[MRRiley]

Found an interesting summary on Virtual Photography Studio of the portions of the terms-of-service (TOS) related to ownership and usage licensing of photos (and other IP) currently in force on most of the major Social Networking sites...



They also analyze just what the clauses say in plain english...

Mike

[eddie1960]

thanks Mike, nothing there I hadn't figured out, aside from I'd never heard of Posterous who have the best terms, I'll have to look and see what they are about.
I stripped FB of all my content except a few snapshot type items a quite a while back and if i want to share there i back link to my Flickr
Same thing on Myspace (though I barely even use it now)
I Never post pics to twitter and don't use Instagram either (yfrog looks ok on terms for posting a cell pic to flickr)

[RioRico]

What I don't see (maybe I didn't look hard enough) is a definition of "posting an image". Does this mean arranging for an image to be seen on those social sites, or does it only mean uploading a picture file directly to their servers?

For instance: I have my own site on a web.hosting service. If I hotlink a picture on my site to a social site, I've made the image visible there WITHOUT moving it to the social site's servers. Disadvantage: It eats into my site's bandwidth. Advantage: I haven't given away my image. Or have I?

NOTE: I don't display images on social sites, so this is all a hypothetical for me. But the answer may influence others.

[MRRiley]

What I don't see (maybe I didn't look hard enough) is a definition of "posting an image". Does this mean arranging for an image to be seen on those social sites, or does it only mean uploading a picture file directly to their servers?

For instance: I have my own site on a web.hosting service. If I hotlink a picture on my site to a social site, I've made the image visible there WITHOUT moving it to the social site's servers. Disadvantage: It eats into my site's bandwidth. Advantage: I haven't given away my image. Or have I?

NOTE: I don't display images on social sites, so this is all a hypothetical for me. But the answer may influence others.

No idea but thats certainly a good question. You'd probably have to dig into the TOS for the site in question... I guess it could depend on if a linked image got cached on their site.

[RXrenesis8]

How does pentaxforums.com's ToS stack up?

[RXrenesis8]

OK, so I looked through it and this is what pentaxforums.com has:

[...] all posts made become property of the Forum.

But also:

All uploaded photos and files are copyright of their original authors, and the Forum does not take responsibility for any material uploaded to it. Objectionable material is removed immediately. Each user also is personally responsible for the content he or she posts on the Forum. By posting content on the forum, each user acknowledges that it may be altered, removed, or stored at any time, and that the Forum maintains ownership of all posts submitted to it.

So we still hold the copyright to our images but we relinquish ownership of them?

[Adam]

You have the ability to permanently delete any photos uploaded here, and if you don't we'll always honor a deletion request unless the photo is given to us for purposes of a special event for which additional terms may apply.

[mikemike]

Actual rules of the internet... If you post a picture anywhere, the cat is out of the bag and all bets are off. Good luck hunting down any and all infringers! So only post stuff if you derive sufficient satisfaction from people enjoying your pretty pictures.

[MRRiley]

I believe when Adam states "permanently delete" he means "off of PF's servers." We naturally cannot control any other service or user's cache or archiving activities. The main point though is that PF does not make any claims on anyone's photos other than the right to keep and display copies that have won contests or other events.

Mike
PF Moderation Team

[RioRico]

Just a reminder: EVERYTHING on the web is copied. ANYTHING displayed ANYWHERE on the web is copied to caches on every viewer's computer. And t'ain't no big thang to find a browser cache and harvest any and all desired images, texts, sounds, whatever. If you want to post something securely, enclose it in an archive with strong encryption. Of course, nobody else will be able to do anything with it, but big deal, it's safe.

mikemike is absolutely right, the cat is indeed out of the bag, and all the lawyers in Manhattan can't force it back inside. Delete that cat from servers, sure, but it'll still be in caches worldwide and in orbit. IP laws and contracts and privacy policies are all smokescreens -- once you post something, you no longer own/control it. It's gone feral. Kiss it bye-bye.

[RXrenesis8]

You don't just have to roll over and take it Rio, you can at least put up a little fight

[RioRico]

You don't just have to roll over and take it Rio, you can at least put up a little fight

Like, embed malware in everything posted?

[RXrenesis8]

Like, embed malware in everything posted?

You don't already do this?

Every image I post that doesn't have a giant ugly watermark plastered across the center of an image includes SuperVirusTrojan 9000(TM) which automatically deducts royalties from your paypal account if you use the image for anything other than your viewing pleasure! (The tricky part was figuring out how to make it do this after it's been printed out, here's a hint: A little ink-dude steals money from your wallet while you sleep.)