Paris Tribunal strikes again and guts Google’s T&C’s…including its copyright clauses for user-generated content


Readers will recall the decision of the Paris Tribunal, which nullified a significant portion of Twitter’s terms and conditions on the basis of French privacy data protection and copyright law (see here and for previous post see here). Last month, it was the terms and conditions of Google that were subjected to judicial scrutiny, in a decision handed by the same Tribunal on 12 February 2019 (decision: Paris Tribunal (Tribunal de Grande Instance), UFC-Que Choisir v Google Inc (12 February 2019), see here for the decision in French).
As in the Twitter case, the instant proceedings were brought by the French consumer association “UFC Que Choisir?” (UFC). UFC applied to the Paris Tribunal that Google’s terms be declared unlawful in light of French contract and privacy law and data protection regulation.
In total, the Paris Tribunal reviewed 209 clauses (including two different versions of the same provisions dated 11 November 2013 and 30 April 2014, respectively). These clauses are contained in Google’s “Terms of Use” (“conditions d’utilisations”) and “Confidentiality Policy” (“Règles de confidentialité”). Within these 209 clauses, the Tribunal found 38 to contain unfair terms and declared them null and void as a result. Two of these 38 clauses (Clause 15 and 16 of the “Terms of Use”) are of particular interest because they relate to copyright.
Before going any further, it is worth noting that Google modified its terms and conditions between the start of the proceedings and the publication of the decision by the Paris Tribunal. The edited and current version of Google’s terms is dated 22 January 2019. The new version is reported to address some of the issues raised in Tribunal’s decision  regarding privacy and data protection (here).

This is, however, not the case for the copyright clauses, which feature in the current version of Google’s Terms of Use (current version is dated 22 January 2019, in English here). The current version of Google’s clauses on copyright is identical in wording as the version dated 30 April 2014 and is identical in substance to the version dated 11 November 2013. For this reason, the commentary below features the English version of the clauses at issue in the French decision in their current form (22 January 2019). The original text examined by the Tribunal in this case can be found at this end of this post.

Google’s copyright clauses on user-generated content
The English text of the two copyright clauses examined by the Tribunal are reproduced below.
Clause 15 (English version, 22 January 2019)
Some of our Services allow you to upload, submit, store, send or receive content. You retain ownership of any intellectual property rights that you hold in that content. In short, what belongs to you stays yours.*
Clause 16 (English version, 22 January 2019)

When you upload, submit, store, send or receive content to or through our Services, you give Google (and those we work with) a worldwide license to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works (such as those resulting from translations, adaptations or other changes we make so that your content works better with our Services), communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content. The rights you grant in this license are for the limited purpose of operating, promoting, and improving our Services, and to develop new ones. This license continues even if you stop using our Services (for example, for a business listing you have added to Google Maps). Some Services may offer you ways to access and remove content that has been provided to that Service. Also, in some of our Services, there are terms or settings that narrow the scope of our use of the content submitted in those Services. Make sure you have the necessary rights to grant us this license for any content that you submit to our Services.**
The position of the Paris Tribunal
In ruling on Clause 16, the Tribunal reminded the parties of the various requirements that must be complied with for a contractual licence (or the like) to be binding, especially when such an agreement is formed with consumers. Here, the court repeated the points that it made in ruling against Twitter in its 2018 decision. The Tribunal writes:
In accordance with the provisions of Article L.131-2 and L.131-3 of the [Intellectual Property] Code, the contracts by which authors’ rights are transferred must be established in writing, the transmission being  subject, having regard to the rights’ proprietary nature, to the condition that each of the transferred rights be mentioned separately in the deed of assignment and that the area of ​​commercial exploitation of the rights transferred be delimited as to its extent and destination, the place and duration. The user cannot thereby fail to recognize that he grants a licence for the full commercialisation of the content and not just its use.
Under Article L.133-2, which has become Article L.211-1 of the Consumer Code, the terms of a contract put forward by professionals to consumers must be presented and written in a clear and comprehensible manner.
In this case, the "content" supplied by the user to the Google platform, which is likely to include texts, photos and videos, may indeed be works protected by authors’ rights. However, the aforementioned clause [Clause 16] confers on the service provider a right of free use of all the content generated by the user, including content that may be protected by authors’ rights, without sufficiently specifying the works at stake, the nature of the rights conferred, and the type of uses which are allowed, contrary to the provisions of Articles L.131-1, L.131-2 and L.131-3 of the Intellectual Property Code, which require that a party benefitting from a right-assigning contract, defines the relevant content, the rights conferred, as well as the types of use allowed by the author of the content. Clause 16, which is unlawful under the above-mentioned legislative provisions, is therefore null and void.” (Kat’s translation)***
The decision then turned to Clause 15 of Google’s Terms of Use. Here, the Tribunal ruled that:
“Clause 15 must also be nullified because it recognizes users’ intellectual property rights over their content, contradicting the terms of Clause 16, which provides that users grant the online platform a full license for the exploitation of that content.
Under these circumstances, Clause 15 and Clause 16 appear contrary to the aforementioned provisions of the Consumer Law Code and will therefore be deemed null and void as being r illegal or unfair, without it being necessary to examine the other arguments submitted by the parties.”****
For more on the provisions of the Intellectual Property Code relied upon by the  Tribunal in this decision, see previous post here.

