OP is 100% right about their shady business practices and general shitty behavior; there are plenty of reasons you should be concerned for MindGeek buying tumblr. But that opening statement is incorrect. As long as they have an operation base in the US, they must comply with DMCA and do not legally own the work you produce or upload.
Here is Pornhub’s policy:
For clarity, you retain all of your ownership rights in your Content. However, by submitting Content to the Websites, you hereby grant the Websites a worldwide, irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicenseable and transferable license to use, exploit, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, communicate, and perform the Content in connection with the Websites’s (and its successors’ and affiliates’) business, including without limitation for promoting and redistributing part or all of the Websites (and derivative works thereof) in any media formats and through any media channels.
Here is Youtube’s Policy:
For clarity, you retain all of your ownership rights in your Content. However, by submitting Content to YouTube, you hereby grant YouTube a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicenseable and transferable license to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, publish, adapt, make available online or electronically transmit, and perform the Content in connection with the Service and YouTube’s (and its successors’ and affiliates’) business, including without limitation for promoting and redistributing part or all of the Service (and derivative works thereof) in any media formats and through any media channels.
tl:dr: Your work is yours, they just have the right to use it (for their business) without asking. Most social media sites share this policy, Twitter and Soundcloud included.
You can sue individuals who repost your art for damages, if the repost became very popular and you can prove you lost income over it. If someone who worked at the company sold your work to a third party, you could sue that employee, you just can’t sue the company because you gave the company the right to use it.
To use super real law terms, it’s a ‘you wouldn’t even BE here without me’ agreement, not at all known as a Piggy-Back Clause, because that’s not a real thing, it’s just what I like to call it. You use their platform to promote your work, they use your work to promote their platform, and so it goes.
Still, again, OP is right about MindGeek being shitty and here are OP’s commented links for ease of access:
TechCrunch Twitter Thread
titsay
tangentwithtanner
pixelskylines
gummygunk
