11 ms·

Eventbrite UA claims right to film, distribute users events

204 points by empressplay 9y ago

empressplay 9y ago
Twitter discussion https://twitter.com/branaby/status/987206339268169728 https://twitter.com/branaby/status/987206339268169728
RobertRoberts 9y ago
"By reading this comment you agree to give me $100." I think many of us here either have businesses or work for one that has a user agreement. Do we all do this just to cover our butts? It seems like such a gray area that you can have "click through agreement" up to a point. But that point where it fails legally is unknown until tested in court. Maybe a general guideline like "all services directly related to our business arrangement fall under this agreement." Then anything you pay for Eventbrite to do is available for click-through-contracts, but nothing outside of that?
pm24601 9y ago
Wow! I want to see them try this at a Google hosted event.
gnud 9y ago
This seems completely batshit insane. For example, even if you wanted to, you can't wave a magic wand and give Eventbrite a perpetual license to play a recording of music that you licensed for your event.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
krautsourced 9y ago
This is my favourite line: "You are responsible for obtaining, at your own cost, all third party permissions, clearances, and licenses necessary to secure Eventbrite the permissions and rights described above, and you represent that you have done so." Licensed some background music for your event for that specific use? Think again, from now on you have to license everything for worldwide, unlimited use, just in case Eventbrite wants to maybe make a buck off of it.
- krautsourced 9y ago
  Btw. for Germany it' 10.1 and 10.2 here: https://www.eventbrite.de/support/articles/de/Troubleshooting/nutzungsbedingungen-von-eventbrite?lg=de https://www.eventbrite.de/support/articles/de/Troubleshootin...
- skookumchuck 9y ago
  Nobody would use Eventbrite with such a clause, as it makes you liable for unforeseen costs. If the third party rights holder gets wind of this, they can charge you whatever they want as you are forced to pay. The obnoxiousness and absurdity of this clause is simply stunning.
  - cma 9y ago
    > they can charge you whatever they want as you are forced to pay. You would pay damages, possibly with a statutory minimum.
  - rhizome 9y ago
    Nobody would use Eventbrite with such a clause, as it makes you liable for unforeseen costs. Yet here we are!
- TheAdamist 9y ago
  Event playing a Beatles song, let's just film it and sell it for money, sucks for you if it costs you a million per play.
- onetimemanytime 9y ago
  Not just in case they want to sell but to also protect them (them selling your event again, is a different story). You hold an event, host it there and they will get sued if you played a Michael Jackson song. All parties are doing it for money so expect no mercy from judges.
- OnlineCourage 9y ago
  Your example would never happen. The TOS is written referring to what it describes as, "The Services," which does not include anything other than what Eventbrite does. This clause is to prevent people from posting copywrited images as their header image and forcing liability onto Eventbrite.
dawhizkid 9y ago
The answer is decentralized event ticketing obviously
- pilingual 9y ago
  I happen to be contributing to such a project: https://tixedo.co https://tixedo.co Here are some interesting reasons for it. 1. You can keep tickets as collectibles in your wallet 2. If you can’t attend an event you can create a Dutch or reverse Dutch auction. It’s just a project but we are getting interest. We are launching in a week or two. If anyone is planning an event right now, feel free to get in touch with my friend Zach zach@tixedo.co
- jlgaddis 9y ago
  I can just vaguely remember -- and I long for -- the "good ol' days" when one could simply show up at a venue and hand over cash in order to be allowed in.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- BLanen 9y ago
  Hopefully you're not shoehorning blockchain bullshit into this. Decentalization could solve stuff in this space by having the actual event-holder selling the tickets and such. Adding blockchain to it won't solve any problems that can't be solved traditionally better and easier.
  - craftyguy 9y ago
    I think (or at least hope) gp was being sarcastic. These has been a huge uptick in folks trying to blockchain all the things.
    - dawhizkid 9y ago
      I was being a little sarcastic, though if I had to name a few real world use cases for blockchain event ticketing would actually make some sense. Everyone hates Ticketmaster and resellers like Stubhub are rife with scammers. If you can build a solution using blockchain to reduce ticketing fees to 0 and enable ability to resell/transfer tickets it might work.
davidu 9y ago
Clearly this was not what they intended, and I'm sure it'll get fixed this week.
- krautsourced 9y ago
  Well they managed to translate it into different languages, with each version probably having been approved by that country's legal counsel, so I would think it highly unlikely that nobody noticed the broadness of the terms.
- jlgaddis 9y ago
  Yes, if this happens to be noticed by the media, I'm certain we'll see a press release or interview with the Chief Damage Control^W^WMarketing Officer in the next couple of days where they explain how this is all just one big misunderstanding ("no no no, we didn't mean that, we promise!") and they are working quickly and diligently to clarify and simplify their new Merchant Agreement and straighten this little issue out. A few days after that, some other newsworthy event will happen, everyone will forget about this, and we won't hear another word about it until the first lawsuit over this Agreement is announced. I think the only thing that might be missing is an indemnification clause -- although it may very well be in there (I freely admit to not reading the entire Agreement, just this section 7). That way, when the venue you've booked for your event -- or one of the participants or attendees -- decides to sue Eventbrite, they can point out how YOU promised them you had everything taken care of and so it is YOU, obviously, who is entirely to blame. For everything. I expect that elsewhere in this Agreement, however, you have likely given up any right to sue and agreed to have someone of their choosing handle any "disputes" which may arise. IF I, by chance, ever again desire to attend an event where Eventbrite is the vendor handling ticketing, I will certainly make sure that I read, very carefully, every word of any agreements they try to get me to click through during the ordering/checkout process. Considering everything I just read here, I cannot imagine the things that they will expect an attendee of an event to agree to.
