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Yep! Twitter is gonna make a fortune off your drunken night at Chili's
Posted by: ZuDfunck |
October 18, 2010 1:45 PMLet's see. . . you use a free service and then want them to promote your restricted material and give you the profits. . . hmmm... yeah, I would like that deal also.
This really sounds like much to do about nothing. Let me see, I have a photo that I want to sell at some point but show it off on twitter. How can I do that without loss of my property? Well, maybe make a low res thumb of your image and upload that with slight modifications, like a watermark, then the original image is still yours to do with as you please, isn't it?
I don't know but this sounds a bit ridiculous. How many problems would arise if such services allowed everyone to copyright everything they submit? Well, when you think of it it's really funny. . . people complain about every company suing every other company over patents and how those sofware patents shouldn't be allowed yada, yada, but WAIT!!! when it comes to my precious picture that I'm going to upload via a free service. . . I WANT IT PROTECTED!
Posted by: gpeasy |
October 18, 2010 1:55 PMThis article, and all of the other articles that this stemmed from, contains a fundamental misunderstanding about the definition of "Content" in the context of Twitter. Twitter's "Content" is the 140 characters and any metadata stored and served by Twitter. Anything that requires a URL to access (i.e. a link shared on Twitter) is not considered "Content" in the context of Twitter's ToS (from http://twitter.com/tos "any information, text, graphics, or other materials uploaded, downloaded or appearing on the Services (collectively referred to as 'Content')").
This may become an issue if Twitter were to—say for example—buy TwitPic or create their own Photo Sharing tool. And yes, there is potential legal concern with the way that their Media Pane system works in the #newtwitter UI design, as it does state "appearing on" but for their license to apply to the content of their Media Pane, it would require that the license from the service allowing their content to be displayed to be sub-licensed. Prior to the Media Pane in #newtwitter, I would have said this is a complete non-issue. Now, it's just something to "watch" and, if you're really worried about it, don't use services that work in the Media Pane.
tl;dr: This article is vastly misleading. "Content" is the text in a tweet and anything you upload directly to a Twitter website, not to a third-party service or your own servers.
You should know better, RWW.
Posted by: Michael Owens |
October 18, 2010 1:57 PMThis is a significant development for professionals, and it's worth noting to the general public. I wonder how often the people at Twitter might acutally take advantage of this...? The web seems to get more "open" every day, something we all need to be aware of.
Posted by: David Perdew |
October 18, 2010 1:57 PMThis is about lawyers and their constant need to prove value to their clients (whom they charge absurd hourly rates to).
A number of lawyers take this approach (non-exclusive license; right to reproduce, sub-license, etc.). Other, more reasonable lawyers take more of the BasecampHQ approach to managing data on behalf of someone (albeit, under paid accounts).
If Twitter ever tried to resell a photo that was uploaded, they would (most likely) run afoul of a range of Copyright Laws while they try to uphold their T&C which are one-sided and were never reviewed by their User's attorney's in a fair and reasonable negotiation. Additionally, if a Minor uploads photos, without parental consent, good luck appropriating those under their T&C.
If Twitter had strong management, who had more experience, they'd fire the lawyer who wrote the T&C and say, "thanks, bye." Then, go find an attorney who's more forward thinking.
Posted by: Bob |
October 18, 2010 2:04 PMI agree with @MichaelOwens on this, mostly a non-issue. From the TOS,
"...information, text, graphics, or other materials uploaded, downloaded or appearing on the Services (collectively referred to as “Content”)."
So it looks like photos you upload to Twitter (your profile pic and background image) can be used by them, but your linked photos are not uploaded to Twitter so they don't count as "Content" in the TOS.
The only gray area I see is photos appearing in the media pane, since the definition of content includes "appearing on the Services," so avoid using twitpic and the like and there is no issue.
tl;dr +1 to @michaelowens' point
Posted by: aaron.pk |
October 18, 2010 2:27 PMSo, if my photo is hosted at my paid Flickr account and it's labeled "All Rights Reserved" but I send a link to my photo to Twitter... who owns it now?
Posted by: Erin |
October 18, 2010 2:32 PMSeriously? This is a surprise to anyone? People share pictures on Twitter (and third party pic services) because they want the world to see it and SHARE it. Professional photos aren't posting their masterpieces on TwitPic.
Posted by: Russ Hill |
October 18, 2010 2:39 PMMichael Owens said much what I came to say so I won't repeat him.
Based on the false logic of this article, you are implying that if I share a link to a NY Times article, Twitter can use the content from that article to their hearts content. Obviously false.
Anyone can put anything they want into a TOS but that doesn't mean its legal.
