Use AIM? Check Their New Terms of Service

AOL’s Terms of Ser­vice Update for AIM Rais­es Eyebrows

The revamped terms of ser­vice, which apply only to users who down­loaded the free AIM soft­ware on or after Feb. 5, 2004, gives AOL the right to “repro­duce, dis­play, per­form, dis­trib­ute, adapt and pro­mote” all con­tent dis­trib­uted across the chat net­work by users.

“You waive any right to pri­va­cy. You waive any right to inspect or approve uses of the con­tent or to be com­pen­sat­ed for any such uses,” accord­ing to the AIM terms-of-service.

Although the user will retain own­er­ship of the con­tent passed through the AIM net­work, the terms give AOL own­er­ship of “all right, title and inter­est in any com­pi­la­tion, col­lec­tive work or oth­er deriv­a­tive work cre­at­ed by AOL using or incor­po­rat­ing this [user] content.

“In addi­tion, by post­ing con­tent on an AIM Prod­uct, you grant AOL, its par­ent, affil­i­ates, sub­sidiaries, assigns, agents and licensees the irrev­o­ca­ble, per­pet­u­al, world­wide right to repro­duce, dis­play, per­form, dis­trib­ute, adapt and pro­mote this con­tent in any medi­um,” it added.