Adam Kalsey, the creator of Zempt (one of the very first desktop blogging tools) writes in his weblog about some “curious” language in the Writer end-user license agreement:

by posting or otherwise providing your submission, you are granting to the public free permission to: use, copy, distribute, display, publish and modify your submission, each in connection with the service; (emphasis Adam’s)

I want to thank Adam for bringing this language to light because it certainly may have bothered other folks. First and foremost I want to emphasize that the license agreement does NOT have an impact on the ownership or copyright of content authored with Writer. This is not the intention, implication, or effect of the license. I want to state this as emphatically as possible so that no one need be worried about it.

The confusion may be arising as a result of our product using the global Windows Live license agreement which applies to all Live products and services. As such, it covers both standalone desktop products as well as services which may host end user authored content. This language applies to “materials” which are submitted and then re-published by an online service (as opposed to “materials” created using a standalone tool like Writer).

I apologize on behalf of Microsoft for not including language more unequivocally clear, and I will work the right people here to get this fixed!