Controversy Over Walmart Canada Photo Centre’s “Rights Grabby” Terms
If you’re the type of photographer who’s wary of the rights you sign away when using most photo-sharing services, you might want to avoid having your photos handled by Walmart Canada’s Photo Centre. Reddit user Plerophoria noticed the following section in the service’s Terms and Conditions:
You grant to Walmart Canada Corp. a non-exclusive, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, unrestricted, world-wide right and license to access, use, copy, reproduce, distribute, transmit, display, perform, communicate to the public, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, and otherwise use such Materials (in whole or in part) in connection with the Site and/or the Products, using any form, media or technology now known or later developed, without providing compensation to you or any other person, without any liability to you or any other person, and free from any obligation of confidence or other duties on the part of Walmart, its affiliates and their respective licensees;
It’s fairly common these days for companies and services to grab more rights than they need for their operations, just to cover all their bases and protect themselves from painful lawsuits. Costco and Walmart USA don’t have such “grabby” terms, though.
Update: Alex of Walmart contacted us with the following note:
I wanted to let you know that Walmart Canada Photo Centre customers can be assured their images have not been used by the company for any purpose other than those requested by the customer. The intent of the terms and conditions currently posted to Walmart Canada’s Photo Centre website is to ensure a third party could process the images in accordance with customers’ instructions.
Updated terms and conditions have been drafted as part of a planned update to the Photo Centre website. In view of concerns expressed by customers, we will publish the updated terms and conditions in advance of the overall site update.
Image credit: Walmart Clareview – Entrance by markyeg