  - krautsourced 9y ago
    You may want to take a look at 9 (b) of their Terms of Service then... you agree to arbitration or small claims court max. But of course you could have opted out of that (9 (i)) - if you knew that you had to do it within the first 30 days of using Eventbrite. Too late now.
ada1981 9y ago
These chumps sell tickets...and they want to own all rights to any event that sells tickets through the app? LOL. “You are responsible for obtaining, at your own cost, all third party permissions, clearances, and licenses necessary to secure Eventbrite the permissions and rights described above, and you represent that you have done so.”
jlgaddis 9y ago
Wow, I believe that I have just read (in this section 7), the longest sentence I have seen thus far in my life and I would not be surprised if I never read a longer one.
- dctoedt 9y ago
  This is far from the worst you'd ever see in a contract; see, e.g., the 416-word sentence at https://weagree.com/drafting-principles/1-general-drafting-principles/1-1-plain-english-simple-and-clear/a-short-sentences/ https://weagree.com/drafting-principles/1-general-drafting-p...
justinclift 9y ago
A possible alternative: https://eventil.com https://eventil.com Started a while back by some of the guys from (I think, it's been a while) the Ruby scene. Seems decent.
dabernathy89 9y ago
We used Tito [1] to put on Longhorn PHP [2], and we were very happy with it! They're still small enough that they respond very quickly to requests for changes / fixes as well. 1) https://ti.to/ https://ti.to/ 2) https://www.longhornphp.com/ https://www.longhornphp.com/
- nefitty 9y ago
  To clarify, Tito is event management software which the parent commenter used to organize the Longhorn PHP event. I thought this was some random spam before clicking through the links.
blatherard 9y ago
The filming clause has now been removed. https://twitter.com/eventbrite/status/988175772031447040 https://twitter.com/eventbrite/status/988175772031447040
- andrei_says_ 9y ago
  Why would I ever trust a business which thought that adding this outrageous language to their TOS is even remotely OK? For all I know they were exploring how far they can push and will always continue so.
  - JumpCrisscross 9y ago
    I’m going to e-mail them. I hope a decent fraction of this reading this do so, too. Communication is a key part of accountability.
imauld 9y ago
> You, on behalf of yourself and the Subjects, agree that Eventbrite, its successors and assigns will own all rights of every nature whatsoever in and to all films and photographs taken and recordings made hereunder (the "Recordings"), including without limitation of all copyrights therein and renewals and extensions thereof, and the exclusive right to use and exploit the Recordings in any manner, in any medium or context now known or hereafter developed, including the right to freely edit the Recordings for use or create new works from the Recordings I take this to mean that Eventbrite owns the rights to whatever they record forever and ever, somehow including copyrights. So if I wanted to sell tickets to an event and once the event was completed sell a recording of the event, could Eventbrite sue me? It states they have the "exclusive right to use and exploit the Recordings in any manner" (including use in media not yet invented). Am I interpreting this correctly?
- krautsourced 9y ago
  No, "hereunder" is the magic word here (as I see it). It should only apply to those recordings done by Eventbrite themselves under these terms, not yours. Still, good luck having an artist sign that some third party (Eventbrite) may potentially record them without recompense.
  - infectoid 9y ago
    So if it's a ticketed event (i.e. you can't enter without a ticket), would eventbrite need to buy a ticket to access the event to record it?
    - krautsourced 9y ago
      As I understand it, no.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- stordoff 9y ago
  They are claiming the full rights to use the recording they make, but this does not stop you from making your own recording of the event (though there is nothing preventing Eventbrite from then releasing a competing recording - imagine if you have an up and coming artist performing, then Eventbrite can fully exploit the recordings of those early shows should they happen to make them).
ereyes01 9y ago
I'm neither a lawyer nor a lawmaker, so I'm sure there's a bunch of nuance that makes this difficult to pull of in practice, but please... We need an enforceable law that penalizes and discourages absurdly overreaching legal agreements that doesn't require lawsuits between the participants that take years and lots of money to resolve.
- valuearb 9y ago
  The law of the market says Eventbrite is going to get killed over this.
jonnywhite 9y ago
Tickettailor.com is a good indie alternative. Easy to use and no ticket fees.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
lopmotr 9y ago
Looks like they've removed that section. 21 April has 8 sections but now it's only 7. https://web.archive.org/web/20180421071949/https://www.eventbrite.com/support/articles/en_US/Troubleshooting/eventbrite-merchant-agreement?lg=en_US https://web.archive.org/web/20180421071949/https://www.event... but in such a rush they didn't update the introduction which still mentions filming and recording.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

