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  • I wonder if there is any legal standing for users to sue Reddit for a fair share of those profits. That’d be nice if it could happen. But i suspect, probably not.

    • Their TOS says they own your content in any current or future formats or derivative works.

      I’d say Reddit would win.

      • Their TOS says they own your content in any current or future formats or derivative works.

        Their ToS could say they own you and your children and grandchildren, but that doesn't make it enforceable.

        If I post a frame from the movie Akira on Reddit would any reasonable person suggest that they own not only that frame, but also the entire movie that it came from as a derivative work? There is a glut of second-hand data just like that all over Reddit, Twitter, and every other social media network, and I'm willing to bet that's also part of what's being sold.

        But hey... I'm not saying you're wrong, just that the idea that they automatically "own" the things that people post on their website is ridiculous. It's a bit like UPS or FedEx saying they own the contents of your package while delivering it.

      • The TOS shouldn't hold up in court. A contract must be an exchange of two things, eg money for a product or service. You can't say "Our service is free of charge!!!" And then in the fine print "(((But also you agree to give us everything we can take free of charge)))".

        The issue is how everyone does it. Facebook and Google started when data had no value, now they're amongst the wealthiest businesses in the world. Now, Microsoft have joined in, *even though you already pay for their products and services anyway!"

        However, the other aspect is that everyone is a victim. Lawmakers are the victim. They still haven't quite yet realised how much is being taken from them (at least $50 per year, probably more like $1,000 per year if not more for prominent figures) but they are still being abused.

        It's like that form of bank fraud, where the criminal takes pennies from accounts, hoping the user won't notice and the bank will write it off. Do it to enough people and enough times and you can make millions. They do this to everyone and they make billions.

        Either the data is public domain and they don't have to pay for it, but also cannot charge others for it, or the data is private and they must pay the author a fair share.

    • Yeah, probably not. When you sign up and agreed to their ToS, they don't "own" your content, but you grant them a worldwide, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive, transferable, and sublicensable license to use it without compensation.

      From their ToS:

      Any ideas, suggestions, and feedback about Reddit or our Services that you provide to us are entirely voluntary, and you agree that Reddit may use such ideas, suggestions, and feedback without compensation or obligation to you

      Source: A pretty good post on r/HFY, though it is on Reddit, so don't click it if you don't want to :P

      • But how many TOS have been shot down because they over reach? I don’t know. You’re probably right. It it’s still fun to imagine.

    • There is legal standing, IMO. You can't take something without consideration, and access to the website was granted free of charge while the data collection was squirrelled away in the fine print. That isn't a lawful contract, the fine print is for technicalities about the main transaction of X in exchange for Y. You can't say "we'll give you X for free!!!” then sneak into the fine print "(((you also give us Y for free)))". The structure is clearly deceptive in a manner that is designed to prevent a fair assessment of the value being exchanged.

      Insurers have to provide a "key facts page" where they summarise in plain English what you're paying for. The fine print gives the detail, but the front page is still "we give you X in exchange for Y".

      You can't build a car without paying for the nuts and bolts. Tech companies have placed themselves amongst the wealthiest businesses in the world without paying for the nuts and bolts we provide.

      Hell, even Microsoft is in on it now, even though you pay for Windows and Office 365!

      • Next question then: how do we mobilize into a class action against Reddit and google and Microsoft and whomever else?

  • This is helpful of them, once the EU court fines them, we can quickly calculate how much that will be.

  • This is the best summary I could come up with:

    Earlier this week, Bloomberg and Reuters reported that a “large unnamed AI company” — possibly Google — had entered into a licensing agreement worth about $60 million on an annualized basis.

    “[Our] data APIs are able to provide real-time access to evolving and dynamic topics such as sports, movies, news, fashion, and the latest trends,” the prospectus continues.

    “We believe that Reddit’s massive corpus of conversational data and knowledge will continue to play a role in training and improving large language models.

    Content producers, from stock media libraries to news publishers, are increasingly turning to data licensing agreements with AI vendors as chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini threaten to sap traffic.

    Vendors, in turn, have been spurred to pursue licensing agreements as they face a deluge of lawsuits alleging that they have no legal justification for training their models on data without permission or payment.

    OpenAI, for one, has agreements in place with image gallery Shutterstock as well as publishers including Axel Springer, the owner of Politico and Business Insider.

    The original article contains 564 words, the summary contains 172 words. Saved 70%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

  • Literally the only way they could become profitable.

    I'm honestly more upset at this deal (I think it was google?) than the CEO pay thing, which is all stock options and mostly ragebait.

    I expect to see them last 3-5 years and get bought out by some bit tech firm, all current execs take their payouts, sell their shares and retire.

94 comments