The popular Git Repository hosting service used by many open-source projects Github recently adopted a new Terms of Service.
I am puzzled by the implications of the License Grant Section. Which is reproduced below for reference:
- License Grant to Us
Your Content belongs to you, and you are responsible for Content you post even if it does not belong to you. However, we need the legal right to do things like host it, publish it, and share it. You grant us and our legal successors the right to store and display your Content and make incidental copies as necessary to render the Website and provide the Service.
That means you're giving us the right to do things like reproduce your content (so we can do things like copy it to our database and make backups); display it (so we can do things like show it to you and other users); modify it (so our server can do things like parse it into a search index); distribute it (so we can do things like share it with other users); and perform it (in case your content is something like music or video).
This license does not grant GitHub the right to sell your Content or otherwise distribute it outside of our Service.
It also includes an additional License Grant to Github's Users.
Particularly content that is posted to Github does not always belong to one user - it may for example be a project where many contributions from different collaborators were made under one the GPL or BSD licenses. All of which include for example, required attribution.
While I or another user may personally may be in a position to give Github and Github User's a License Grant for my work; as far as I understand I can do no such thing on behalf of other users that made their contributions under the GPL or BSD family of licenses (unless a CLA specified that one may grant additional licenses beyond those under which they made their contributions). Since Github appears to indemnify themselves -
you are responsible for Content you post even if it does not belong to you.
Does that mean that Github users uploading GPL or BSD licensed projects whose contributors have not explicitly given Github or Github User's License Grants as per the ToS are doing something potentially illegal?