What now?
As with the Twitter decision, we will have to wait and see how Google proposes to respond to the Tribunal’s order to change their contractual terms. It is possible that the platform will appeal the decision, although one wonders whether a Court of Appeal will overturn what appears to be a straight-forward application of French law.
Going forward, Google will have to be granted a licence as users upload their content or use their services, in order for the company to lawfully secure the right to reproduce user-generated content. In the context of Google, this could involve prompting consumers to sign off their rights whenverthey produce new content, such as each time they write an email on GMAIL, submit content to Google Translate or upload their work on Google Scholar. This situation raises the same questions as with the Twitter case: is it feasible and what would it look like?

The alternative, of course, is for Google to stop using users’ content for purposes that are not covered by copyright exceptions, or… to start campaigning for the introduction of new copyright exception that allows the use of user-generated content, e.g.,  to “improve their services” [the purpose of the free exclusive licence contained in the terms of use, according to Google’s T&C’s]. Likely ?
Notes

* The original text examined in court reads : Clause n° 15 - Version du 11 novembre 2013 : « Certains de nos Services vous permettent de soumettre des contenus. Vous conservez tous vos droits de propriété intellectuelle sur ces contenus. Ce qui est à vous reste à vous. » Version du 30 avril 2014 : « Certains de nos Services vous permettent d’importer, de soumettre, de stocker, d’envoyer ou de recevoir des contenus. Vous conservez tous vos droits de propriété intellectuelle sur ces contenus. En somme, ce qui est à
vous reste à vous. »
** The original examined in court reads : Clause n°16 - Version du 11 novembre 2013
« En soumettant des contenus à nos Services, par importation ou par tout autre moyen, vous accordez à Google (et à toute personne travaillant avec Google) une licence, dans le monde entier, d’utilisation, d’hébergement, de stockage, de reproduction, de modification, de création d’œuvres dérivées (des traductions, des adaptations ou d’autres modifications destinées à améliorer le fonctionnement de vos contenus par le biais de nos Services), de communication, de publication, de représentation publique, d’affichage ou de distribution public desdits contenus. Les droits que vous accordez dans le cadre de cette licence sont limités à l’exploitation, la promotion ou à l’amélioration de nos Services, ou au développement de nouveaux Services. Cette autorisation demeure pour toute la durée légale de protection de votre contenu, même si vous cessez d’utiliser nos Services (par exemple, pour une fiche d’entreprise que vous avez ajoutée à Google Maps). Certains Services vous proposent le moyen d’accéder aux contenus que vous avez soumis à ce Service et de les supprimer. Certains Services prévoient par ailleurs des conditions ou des paramètres restreignant la portée de notre droit d’utilisation des contenus que vous avez soumis aux Services en question. Assurez-vous que vous disposez de tous les droits vous permettant de nous accorder cette licence concernant les contenus que vous soumettez à nos Services. » Version du 30 avril 2014 :