Posted by: Jmartens |
October 18, 2010 2:43 PMI am not an expert on this topic, but I believe companies (like Twitter) need to have clauses like this in the TOS to protect themselves from copyright violations. They need the freedom to copy, modify, and reproduce contributed content as well as the right to move it around in on their servers. Technically wouldn't Twitter be violating copyright if the original author didn't approve of how their content was being used, displayed, or modified by Twitter? I was given this notion from different company's rep that deals with online content distribution. Although, the way companies word their TOS make many people worry about losing control of there IP.
Posted by: bobsbag |
October 18, 2010 3:32 PMI don't believe this is as casual as some of the comments indicate; nor, is the Post so off-track.
Twitter are acquiring both photo and video developers to bring this all in-house.
To @bobsbag's point -- yes, Twitter need some non-exclusive publication right, within the boundaries of their service (even extended to the future to some degree); or, even a self-extending license based on a User not deleting files. What Twitter do NOT require is an unrestricted License coupled with the ability to sell, transfer or in any manner profit from the direct licensing of content (they can sell ad space around it and use it for promotional purposes).
Now, yes, anyone would be a fool to post anything on nearly any "free" service out there if they intend to use it commercially themselves. But, I'd look to Flickr's T&C for a better model than what Twitter provide. There are a slew of alternatives out there, only a high paid lawyer will tell you they "must have these draconian T&C."
Posted by: bob r. |
October 18, 2010 5:33 PMObviously false.
Anyone can put anything they want into a TOS but that doesn't mean its lega
Posted by: ogame |
October 18, 2010 8:30 PMSorry but their is no way that this can be legit or enforced. adding a URL to a permalink that contains an embedded image and/or download links to higher quality versions of that image (or other media) does not give Twitter the rights defined in the ToS. Even if this were the legal intentions by Twitter's lawyers and business executives, I have to assume that this would not hold up in a court of law... that is if the terms are not properly modified before a case were to ever get that far.
As for the issue of displaying media on the #NewTwitter Right Side Column used for presenting supplemental meta data, media and eventually ads..... This is not really an issue since only official content partners can use this real estate and those services ToS already apply. I have been waiting for over a month (contacted contentpartnerships@twitter.com) to learn more about the content embedding situation. I'd assume that their would be a whitelisting process and then twitter would utilize common tech to fetch and display media from approved domains (oembed, link rel & meta tags). Ideally, Twitter would also pull in License info when specified and content creators would use preview/watermarked versions of their media for display inside Twitter.com while reserving the high quality media as separate embeds/links on the URL/page.
Posted by: sull |
October 18, 2010 9:19 PMThe problem is people don't try to understand legalise, and try to understand the tech terms for the same. Now lets look at the part of the ToS he has quoted.
use, copy(copy from photo sites to display them within twitter, pic may be copied to cache), reproduce(retweet), process, modify and adapt (reduce 2mb pic to may be 100kb before displaying it), publish (just in case someone decides to print a twitterfeed from a browser?), transmit (send across the internetz), display (duh!) and distribute such Content (retweet!)
"You agree that this license includes the right for Twitter to make such Content available to other companies, organizations or individuals who partner with Twitter for the syndication, broadcast, distribution or publication of such Content on other media and services, subject to our terms and conditions for such Content use"
You know, people use Twitter API and I think that's what they are talking about here. So please stop freaking out, really!
If there's a newsworthy pic you have taken, the agencies will contact you and not twitter. Do they really think Twitter would employ somebody to handle silly requests from media like this? Really?Posted by: | Balu | |
October 19, 2010 12:08 AMNon-issue.
This is a standard language to protect company from people who would upload stuff onto a content distribution service and then sue the same service for copyright infringement. Check Yahoo's, for example:
"With respect to Content you submit or make available for inclusion on publicly accessible areas of Yahoo! Groups, the license to use, distribute, reproduce, modify, adapt, publicly perform and publicly display such Content on the Yahoo! Services solely for the purposes of providing and promoting the specific Yahoo! Group to which such Content was submitted or made available."
Posted by: twitterer |
October 19, 2010 12:30 AMWell, Twitter can use the photos, and they can even sell them further. So if they appear on magazine covers, tough luck.
However, for use in advertisements, pictures of people need a model release. So there are limits to what the images can be used for. But in general, yes. Twitter (and Facebook) can do pretty much what they want or dare with the content they are sent.
Most of the legalese is there to make the actual service possible, but eg. Twitters ToS goes beyond that.
Posted by: Tarmo Toikkanen |
October 19, 2010 12:39 AMThis might be beneficial for twitter but I don't think that general public would like this. This seems disturbing to any pro photographers who tweet their photographs.
Posted by: street bike accessories |
October 19, 2010 2:18 AM
Getting out of recessions is much like the old joke that if you treat a cold, you'll get over it in seven days; otherwise, it takes a week. If government helps, a recession lasts four quarters, but if it doesn't, the recession lasts a year. The trouble is, the government helped a lot this time (TARP, multiple stimuli), and the recession lasted a year and a half, longer than usual. We are supposed to trust the experts that things would have been even worse without their help.
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