Filmmakers, Flashmakers and videomakers beware: PuppetVision uncovers disturbing new terms that YouTube has recently added to its site. You may want to think twice about uploading a video, because

by submitting the User Submissions 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, and perform the User Submissions in connection with the YouTube Website and YouTube’s (and its successor’s) business, including without limitation for promoting and redistributing part or all of the YouTube Website (and derivative works thereof) in any media formats and through any media channels.

In other words, YouTube can take that video you labored over for thirty hours and sell it to somebody else. And you won’t get a cent.

Violet Blue has a post too noting more of YouTube’s shenanigans.

This is really disheartening news. YouTube was one of the best developments of the Web during the past few years. And now it looks like they’d rather defecate over its community rather than keep it shining.

[7/24 UPDATE: Valleywag has recently challenged this assertion, noting that the terms, as stated, have been up for about a year and that the license is revoked the minute that a User Submission is removed from the YouTube site. This still doesn’t take away from the possibility that YouTube could very well profit off of work before the user removes the Submission from the site, and I know I can’t be alone in hoping for a little bit of clarity here. But this addendum has been posted to reflect many sides to the story.]