MySpace, Flickr, Face Book, Photo Bucket...

I have known for a while about this disturbing News on rights grabs but this ridiculous. It is imperative that we all copyright all of out images ASAP...

Below is an email that I received from fellow ASMP colleague Jeff Caven.


Hello Colleagues,

I think it is important that as our peers fight for our copyrights in
Congress and the Senate. We support them by making everyday people and
fellow professionals aware of the blatant rights grab by image services like
Flickr.

Flickr's legal verbiage:


However, with respect to Content you submit or make available for inclusion
on publicly accessible areas of the Service, you grant Yahoo! the following
worldwide, royalty-free and non-exclusive license(s), as applicable:

1.

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 Service solely for the purposes of providing and promoting the
specific Yahoo! Group to which such Content was submitted or made available.
This license exists only for as long as you elect to continue to include
such Content on the Service and will terminate at the time you remove or
Yahoo! removes such Content from the Service.
2.

With respect to photos, graphics, audio or video you submit or make
available for inclusion on publicly accessible areas of the Service other
than Yahoo! Groups, the license to use, distribute, reproduce, modify,
adapt, publicly perform and publicly display such Content on the Service
solely for the purpose for which such Content was submitted or made
available. This license exists only for as long as you elect to continue to
include such Content on the Service and will terminate at the time you
remove or Yahoo! removes such Content from the Service.
3.

With respect to Content other than photos, graphics, audio or video
you submit or make available for inclusion on publicly accessible areas of
the Service other than Yahoo! Groups, the perpetual, irrevocable and fully
sublicensable license to use, distribute, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish,
translate, publicly perform and publicly display such Content (in whole or
in part) and to incorporate such Content into other works in any format or
medium now known or later developed.

SCARY HUH?

While I belong to Facebook for friends and networking, they have a similar
verbiage. Other than my ugly mug, I post no images on Facebook. The wild
attorney above coined a new phrase "sublicensable License" It's a "Goliath"
(Yahoo!), so they probably had a school of attorneys. They must have been in
a feeding frenzy when they wrote this. Both My Space and Smugmug have
excellent "terms of Service" regarding photographers rights.

It's a new world in realm of intellectual property. ASMP is more important
now that ever.

We must all hang together,
or assuredly, we shall all hang separately.
- Benjamin Franklin


Cheers,

Jeff