com deems necessary to enable you to use the Create & Buy Service to create, produce and purchase Products for so long as your Content remains uploaded to the Web Site. CafePress.com may sublicense the rights that you grant it in this Section to a third party subcontractor only for purposes of producing your Products and providing the CafePress.com Service.

This is a non-exclusive license limited to what CafePress "deems necessary to enable you to use the Create & Buy Service to create, produce and purchase Products". It's intended to protect them from situations like where someone tries to demand royalties or damages from CafePress on account of their use of the artwork to make or sell the products on the person's behalf.

Can this be abused? Yes, because the interpretation of that condition is left to CafePress' discretion (although there may be legal limits to that discretion). On the other hand, the license grant is not perpetual and can be revoked by withdrawing your content.

The only other IP claim is section 6:

6. Submissions.

When you submit questions, comments, suggestions, ideas, message board postings, material submitted via web forms, contest entries, communications or any other information ("Submissions"), you grant CafePress.com permission to use such Submissions for marketing and other promotional purposes, including the right to sublicense. You agree that CafePress.com will have no obligation to keep any Submissions confidential. You will not bring a claim against CafePress.com based on "moral rights" or the likes arising from CafePress.com's use of a Submission. This Section does not apply to your Content that you use in connection with the Create & Buy Service or Shopkeeper Service.

This explicitly doesn't apply to your artwork or to any store/product content (but it is the reason I don't touch the CafePress community forums).

printmojo is an alternative that doesnt.

Actually, Printmojo's TOS includes the same sort of license grant as CafePress' section 4.3 (for exactly the same reasons):

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS

PrintMojo does not own anything you upload to our servers.

You retain all rights to your artwork, designs and intellecutal property.

To legally operate, we need to have the ability to use the images you upload. This is called a license. Your PrintMojo account allows you to give us a free license to use the images for the following purposes:

Printing onto items your buy as inventory to sell in your shop. Creating product shots and ads to help you promote your store.

We will always say the images we use of yours are yours.

You are free to use your images with any other service.

Admittedly, there are three differences to CafePress' section 4.3:

1. The language seems less precise overall (hopefully they had a lawyer check it out).

2. The scope of the license is much narrower than the one CafePress requires (very good).

3. They don't specify how the license may be terminated or whether it is transferable (which is bad).

How big a problem is #3? My guess is not much, given the limited scope of the license, but that's REALLY a question for a lawyer. I'd tend to think those things are normally spelled out for a reason.

-mental