204 points by empressplay 9y ago

Twitter discussion https://twitter.com/branaby/status/987206339268169728 https://twitter.com/branaby/status/987206339268169728

RobertRoberts 9y ago

"By reading this comment you agree to give me $100." I think many of us here either have businesses or work for one that has a user agreement. Do we all do this just to cover our butts? It seems like such a gray area that you can have "click through agreement" up to a point. But that point where it fails legally is unknown until tested in court. Maybe a general guideline like "all services directly related to our business arrangement fall under this agreement." Then anything you pay for Eventbrite to do is available for click-through-contracts, but nothing outside of that?

pm24601 9y ago

Wow! I want to see them try this at a Google hosted event.

gnud 9y ago

This seems completely batshit insane. For example, even if you wanted to, you can't wave a magic wand and give Eventbrite a perpetual license to play a recording of music that you licensed for your event.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

krautsourced 9y ago

This is my favourite line: "You are responsible for obtaining, at your own cost, all third party permissions, clearances, and licenses necessary to secure Eventbrite the permissions and rights described above, and you represent that you have done so." Licensed some background music for your event for that specific use? Think again, from now on you have to license everything for worldwide, unlimited use, just in case Eventbrite wants to maybe make a buck off of it.

krautsourced 9y ago
Btw. for Germany it' 10.1 and 10.2 here: https://www.eventbrite.de/support/articles/de/Troubleshooting/nutzungsbedingungen-von-eventbrite?lg=de https://www.eventbrite.de/support/articles/de/Troubleshootin...
skookumchuck 9y ago
Nobody would use Eventbrite with such a clause, as it makes you liable for unforeseen costs. If the third party rights holder gets wind of this, they can charge you whatever they want as you are forced to pay. The obnoxiousness and absurdity of this clause is simply stunning.
- cma 9y ago
  > they can charge you whatever they want as you are forced to pay. You would pay damages, possibly with a statutory minimum.
- rhizome 9y ago
  Nobody would use Eventbrite with such a clause, as it makes you liable for unforeseen costs. Yet here we are!
TheAdamist 9y ago
Event playing a Beatles song, let's just film it and sell it for money, sucks for you if it costs you a million per play.
onetimemanytime 9y ago
Not just in case they want to sell but to also protect them (them selling your event again, is a different story). You hold an event, host it there and they will get sued if you played a Michael Jackson song. All parties are doing it for money so expect no mercy from judges.
OnlineCourage 9y ago
Your example would never happen. The TOS is written referring to what it describes as, "The Services," which does not include anything other than what Eventbrite does. This clause is to prevent people from posting copywrited images as their header image and forcing liability onto Eventbrite.

