Makaveli: A non-exclusive license does not grant the company ownership; copyright does. A non-exclusive license gives the company permission to use the material. This issue seems to be focusing more on the terms, which is not my concern at this point. Also, quite frankly, the poster should keep better track of his work if he is genuinely concerned about such things. He agreed to the terms, so he put himself in a position to suffer the consequences.
Trotter: One of my friends who works at the company and I have been having a similar discussion for days now. She says what about restricting the terms against x, y or z so that they would mirror what the company wants in an ethical code, and I usually think of a way that the company is already doing x, y or z.
For example, she said something like "Why don't they cut the part of the terms that say they may license or sell your material to a third party?" The thing is they might not sell your material specifically, but the company is entering deals where ALL the material posted on the website will be viewable on a third party site. So while a given video might not be repurposed for a video game, DVD, etc., it may be available elsewhere.
We keep running into things like this. It's starting to give me a headache.
That's the delightful problem with legalese. If it's too narrow, the company shoots itself in the foot (and I don't mean that in a way that it can't "exploit" users). If it's too broad, it offends users and potentially allows someone at the company to run amuck and do what they feel is appropriate with UGC.
Atomic Tofu: People have repeatedly mentioned deviantART to me. I have looked at their terms, and they seem to be the standard non-exclusive license sort of thing. However, it includes a bit after how that, if a third party downloads a work, that person may potentially violate the third party. Despite your ufortunate dial-up situation, could you fill me in on what has happened with deviantART? Perhaps an incident or two?