Blurb Licensing Clarification
Hi there. Hoping a Blurb staff member can clear this up asap. A fellow iStockphoto member raised a good set of questions about the user agreement here. I think I answered her question correctly, but perhaps I’m just as confused as she. Thought I’d make the confusion public so that others may also benefit from an official Blurb answer. This is my understanding: Content: Includes the text, files, images, photos, video, sounds, works of authorship, and other material. Specifically defined as either Book Content or Other Content.
Book Content: Any material that you include in the Books that you submit to Blurb for print services or that you contribute to the Books of other Members (“Book Content”).
Other Content: Any material that you post in any of our forums, share with other Members through the Services and feedback that you provide to us (the “Other Content”).
C. License to use Other Content. You hereby grant to Blurb an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, fully-paid and royalty free license (with right to sublicense) to create derivative works, reproduce, distribute and publicly display the Other Content that you post on our website in any and all media (now known or later developed) throughout the world.
Item C only pertains to Other Content. Not to your Book Content.
Not sure how they use Item C in practice, but I imagine it’s to promote Blurb and their partners. Correct? Can a staff member confirm or elaborate? Advance thanks!
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Thank you Milisa! Hi Marisa,
Thanks for writing us at Blurb!
I am sorry for the confusion. In a nutshell—no, Blurb absolutely does not take ownership of book content submitted. The BookSmart End User License Agreement (EULA)—which is available on blurb.com under the "Policies and Legal" section—is the primary legal agreement laying out the terms of use for the software. Section 6 clarifies that you retain ownership of all content submitted as part of the book creation process.
The Web Terms and Conditions primarily addresses content otherwise submitted to the web site (through forums, feedback, etc). For this type of user-submitted web content, we require a broad license (Section 8.1(b)) to do whatever we need with it as part of running our web site. This is pretty much the standard for web sites that have user-contributed content. Importantly, "Book Content"—ie content submitted through the BookSmart application as part of the book-making process—is excepted from this broad license, in line with Section 6 of the EULA.
The copyright page of your published book does say, “Portions of this book may be copyright Blurb.com,” but that’s only there to cover any of Blurb’s own original illustrations, content, and designs used in your book. This is your standard self-evident legalese, like “Caution: Coffee may be hot."
Hopefully this helps to clarify the content ownership issue, and to alleviate your concern.
Best Regards,
Milisa
Blurb Customer Support
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