Earlier this month, the popular mobile video editing app CapCut updated its terms of service – and the internet isn’t happy about it. But as TikToker’s complaints over the updates rack up millions of views, I think the change highlights a more universal truth: We need terms of service that the average person can understand.
The updated terms of service include a clause that states that users give CapCut “an unconditional, irrevocable, non-exclusive, royalty-free, fully transferable (including sub-licensable), perpetual, worldwide license to use, modify, adapt, reproduce, make derivative works of, display, publish, transmit, distribute and/or store your User Content.” The following paragraph then details a “worldwide license to use your username, image and likeness.”
The “Unconditional, irrevocable” license granted to CapCut for user-generated content has understandably angered many users. But among the TikTokers complaining about the new terms, there are a number of others pointing out that the previous terms had a similar irrevocable license, along with the fact that TikTok and Instagram have similar language in their terms of service.
Liscah Isaboke, Esq. explains in an article that the legalese means that users still own their content, but the part of where the internet’s fury comes from includes the “irrevocable,” which means once granted, users can’t take the rights to their works, and that the terms apply to any content uploaded to CapCut’s server, which may include drafts saved to the cloud.
Users have to grant social media platforms a license to store and distribute content; otherwise social media would be a boring blank page. But do social media apps and editing software need an irrevocable license to sell that content? As one TikToker points out, that clause likey covers things like sharing a TikToker’s page in an ad for TikTok, or sharing use case studies of successful users.
The TikTokers conflicting videos highlight a concerning trend: many users don’t fully understand the terms of service, and I suspect a large percentage agree to the terms without reading them in full. Beyond the controversial irrevocable license to sell, the controversy highlights another issue, which is that the terms of service are rarely easy to understand.
Case in point: Some users have taken to ChatGPT to get help with deciphering the terms and what they mean. The AI seems to agree that the terms heavily favor CapCut and highlights similar concerns over giving them “everything, forever.”
The CapCut terms of use do go on to add a bit more explanation: “This means that you are granting us the right to use your User Content without the obligation to pay royalties to you or any third party…”
I will leave the deciphering of the new terms – and whether or not to continue using Cap Cut – to the lawyers and legal experts. But I think the pushback from the updated terms also highlights a need for clear, concise terms that the average person can understand.
Another recent example of this is Adobe, which updated its terms of service over confusion over whether or not those terms gave the company permission to train AI with users’ content. (Adobe says it uses Adobe Stock for AI training, but doesn’t use content outside Stock for training.) The updated terms of service come with a layman's term summary of each section (albeit it’s the legal agreement and not the summaries that are legally binding).
This creates a clever picture of what, exactly, the terms spell out in a way that most users can understand – and I think more platforms should take a similar approach.
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