Reddit started doing what they always wanted to do, sell user content to AI.
Reddit started doing what they always wanted to do, sell user content to AI.
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I don’t mind to give my content for AI training. But with my approval and for free.
You can't put conditions on it retroactively. You already published.
I am not trying to do that retroactively.
"But with my approval and for free" are new conditions that weren't present when you originally published it on Reddit.
Yes, but I did not mean retroactively. Nor did I mean only on Reddit, by the way. However, making money from already published content is not what I have consented when I joined Reddit like 15 years ago.
From the current Reddit User Agreement:
You retain any ownership rights you have in Your Content, but you grant Reddit the following license to use that Content:
When Your Content is created with or submitted to the Services, you grant us a worldwide, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive, transferable, and sublicensable license to use, copy, modify, adapt, prepare derivative works of, distribute, store, perform, and display Your Content and any name, username, voice, or likeness provided in connection with Your Content in all media formats and channels now known or later developed anywhere in the world. This license includes the right for us to make Your Content available for syndication, broadcast, distribution, or publication by other companies, organizations, or individuals who partner with Reddit. You also agree that we may remove metadata associated with Your Content, and you irrevocably waive any claims and assertions of moral rights or attribution with respect to Your Content.
I found a historical version from 10 years ago and that version already had this:
you agree that by posting messages, uploading files, inputting data, or engaging in any other form of communication with or through the Website, you grant us a royalty-free, perpetual, non-exclusive, unrestricted, worldwide license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, translate, enhance, transmit, distribute, publicly perform, display, or sublicense any such communication in any medium (now in existence or hereinafter developed) and for any purpose, including commercial purposes, and to authorize others to do so.
Haven't dug up anything earlier than this, do you know of any?
Basically, you gave Reddit your approval long ago.
Yep, they changed it.
Did you use the service in the last 10 years?
Yes I did, but it is not clear if these are enforceable in court, when they give us read those multi page agreements that most people skip. More over AI like today did not exist and one can easily argue that that agreement does not cover data use for AI like chatGPT, since neither of the side understood implications for that. It is like owning nukes is not covered by second amendment.
Well, I guess you could take them to court.
The important thing here IMO is not so much the enforceability as the intent. It was always obvious that Reddit would do whatever they wanted with the stuff we published there because they said they would do whatever they wanted with the stuff we published there. Personally, I knew this and just shrugged because it's no skin off my back if they do whatever they want with the stuff I published there - I was having fun posting, which was my goal. If they figured out some way to make those posts valuable then bully for them. They weren't otherwise valuable to me so it costs me nothing.
It's the same here on the Fediverse. When I post this stuff I'm tossing it out into the ether. It's on an open protocol intended to broadcast my comments to any compatible instances, so even if there isn't some literal terms of service that I signed that says "this content may show up on Threads or wherever" I know that it might show up on Threads or wherever. If I was truly fundamentally opposed to that then I wouldn't post.