Scott Bourne in a post he made on his Photofocus blog pointed out Twitter's Terms of Service (TOS) stance on content shared on the popular social media website. Photos on Twitter. What you should know By my reading of it, they use the word "content" not photos specifically. ; Does this include not only photos shared but links to blogs, websites, message boards and maybe even private journals? My beef? ; Why the heck do they need to grab all rights (except Copyright)? ; The way I understand this, they could take any of my blog posts and create an Ebook from them and I have no right to any of it as long as they give me credit for using it. ; WTF!?! While I know this may seem unlikely, their TOS gives them the power to do so. ; Or am I totally wrong about this?
They use content so they don't have to describe something that doesn't exist yet, like perhaps mobile video or something.... I don't see how they can legally take something that is hosted offsite. ; If you post a link to a pic, the "content" is the link. If you post a pic via TwitPic does it show directly in the browser or do you have to click on a link? ; That is a difference....
A good example would be: ; I guess, legally, they would have the right to publish a book called: "Stuff Chad Ochocinco Tweets" And I thought that the tweets about the pigeon going into labor were faked. ; Sheesh.
I don't know, Roger. ; I could see how a lawyer could argue the link encompasses the "content" it represents. ; As Scott points out, if he shares a photo via Twitter, he can not then sell rights to it as Twitter now owns those except the Copyright. ; You granted Twitter those rights by 1.) agreeing to the TOS and 2.) by posting it via Twitter. I hope I am getting around that by using photos which are not the originals, are low res and have my copyright on them. ; Pretty useless stuff. ; I do worry about the content on my blogs, however. ; I posted a couple of questions to Scott but who knows who is actually doing the posting. ; I just do not understand why Twitter, Facebook, contests which accept content and other websites NEED to have such stuff in their Terms of Service? ; Scott said is it for their protection but wouldn't something like we are not responsible for content posted do that? ; Or, since they are "free" services, they feel such rights are appropriate so they can create salable items from the content posted to recoup their costs. I could see where a book of famous person's tweets would be popular. ; Hell, a book on the best photos ever posted might be too!
Scott indicated those services have similar TOS. ; I am sure the Best Camera app I use does too. ; iPhone photos I am not too worried about though.
Who knows what they are thinking when they approve TOS? ; The lawyers job is to protect their client when writing it, so there you go. Maybe they just want the right to use a screenshot of your post in an ad/commercial without asking or paying you for it? ; Only they know. But they have to watch it, I'm betting that TOS are starting to get noticed in legal communities as something that has questionable legal value. ; Autodesk has affirmed that when you buy a software CD, you're really only paying for a lifetime lease of the software, so you don't have the right to resell it. ; I'm sure Adobe will be jumping on that bandwagon as well. ; But I know it'll attract attention if and when a website actually does something...peculiar.
there is an easy way to stop all this theft of ownerhsip rights as i think of it don't use the service, if enough people stop and do this short term for their own good, you can bet the TOS will change in a hurry
Scott did a follow up article today with excellent links to other articles which really help to clarify things. An Update to My Post on Twitter's Terms of Service Seems he was worried about the new Twitter which embeds photos from certain other services they have made agreements with. ; So, in essence, links to photos seem to not fall under Twitter's TOS but (hey, it's about law and lawyers so you know there has to be a 'but') if it ever gets argued in a court of law, let us all pray the lawyers arguing for the photographer comes up with a way to explain it to a judge. ; :
