If I’m understanding the DocStoc TOS, it refers to people who download stuff through the “DocStore,” not people who view things through the standard free upload service.

This seems like the section you might have more trouble with:

5.2 License Grant to DOCSTOC

Unless otherwise agreed to in a separate written agreement between You and DOCSTOC signed by an authorized representative of DOCSTOC:

a) By distributing or disseminating User Content through the Site, You hereby grant to DOCSTOC a worldwide, non-exclusive, transferable, assignable, fully paid-up, royalty-free, license to host, transfer, display, perform, reproduce, distribute, compress or convert for distribution, and otherwise exploit Your User Content, in any media formats and through any media channels, solely in order to publish and promote such User Content in connection with services offered or to be offered by DOCSTOC. Such license will apply to any form, media, or technology now known or hereafter developed.

b) Subject to section 5.3, below, the license granted by You in Section 5.2(a), above, terminates as to a specific piece of User Content once You remove or delete such User Content from the Site.

c) By uploading User Content, You hereby warrant that Your User Content is free of any digital rights management, including any software designed to limit the number of times User Content may be copied or played.

5.3 License Grant to Other DOCSTOC Users.

By distributing or disseminating User Content through the Site, You hereby grant to each User that is authorized to access Your User Content a non-exclusive license to access and use Your User Content under the terms indicated by You when You uploaded such User Content. Notwithstanding the foregoing, You hereby grant to each User that is authorized to access Your User Content at least a limited, non-exclusive, personal license to view and download such User Content in the manner contemplated by these Terms and the Site. The foregoing license granted by You terminates as to a specific piece of User Content once You remove or delete such User Content from the Site provided, however, that User rights to such User Content arising out of distributions occurring on or prior to deletion of such User Content from the Site survive any termination or expiration of the license granted in this section.

Apparently, DocStoc does allow Creative Commons licensing. And I’m personally sick of the legalese in a lot of these TOS’s (see, e.g., YouTube and FaceBook). Where is our Consumer Protection Agency for copyright licensing?

Thanks for the response.

Docstoc terms of service: “DOCSTOC reserves the right to share Your contact information, including but not limited to, Your email address, Your postal address and Your telephone numbers, with certain providers of Documents, whose Documents You have purchased on, or downloaded through, the DocStore (the “Document Providers”).”

Scribd License Grant to Download: “Subject to Your compliance with the terms and conditions set out in this Terms of Use, Scribd hereby grants to You a personal, limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, freely revocable license to view and download User Content solely through the Scribd Platform subject to the license under which such User Content is distributed.”