(no subject)
Everything about the weather turning cold sucks...except for this!!
Yaay! I get to wear my Doctor Who scarf again!! O.K. that's about as excited as I'm going to get about spending the next half a year of freezing my ass off. This was taken yesterday while Andrew and I were checking out a new storm pond they just built. It's actually pretty cool except for the spongy patch on one of the levees we found. Yeah, sinkhole anyone? Our Mayor's a massive dick and I wouldn't be surprised at all if he arranged for corners to be cut in some sort of crooked 'skim off the top' scheme. Meh, I just hope no one gets hurt.
Y'know what's extra super happy fun lucky cool about that picture? It's not hosted on photobucket or imgur or anywhere else that I have to agree to stupid terms of service. For example, imgur has a waiver in their Terms Of Service that says:
"By accepting these terms, you waive and hold harmless company from any claims resulting from any action taken by Imgur during or as a result of its investigations and/or from any actions taken as a consequence of investigations by either imgur or law enforcement authorities."
Ok, on first glance that looks good. Of course they're going to comply with law enforcement if someone uploads kiddie pr0n or something, right? Good for them, pedo's deserve to get everything that's coming to them!!! Yet, is that really all this is about? Let's take a closer look:
"By accepting these terms, you waive and hold harmless company from any claims resulting from any action taken by Imgur during or as a result of its investigations and/or from any actions taken as a consequence of investigations by either imgur or law enforcement authorities"
I used strikethough on the last part about law enforcement because that's essentially what that phrase "and/or" can toggle in the meaning. I'm left wondering "investigations" of what? What "actions"? It does not specify at all. Disturbingly, they also do not specify imgur LLC. as "company", rather they don't specify a company at all. There is no preamble identifying imgur as "the company" or "company". You could be waiving your rights to any company. Any company who, say, might have bought an investigation by imgur into what pictures may best represent the feeling behind their product to use in an ad? Worse, an investigation into which women would look best with bukkake edited onto their faces to use in porn ads?; Yeah, that seems alarmist and in all honesty unlikely. The agreement is also shit, but can you afford to defend your position in a court of law if one of your pictures is selected for something similar? That is, of course, after you've completed their Notification of Claims of Infringement process that specifies you must provide:
"A statement declaring under penalty of perjury that (a) the above information in your notice is accurate, and (b) that you are the owner of the copyright interest involved or that you are authorized to act on behalf of that owner. "
Yes, this is ridiculous, but it's not a question of whether or not this is enforceable, it's a question of whether or not you can afford to prove through the legal system that it's not. By agreeing to the waiver; You've accepted the responsibility for that. But hey, they let you keep the copyright for your works (which is great if you can afford to enforce them). I should note that imgur is actually one of the least creepy sites out there. Yeah, I've read way worse TOS'.
It's ok though, because I uploaded that image to a public instance of MediaGoblin!! :)This project is kickass!! Firstly, because they let you upload a picture and just go away. I've all but given up on photobucket with all the "click here!, click there, look IT"S AN AD!!! OMG OMG LOOK LOOK Yaay ADS!!tag me!! tag me bitch!!!connect to facebook!, are you sure you're not on facebook?!!!!!, connect to facebook damn it! Oh, alright then, tweet! tweet!!!" ....GAH! nag, nag, fucking nag! You can tag stuff on mediaGoblin too, but I'm lazy and they only ask once. That's not why I'm so exited though. It's not so much about how mediaGoblin is better, but why it exists in the fist place. It was created with the Franklin Street Statement in mind. The Franklin Street Statement is a document to help users like you and me that serves as a guide on how we can choose online services (like diaspora instead of facebook, etc. ...and now mediaGoblin instead of whatever) that respect you as a user and your freedoms (for example your freedom to not, say, constructively waive all your rights by agreeing to sketchy TOS' in order to upload). Also pretty awesome, is that they're not a company (they're a GNU project) and they haven't exclusive centralized servers controlling all of mediaGoblin that ever there was and that ever will be. Anyone, anywhere, can run an instance of mediaGoblin. So, say if you're in an artist's collective, in an ongoing collaboration, or just some random person and want to share a collection with the public and you don't want to use a third party online photosharing site; You can set up your very own instance of mediaGoblin on your (or your hosts) server instead of having to build or pay someone to build you a media sharing site from the ground up. I don't have a server or hosting though, so I just clicked on the part where it says "Find sites already running mediaGoblin". It's pretty damn awesome :)
...oh, one more thing, video is rumoured to be coming soon :)
Yaay! I get to wear my Doctor Who scarf again!! O.K. that's about as excited as I'm going to get about spending the next half a year of freezing my ass off. This was taken yesterday while Andrew and I were checking out a new storm pond they just built. It's actually pretty cool except for the spongy patch on one of the levees we found. Yeah, sinkhole anyone? Our Mayor's a massive dick and I wouldn't be surprised at all if he arranged for corners to be cut in some sort of crooked 'skim off the top' scheme. Meh, I just hope no one gets hurt.
