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Twitpic makes deal with news agency to sell users' uploaded photos

nytimes.com

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Re: Twitpic makes deal with news agency to sell users' uploaded photos

#21

Post by gojomo »

_ouxp wrote: post #9

I don't think I ever agreed to a TOS. I upload using an API client.

Websites also offer 'terms' that you might never be forced to read (or actually read), but would still have some presumptive legitimacy in the absence of other customs: giving the site the right to curtail your use, or limiting your claims against the site. A court could reason, "What, did you think the service was free, with terms totally in your favor, in the absence of any other guidance?"

You might be able to argue ignorance/non-assent and then have them cease some objectionable reuse; you probably couldn't ding them for big damages because you thought you retained all rights.

Re: Twitpic makes deal with news agency to sell users' uploaded photos

#22

Post by dendory »

daimyoyo wrote: post #20

When the story of twitpic's TOS broke, I immediately deleted all the pictures I'd uploaded and changed to Mobypicture. It's not as good, but their TOS says in no uncertain terms "All rights of uploaded content by our users remain the property of our users and those rights can in no means be sold or used in a commercial way by Mobypicture or affiliated third party partners without consent from the user." I like that.…

Did the same thing, deleted all the images I uploaded to that site. There's dozens of sites out there, no point in using that one.

Re: Twitpic makes deal with news agency to sell users' uploaded photos

#23

Post by ChuckMcM »

antihero wrote: post #17

From their TOS: "All content uploaded to Twitpic is copyright the respective owners. The owners retain full rights to distribute their own work without prior consent from Twitpic. It is not acceptable to copy or save another user's content from Twitpic and upload to other sites for redistribution and dissemination. By uploading content to Twitpic you give Twitpic permission to use or distribute your content on Twitpi…

Nah, they put it under the right to sublicense.

I think this is a great move, if it kills TwitPic (which one presumes will be the outcome if WENN puts enough pictures into distribution, and DMCA-bans folks)

That will help clarify what this is "worth" (since WENN will either make money on this or not) and it will help folks figure out what's what with the TOS stuff.

Re: Twitpic makes deal with news agency to sell users' uploaded photos

#24

Post by marshray »

_ouxp wrote: post #15
jcasman wrote: post #8

I'm trying to imagine a scenario where I post a pic, they sell it in one of their publications, then sue when someone else also uses it. I think it sounds ridiculous, but isn't this one of those legal scenarios were it's possible but not probable? No, I'm still not happy about the principal of it.

Also, users don't assign copyright, they merely (if the users have actually agreed to these terms) grant TwitPic a non-exclusive license. All someone has to do to get around it is tweet @ you and get your permission to use the image instead of getting TwitPic's (or their affiliate's) permission.

Right. That suggests that the value of WENN is mainly going to be as a convenience clearinghouse for quick and easy licensing of the images.

Don't post it on TwitPic unless you want it to be used by others. WENN/TwitPic may get paid but, probably no one's going to get much out of any individual image either.

Re: Twitpic makes deal with news agency to sell users' uploaded photos

#25

Post by hristov »

itswindy wrote: post #7
MichaelGG wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The user agreed to assign all rights to the image when uploading the image. Any user suing to the contrary would have to say they didn't really agree. More interesting is when some user uploads a photo they found elsewhere, to which they don't have the copyright.

I am not a lawyer but I know that a contract has to be fair and obey other laws to be valid.

This is a complex issue, but there is no general fairness requirement in contract law. There are some concepts that relate to fairness, such as consideration and unconscionableness, but they are not a fairness requirement, there are fairness requirements in specific narrow cases (usually in agency situations), but it would be wrong to say that in the general case a contract has to be fair to be enforced.

None of this is legal advice, just broad overview for the purposes of a purely academic discussion. There are a lot of details that are omitted, so do not rely on anything said here but consult your own attorney instead.

Re: Twitpic makes deal with news agency to sell users' uploaded photos

#26

Post by jeffgreco »

Obviously it isn't great for users, but as somebody who licenses photos on a daily basis, this is fantastic. Trying to track down the origin of and acquire the rights to internet photos on a tight schedule is a real pain, and working with WENN is not.

Re: Twitpic makes deal with news agency to sell users' uploaded photos

#28

Post by potatolicious »

daimyoyo wrote: post #20

When the story of twitpic's TOS broke, I immediately deleted all the pictures I'd uploaded and changed to Mobypicture. It's not as good, but their TOS says in no uncertain terms "All rights of uploaded content by our users remain the property of our users and those rights can in no means be sold or used in a commercial way by Mobypicture or affiliated third party partners without consent from the user." I like that.…

This is why I use Flickr - they are similarly unambiguous about their terms of use. They even issued a statement reiterating their position when the Twitpic brouhaha broke initially.

Re: Twitpic makes deal with news agency to sell users' uploaded photos

#30

Post by smackfu »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #11
jonknee wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have to agree anything to upload? The official Twitter iOS app lets you upload photos to twitpic and I don't think you need to create an account or anything.

The agreement might be rolled into the one you agree to when you use the app.

The agreement should be rolled into the one you agree to when you use the app.

If it's not, I guess you can go after the app developer's for damages.

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