Photoshop Express

I know I am a little late on this one but Adobe Photoshop Express Beta launched on Wednesday of this past week. I did not have time to play with it until this morning. It seems pretty cool. It is a free version of Photoshop Express to do online preparation for uploading photos to websites. It is great for those who travel and do not always have access to their full version of Photoshop. Or it could be a boon to schools who can't afford a site license for Photoshop because a single copy is out of some price ranges. It is very cool that now everyone can use the famous Adobe tool; another leveling of the playing field, a flattening of the world and the classroom.
But, like everything else that is “free” on the web, there are strings. And apparently these strings are attached forever to your photos. According to C/net News, Adobe wants creative control over your content. There is a statement in the user agreement that I didn't read -does anyone read those things before agreeing to use a product online? Anyway, the statement reads like this:

“Adobe does not claim ownership of Your Content. However, with respect to Your Content that you submit or make available for inclusion on publicly accessible areas of the Services, you grant Adobe a worldwide, royalty-free, nonexclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, and fully sublicensable license to use, distribute, derive revenue or other remuneration from, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, publicly perform and publicly display such Content and to incorporate such Content into other Materials or works in any format or medium now known or later developed.” *

So what are we signing when we agree to use this product? I would hate to edit a picture on the Photoshop Express site and then have it show up in a “how not to take pictures” video from Adobe later down the road. I also would hate to be a bride and find my wedding pictures on an Adobe commercial. Supposedly Adobe is modifying its terms of agreement but I think I am just going to hold off using it with pictures of my students, I am going to hold off teaching it to my elementary students too. I need to play with it a bit more before I open it up to everyone. I also have to check and see if my school district even will allow us to use it since it means uploading photos to the site and we have no control over the photos once they are uploaded. Remember what David Pogue said at PETE & C... "content on the web does not stay where you put it."