dawhizkid 9y ago

The answer is decentralized event ticketing obviously

pilingual 9y ago
I happen to be contributing to such a project: https://tixedo.co https://tixedo.co Here are some interesting reasons for it. 1. You can keep tickets as collectibles in your wallet 2. If you can’t attend an event you can create a Dutch or reverse Dutch auction. It’s just a project but we are getting interest. We are launching in a week or two. If anyone is planning an event right now, feel free to get in touch with my friend Zach zach@tixedo.co
jlgaddis 9y ago
I can just vaguely remember -- and I long for -- the "good ol' days" when one could simply show up at a venue and hand over cash in order to be allowed in.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
BLanen 9y ago
Hopefully you're not shoehorning blockchain bullshit into this. Decentalization could solve stuff in this space by having the actual event-holder selling the tickets and such. Adding blockchain to it won't solve any problems that can't be solved traditionally better and easier.
- craftyguy 9y ago
  I think (or at least hope) gp was being sarcastic. These has been a huge uptick in folks trying to blockchain all the things.
  - dawhizkid 9y ago
    I was being a little sarcastic, though if I had to name a few real world use cases for blockchain event ticketing would actually make some sense. Everyone hates Ticketmaster and resellers like Stubhub are rife with scammers. If you can build a solution using blockchain to reduce ticketing fees to 0 and enable ability to resell/transfer tickets it might work.

davidu 9y ago

Clearly this was not what they intended, and I'm sure it'll get fixed this week.

krautsourced 9y ago
Well they managed to translate it into different languages, with each version probably having been approved by that country's legal counsel, so I would think it highly unlikely that nobody noticed the broadness of the terms.
jlgaddis 9y ago
Yes, if this happens to be noticed by the media, I'm certain we'll see a press release or interview with the Chief Damage Control^W^WMarketing Officer in the next couple of days where they explain how this is all just one big misunderstanding ("no no no, we didn't mean that, we promise!") and they are working quickly and diligently to clarify and simplify their new Merchant Agreement and straighten this little issue out. A few days after that, some other newsworthy event will happen, everyone will forget about this, and we won't hear another word about it until the first lawsuit over this Agreement is announced. I think the only thing that might be missing is an indemnification clause -- although it may very well be in there (I freely admit to not reading the entire Agreement, just this section 7). That way, when the venue you've booked for your event -- or one of the participants or attendees -- decides to sue Eventbrite, they can point out how YOU promised them you had everything taken care of and so it is YOU, obviously, who is entirely to blame. For everything. I expect that elsewhere in this Agreement, however, you have likely given up any right to sue and agreed to have someone of their choosing handle any "disputes" which may arise. IF I, by chance, ever again desire to attend an event where Eventbrite is the vendor handling ticketing, I will certainly make sure that I read, very carefully, every word of any agreements they try to get me to click through during the ordering/checkout process. Considering everything I just read here, I cannot imagine the things that they will expect an attendee of an event to agree to.
- krautsourced 9y ago
  You may want to take a look at 9 (b) of their Terms of Service then... you agree to arbitration or small claims court max. But of course you could have opted out of that (9 (i)) - if you knew that you had to do it within the first 30 days of using Eventbrite. Too late now.

ada1981 9y ago

These chumps sell tickets...and they want to own all rights to any event that sells tickets through the app? LOL. “You are responsible for obtaining, at your own cost, all third party permissions, clearances, and licenses necessary to secure Eventbrite the permissions and rights described above, and you represent that you have done so.”

