Adobe released Photoshop Express this week, its first SaaS (Software as a Service) offering in the form of a free Web-based photo editing, organizing, and sharing service. The early reaction to this (naturally) beta program has been positive, but a few aggressive terms in its EULA have caused some to put down their color adjustment palettes. While Adobe has already stated that it is rewriting the terms in question, it has still joined the growing list of major software shops who aren't paying attention to their own EULAs.

Specifically, the Photoshop Express terms that got people's exposure sliders in a twist are on page two of the service's terms disclosure (unavailable as of this writing):

Use of Your Content. 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 (in whole or in part) and to incorporate such Content into other Materials or works in any format or medium now known or later developed.

In other words: uploading photos to the Photoshop Express site gives Adobe the right to do whatever it wants with them. The company could begin selling your shots as stock photography or use that killer family pic as the box art for Photoshop Elements 7, without giving you so much as a credit for the image or a dime of royalty dues.

When we contacted Adobe about the policy, a reply confirmed that someone at Adobe didn't think this was a very good policy either. From Adobe's response:

We've heard your concerns about the terms of service for Photoshop Express beta. We reviewed the terms in context of your comments - and we agree that it currently implies things we would never do with the content. Therefore, our legal team is making it a priority to post revised terms that are more appropriate for Photoshop Express users. We will alert you once we have posted new terms. Thank you for your feedback on Photoshop Express beta and we appreciate your input.

This should be good news for enthusiastic Photoshop Express users who are worried about their content rights, but the situation still highlights the growing problems that some large software developers are having with their own EULAs. Apple earlier this week was caught with a mistake in its own EULA for Safari that stated the browser could only be run on an Apple-branded computer. The company quickly fixed its license once the issue was pointed out, but Safari's been running on Redmond's OS for nearly a year with the mistaken EULA restriction in place. While Apple obviously wouldn't have sued any Windows users for running Safari, this was still a glaring mistake that makes one wonder what else users are hastily agreeing to the when they install the software.

Ultimately, Adobe's adventures with the Photoshop Express EULA sound like they'll have a happy ending, but we don't have to tell you twice that the EULA is becoming all the more important in a world where even more of our data and work is going digital and online.