Storing projects on Google drive...concerns?

[nickture]

Hey Linux musician community,
Not sure if this topic fits in this category but if not feel free to move!
Anyways, I've been thinking about this as of late. Maybe I'm overly paranoid, but I'd like to hear your opinions on this. I keep copies of pretty much all of my completed and in progress projects in a Google drive folder, mainly because my old Thinkcentre box doesn't have a CD/DVD burner ... and because I'm lazy and Drive is always easily within reach. With all of the privacy concerns surrounding Google, especially what they do with your information in regards to ads and marketing, I'm a little worried about "ownership" of my own creations. I've never read Google's fine print for Drive (if there is any), so I'm curious to know what you all think about this. Offhand, does anyone think there could come a time where Google says "since you've been using our service for x and y, we technically can do what we want with the content in it because you agreed to the terms and conditions of said service (Drive in this case)".

Maybe I am just overthinking about a non-issue but it's sort of been bugging me. Thanks ahead of time!

[CrocoDuck]

Offhand, does anyone think there could come a time where Google says "since you've been using our service for x and y, we technically can do what we want with the content in it because you agreed to the terms and conditions of said service (Drive in this case)".

Short answer: I don't know. Best to check the terms of the agreement to be sure.

I do not think the agreement allows Google to claim ownership of the things users upload, though.

In case you believe you want to move away from Google and the like, I can mention what I did.

I made my own Nextcloud server with a raspberry pi and an old 1TB USB hard drive. More info: https://ownyourbits.com/nextcloudpi/

I have been using that for more than a year now, I think. I am fairly impressed by how easy it was to setup and how well it works. Be aware that when you setup your own cloud server, then you are responsible for your own data security and backup.

I got the hell encrypted out of mine.

[tavasti]

Anyways, I've been thinking about this as of late. Maybe I'm overly paranoid, but I'd like to hear your opinions on this. I keep copies of pretty much all of my completed and in progress projects in a Google drive folder, mainly because my old Thinkcentre box doesn't have a CD/DVD burner ... and because I'm lazy and Drive is always easily within reach. With all of the privacy concerns surrounding Google, especially what they do with your information in regards to ads and marketing, I'm a little worried about "ownership" of my own creations.

If you are worried, just add there strong encryption. gpg might be good.

[milo]

Maybe I am just overthinking about a non-issue but it's sort of been bugging me. Thanks ahead of time!

I think this particular concern is probably overboard. Imagine the optics of a lawsuit brought against Google for commandeering intellectual property from their users. It would be terrible PR for them if you could prove your case. Users would flee them like rats off of a sinking ship, which is what they would be at that point.

I think you have more to fear from their violation of your privacy than from their violation of your intellectual property.

[nickture]

I think this particular concern is probably overboard. Imagine the optics of a lawsuit brought against Google for commandeering intellectual property from their users. It would be terrible PR for them if you could prove your case. Users would flee them like rats off of a sinking ship, which is what they would be at that point.

I think you have more to fear from their violation of your privacy than from their violation of your intellectual property.

Great point(s) - I figured I was overthinking that, but sometimes things pop into your head at 3 a.m. and you can't shake them out haha! I do think it'd be a good idea to eventually store my projects on bare metal, whether it be cds or an external hard drive. Something in addition to cloud storage, ya know?

[milo]

Maybe I should amend my comments, in light of this recent news story: https://gizmodo.com/genius-claims-it-busted-google-stealing-by-hiding-a-sec-1835582388. In short, an online lyrics website called Genius claims that Google stole its content for its own lyrics service. The evidence looks pretty clear that Genius content is showing up in Google, but in the context it seems more likely that this was from negligence than from maleficence on Google's part. It's hard to read through the spin and the fog of war, but this does look like a small scale problem. And the fact that the "content" which was "stolen" from Genius was copyrighted material not actually owned by Genius means they don't really have a leg to stand on. I think this current story is probably a tempest in a teapot because no one really cares about or sympathizes with Genius. Probably it was LyricFind - or more likely an individual LyricFind user - that swiped the Genius content and added it to the LyricFind database, and then it made its way to Google from there.

So, I guess my previous comment on this thread should be a bit more nuanced. If Google steals stuff directly off of your Drive, then that would be egregious theft of IP from their user, which would make for terrible PR. I still think they are unlikely to do that knowingly, although this illustrates one way that they could do it negligently.

[folderol]

Don't put anything there at all that isn't encrypted. They will scrape it for whatever information they can get, including scanning images to see if they recognise anything. They will then not only use the information themselves, but will sell it to anyone who will pay for it.
You would be horrified at what they can discover about you, your family and friends with just a few items.

[nickture]

@milo I did see that, yes. Haven't looked to deeply into it at the moment, but it does raise some concerns on the surface. Thanks for the extra info!

@folderol yeah I don't currently encrypt anything that I store on my Drive, so that's another thing I should consider. For me it's always just been about the pure convenience of having access to use that cloud storage service within arms' reach so to speak. (I.e. I've had a Gmail account since college and all those extra Google apps just kept being added and tempted a click...) I know there are plenty of other storage/sharing platforms people on this forum use and share from. I think I'll have to take a harder look at what others use around here.

[Linuxmusician01]

Don't put anything there at all that isn't encrypted. They will scrape it for whatever information they can get, including scanning images to see if they recognise anything. They will then not only use the information themselves, but will sell it to anyone who will pay for it.
[...]

1. Is that even legal?
2. Are you sure about this?

Do you have links to where you got that information from?

[folderol]

It's not legal... unless you have very deep pockets and expensive lawyers (and are preferably based in the USA).
I'm quite sure of it. I can't remember the exact links but have seen numerous examples over the years on respected websites, including the BBC and The Register.
Not forgetting, it's easier to apologise afterwards than to seek permission first.

[CrocoDuck]

Don't put anything there at all that isn't encrypted. They will scrape it for whatever information they can get, including scanning images to see if they recognise anything. They will then not only use the information themselves, but will sell it to anyone who will pay for it.
[...]

1. Is that even legal?
2. Are you sure about this?

Do you have links to where you got that information from?

As far as I am aware, many service providers sell anonymized data collected from their users. These are normally used to train various commercial AI systems, very often AD optimizer or recommender systems. This is an example of article covering the matter of location data trade with what seems to be some reasonable sources:

https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/12/1 ... gle-amazon