jlgaddis 9y ago

Wow, I believe that I have just read (in this section 7), the longest sentence I have seen thus far in my life and I would not be surprised if I never read a longer one.

dctoedt 9y ago
This is far from the worst you'd ever see in a contract; see, e.g., the 416-word sentence at https://weagree.com/drafting-principles/1-general-drafting-principles/1-1-plain-english-simple-and-clear/a-short-sentences/ https://weagree.com/drafting-principles/1-general-drafting-p...

justinclift 9y ago

A possible alternative: https://eventil.com https://eventil.com Started a while back by some of the guys from (I think, it's been a while) the Ruby scene. Seems decent.

dabernathy89 9y ago

We used Tito [1] to put on Longhorn PHP [2], and we were very happy with it! They're still small enough that they respond very quickly to requests for changes / fixes as well. 1) https://ti.to/ https://ti.to/ 2) https://www.longhornphp.com/ https://www.longhornphp.com/

nefitty 9y ago
To clarify, Tito is event management software which the parent commenter used to organize the Longhorn PHP event. I thought this was some random spam before clicking through the links.

blatherard 9y ago

The filming clause has now been removed. https://twitter.com/eventbrite/status/988175772031447040 https://twitter.com/eventbrite/status/988175772031447040

andrei_says_ 9y ago
Why would I ever trust a business which thought that adding this outrageous language to their TOS is even remotely OK? For all I know they were exploring how far they can push and will always continue so.
- JumpCrisscross 9y ago
  I’m going to e-mail them. I hope a decent fraction of this reading this do so, too. Communication is a key part of accountability.

imauld 9y ago

> You, on behalf of yourself and the Subjects, agree that Eventbrite, its successors and assigns will own all rights of every nature whatsoever in and to all films and photographs taken and recordings made hereunder (the "Recordings"), including without limitation of all copyrights therein and renewals and extensions thereof, and the exclusive right to use and exploit the Recordings in any manner, in any medium or context now known or hereafter developed, including the right to freely edit the Recordings for use or create new works from the Recordings I take this to mean that Eventbrite owns the rights to whatever they record forever and ever, somehow including copyrights. So if I wanted to sell tickets to an event and once the event was completed sell a recording of the event, could Eventbrite sue me? It states they have the "exclusive right to use and exploit the Recordings in any manner" (including use in media not yet invented). Am I interpreting this correctly?

krautsourced 9y ago
No, "hereunder" is the magic word here (as I see it). It should only apply to those recordings done by Eventbrite themselves under these terms, not yours. Still, good luck having an artist sign that some third party (Eventbrite) may potentially record them without recompense.
- infectoid 9y ago
  So if it's a ticketed event (i.e. you can't enter without a ticket), would eventbrite need to buy a ticket to access the event to record it?
  - krautsourced 9y ago
    As I understand it, no.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
stordoff 9y ago
They are claiming the full rights to use the recording they make, but this does not stop you from making your own recording of the event (though there is nothing preventing Eventbrite from then releasing a competing recording - imagine if you have an up and coming artist performing, then Eventbrite can fully exploit the recordings of those early shows should they happen to make them).

ereyes01 9y ago

I'm neither a lawyer nor a lawmaker, so I'm sure there's a bunch of nuance that makes this difficult to pull of in practice, but please... We need an enforceable law that penalizes and discourages absurdly overreaching legal agreements that doesn't require lawsuits between the participants that take years and lots of money to resolve.

valuearb 9y ago
The law of the market says Eventbrite is going to get killed over this.

jonnywhite 9y ago

Tickettailor.com is a good indie alternative. Easy to use and no ticket fees.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

lopmotr 9y ago

Looks like they've removed that section. 21 April has 8 sections but now it's only 7. https://web.archive.org/web/20180421071949/https://www.eventbrite.com/support/articles/en_US/Troubleshooting/eventbrite-merchant-agreement?lg=en_US https://web.archive.org/web/20180421071949/https://www.event... but in such a rush they didn't update the introduction which still mentions filming and recording.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]