Y'know what's extra super happy fun lucky cool about that picture? It's not hosted on photobucket or imgur or anywhere else that I have to agree to stupid terms of service. For example, imgur has a waiver in their Terms Of Service that says:
"By accepting these terms, you waive and hold harmless company from any claims resulting from any action taken by Imgur during or as a result of its investigations and/or from any actions taken as a consequence of investigations by either imgur or law enforcement authorities."
Ok, on first glance that looks good. Of course they're going to comply with law enforcement if someone uploads kiddie pr0n or something, right? Good for them, pedo's deserve to get everything that's coming to them!!! Yet, is that really all this is about? Let's take a closer look:
"By accepting these terms, you waive and hold harmless company from any claims resulting from any action taken by Imgur during or as a result of its investigations and/or from any actions taken as a consequence of investigations by either imgur or law enforcement authorities"
I used strikethough on the last part about law enforcement because that's essentially what that phrase "and/or" can toggle in the meaning. I'm left wondering "investigations" of what? What "actions"? It does not specify at all. Disturbingly, they also do not specify imgur LLC. as "company", rather they don't specify a company at all. There is no preamble identifying imgur as "the company" or "company". You could be waiving your rights to any company. Any company who, say, might have bought an investigation by imgur into what pictures may best represent the feeling behind their product to use in an ad? Worse, an investigation into which women would look best with bukkake edited onto their faces to use in porn ads?; Yeah, that seems alarmist and in all honesty unlikely. The agreement is also shit, but can you afford to defend your position in a court of law if one of your pictures is selected for something similar? That is, of course, after you've completed their Notification of Claims of Infringement process that specifies you must provide:
"A statement declaring under penalty of perjury that (a) the above information in your notice is accurate, and (b) that you are the owner of the copyright interest involved or that you are authorized to act on behalf of that owner. "
Yes, this is ridiculous, but it's not a question of whether or not this is enforceable, it's a question of whether or not you can afford to prove through the legal system that it's not. By agreeing to the waiver; You've accepted the responsibility for that. But hey, they let you keep the copyright for your works (which is great if you can afford to enforce them). I should note that imgur is actually one of the least creepy sites out there. Yeah, I've read way worse TOS'.
It's ok though, because I uploaded that image to a public instance of MediaGoblin!! :)This project is kickass!! Firstly, because they let you upload a picture and just go away. I've all but given up on photobucket with all the "click here!, click there, look IT"S AN AD!!! OMG OMG LOOK LOOK Yaay ADS!!tag me!! tag me bitch!!!connect to facebook!, are you sure you're not on facebook?!!!!!, connect to facebook damn it! Oh, alright then, tweet! tweet!!!" ....GAH! nag, nag, fucking nag! You can tag stuff on mediaGoblin too, but I'm lazy and they only ask once. That's not why I'm so exited though. It's not so much about how mediaGoblin is better, but why it exists in the fist place. It was created with the Franklin Street Statement in mind. The Franklin Street Statement is a document to help users like you and me that serves as a guide on how we can choose online services (like diaspora instead of facebook, etc. ...and now mediaGoblin instead of whatever) that respect you as a user and your freedoms (for example your freedom to not, say, constructively waive all your rights by agreeing to sketchy TOS' in order to upload). Also pretty awesome, is that they're not a company (they're a GNU project) and they haven't exclusive centralized servers controlling all of mediaGoblin that ever there was and that ever will be. Anyone, anywhere, can run an instance of mediaGoblin. So, say if you're in an artist's collective, in an ongoing collaboration, or just some random person and want to share a collection with the public and you don't want to use a third party online photosharing site; You can set up your very own instance of mediaGoblin on your (or your hosts) server instead of having to build or pay someone to build you a media sharing site from the ground up. I don't have a server or hosting though, so I just clicked on the part where it says "Find sites already running mediaGoblin". It's pretty damn awesome :)
...oh, one more thing, video is rumoured to be coming soon :)