User content ownership and licensing terms clearly defined

Hosting user-generated content — comments, posts, uploads, profile bios — without defining who owns that content and what license the platform holds creates two opposing legal risks simultaneously. If your Terms are silent, courts may rule you have no license to display user content at all, making your core product feature unlawful to operate. Conversely, if your Terms claim ownership of user content without clear language, you expose yourself to GDPR Art. 6(1)(a) violations (processing personal data beyond the stated purpose) and user trust destruction when the clause is discovered. EU-DSA-2022/2065-Art14 requires UGC platforms to state moderation policies and content rights clearly.

Add a user content section to your Terms of Service that explicitly states ownership, license scope, and termination conditions. Do not claim more rights than you need to operate the service.

## Your Content

You retain all ownership rights to content you post, upload, or submit
("Your Content"). By posting Your Content, you grant [Company] a non-exclusive,
royalty-free, worldwide license to use, display, reproduce, and distribute
Your Content solely for the purpose of operating and providing the Service.

This license ends when you delete Your Content or close your account, except
for content other users have already interacted with (which may be retained
in anonymized form to preserve context).

You represent that you own Your Content or have the rights to post it, and
that Your Content complies with our Acceptable Use Policy.

We do not claim ownership of Your Content and will not sell it to third
parties without your consent.