« Lorsque vous importez, soumettez, stockez, envoyez ou recevez des contenus à ou à travers de nos Services, vous accordez à Google (et à toute personne travaillant avec Google) une licence, dans le monde entier, d’utilisation, d’hébergement, de stockage, de reproduction, de modification, de création d’oeuvres dérivées (des traductions, des adaptations ou d’autres modifications destinées à améliorer le fonctionnement de vos contenus par le biais de nos Services), de communication, de publication, de représentation publique, d’affichage public ou de distribution publique desdits contenus. Les droits que vous accordez dans le cadre de cette licence sont limités à l’exploitation, la promotion ou à l’amélioration de nos Services, ou au développement de nouveaux Services. Cette autorisation demeure pour toute la durée légale de protection de votre contenu, même si vous cessez d’utiliser nos Services (par exemple, pour une fiche d’entreprise que vous avez ajoutée à Google Maps). Certains Services vous proposent le moyen d’accéder aux contenus que vous avez soumis à ce Service et de les supprimer.
Certains Services prévoient par ailleurs des conditions ou des paramètres restreignant la portée de notre droit d’utilisation des contenus que vous avez soumis aux Services en question. Assurez-vous que vous disposez de tous les droits vous permettant de nous accorder cette licence concernant les contenus que vous soumettez à nos Services. »
*** Kat’s translation. Original text reads: “Suivant les dispositions des articles L.131- 2 et L.131- 3 du même code, les contrats par lesquels sont transmis des droits d’auteur doivent être constatés par écrit, la transmission étant subordonnée, eu égard à sa nature patrimoniale, à la condition que chacun des droits cédés fasse l’objet d’une mention distincte dans l’acte de cession et que le domaine d’exploitation des droits cédés soit délimité quant à son étendue et à sa destination, quant au lieu et quant à la durée. Par ailleurs, l’utilisateur ne peut par là même méconnaître qu’il concède ainsi une véritable licence d’exploitation et non de simple utilisation.
Aux termes de l’article L.133-2, devenu l’article L.211-1 du code de la consommation, les clauses des contrats proposés par les professionnels aux consommateurs doivent être présentées et rédigées de façon claire et compréhensible.
En l’occurrence, les « contenus » transmis à la plate-forme Google l’utilisateur, susceptibles de comprendre des textes, photos et des vidéos, peuvent effectivement faire l’objet d’une protection par le droit d’auteur. Or, la clause précitée qui confère fournisseur du service un droit d’utilisation à titre gratuit sur tous les contenus générés par l’utilisateur, y compris ceux d’entre eux qui seraient susceptibles d’être protégés par le droit d’auteur, sans préciser de manière suffisante les contenus visés, la nature des droits conférés et les exploitations autorisées, contraire aux prescriptions des articles L.131-1, L.131- 2 et L.131- 3 du code de la propriété intellectuelle, lesquels imposent au bénéficiaire de la cession, de préciser le contenu visé, les droits conférés ainsi que les exploitations autorisées par l’auteur du contenu protégé. Cette clause n° 16, illicite au regard des dispositions législatives précitées, sera donc réputée non écrite.
**** Kat’s translation. Original text reads : “La clause n° 15 doit être également annulée en ce qu’elle reconnaît de manière contradictoire des droits de propriété intellectuelle sur les contenus diffusés par les utilisateurs alors que l’opérateur numérique s’aménage dans le cadre de la clause n° 16 suivante une véritable licence d’exploitation sur ces mêmes contenus.
Dans ces conditions, ces deux clauses n° 15 et n° 16 apparaissent contraires aux dispositions précitées du code de la consommation et seront donc réputées non-écrites en raison de son caractère illicite ou abusif, sans qu’il soit dès lors nécessaire de poursuivre la discussion sur les autres moyens échangés entre les parties.

Paris Tribunal strikes again and guts Google’s T&C’s…including its copyright clauses for user-generated content Paris Tribunal strikes again and guts Google’s T&C’s…including its copyright clauses for user-generated content Reviewed by Mathilde Pavis on Friday, March 15, 2019 Rating: 5

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