Toni has a bitch about MySpace claiming ownership of all user content.

The troublesome fine print informs users that by posting any content, “you hereby grant to MySpace.com a non-exclusive, fully-paid and royalty-free, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense through unlimited levels of sublicensees) to use, copy, modify, adapt, translate, publicly perform, publicly display, store, reproduce, transmit, and distribute such Content on and through the Services.”

Sounds dire. But Myspace.com spokesman Jeff Berman says not to worry. “Because the legalese has caused some confusion, we are at work revising it to make it very clear that MySpace is not seeking a license to do anything with an artist’s work other than allow it to be shared in the manner the artist intends,” Berman says. “Obviously, we don’t own their music or do anything with it that they don’t want.”

Not a million miles away from:

By submitting Content to Automattic for inclusion on your Website, you grant Automattic a world-wide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, modify, adapt and publish the Content

Let’s see, what does MySpace do that WP doesn’t? Sublicensing? Well, they publish RSS feeds which any splogger can grab and republish, and there’s no option to turn those off. And most of MySpace’s claimed rights are tautological: what distinction can one make between ‘copy’ and ‘reproduce’? Which of them aren’t covered by ‘reproduce, modify, adapt and publish’?

There is nothing wrong with any of this; it’s perfectly standard legalese, and without these rights they couldn’t handle any content at all. I just think it’s odd that this guy seems unaware of his own company’s terms of service.