PlayStation Network ToS Updated — All Your Information Are Belong to Sony

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PlayStation Network ToS Updated — All Your Information Are Belong to Sony

Fri, Oct 17, 2008

So, enjoying your new PS3 firmware 2.5 update? Liking the Flash 9 support? Looking forward to using both in conjunction with LittleBigPlanet to generate some user-created content, oh, about a week from now? Well, there's something you ought to know: effective two days ago, anything you make or do on PlayStation Network belongs to Sony, forever and ever, to do with whatever they choose. According to new terms of service dated October 15th, 2008, just by using PSN, you have given Sony the right to sell your information and user-generated content to third parties.

Clicking on the link immediately above, the large quantities of red ink may make it look like Sony's PSN policies have drastically changed, but that's actually not the case -- the line "SCEA reserves the right to monitor and record any online activity and communication throughout PSN and you give SCEA your express consent to monitor and record your activities," for instance, has been around since the very beginning. Sony simply highlights every changed paragraph in red, no matter how small the change. But using Microsoft Word's handy-dandy Compare and Merge Documents feature, we were able to quickly compile a list of the exact changes between now and Sony's last ToS update in July -- among which we found one heavily revised section: "User Material and Information."

12. USER MATERIAL AND INFORMATION SCEA may provide ~~all users~~ others, including but not limited to its subsidiaries or affiliates, with information relating to your participation on PSN, including your communication and game play. provided through PSN ("Information"). You hereby authorize SCEA to use, distribute, copy, display, and publish ~~information relating to your game play~~your Information for ~~gaming purposes~~any legitimate business purpose, including tournaments and ranking, without payment to you. In addition, you will have the option to post, stream or transmit content such as pictures, photographs, game related materials, or other information through PSN to share with ~~the PSN community~~others ("User Material"), provided no rights of others are violated. To the extent permitted by law, You authorize and ~~sub~~license SCEA ~~the~~ a royalty free and perpetual right to ~~authorize anyone to~~ use, distribute, copy, modify, display, and publish your User Material ~~in any manner on~~ for any ~~medium~~reason without ~~payment~~any restrictions or payments to you, or any third parties. You further agree that SCEA may sublicense its rights to any third party, including its affiliates and ~~you~~ subsidiaries. You hereby waive all claims, including any moral rights, against SCEA, its affiliates and subsidiaries for SCEA or any other third party's use of User Material ~~and game play information, as~~ to the extent permitted by applicable. law. By posting, streaming, or transmitting any User Material, you represent and warrant that you have the appropriate rights to use, post, distribute, and transmit the User Material and to grant SCEA the ~~rights stated in the~~ foregoing ~~sentence.~~license. You further agree to cooperate with SCEA in resolving any dispute that may arise from your Information or User Material. SCEA reserves the right to remove any Information or User Material at its sole discretion.

As you can see, there aren't many words being changed around here... but the ones that have been, change the entire meaning of the passage. Where originally this segment allowed Sony to provide information regarding your gameplay to other users of the service for gaming purposes and authorized Sony to distribute that gameplay information as they see fit, now you are granting Sony "a royalty free and perpetual right" to distribute ANY information transmitted over PSN, not limited to gameplay but also including "communication," for any reason they choose to, to anyone they choose to, "for any legitimate business purpose." Moreover, and perhaps most chillingly from a consumer affairs standpoint, Sony is free to grant anyone else the very same rights to distribute your information. Even if you happen to trust Sony with your personal information and LBP content, do you trust every one of Sony's affiliates? Can you even name them?

Caveat creator -- and you might want to have a look at Sony's most recent privacy policy while you're at it. It was also modified October 15th.

For the full compared-and-merged PSN Terms of Service, click here.