WeTransfer recently announced a change to its terms of services, which could be interpreted as allowing the right to use customer files shared for training AI models. Swift criticism from customers and industry, led them to revise the wording and remove the reference to machine learning.
The revised Clause 6.3 in the terms of service, external states: “You hereby grant us a royalty-free license to use your Content for the purposes of operating, developing, and improving the Service, all in accordance with our Privacy & Cookie Policy.”
According to BBC News, a WeTransfer spokeswoman assured, “We don’t use machine learning or any form of AI to process content shared via WeTransfer, nor do we sell content or data to any third parties.”
We, at the Society of Authors feel there is still a need for firm clarification and assurance from WeTransfer
We have invited them to “undertake unequivocally and irrevocably, in writing, that:-
- WeTransfer shall not use content which is provided to WeTransfer in connection with the Service (as defined in WeTransfer’s Terms of Service) (“Users’ Content”) for the purposes of developing, training, fine-tuning or validating any AI system or model; and
- WeTransfer shall not conduct, facilitate, enable, authorise or permit any text or data mining or scraping in relation to Users’ Content or any services provided via, or in relation to, the Service for any purpose, including the development, training, fine-tuning or validation of AI systems or models.
You can read the full letter below. We will keep you updated on their response.
