Reading Terms of Service
So, this morning I was preparing to upload some photographs to Photobucket for sharing on a couple of websites, and a pop up from the site informed me that they were tweaking their terms of service, and I needed to read them and re-accept them.
"No big deal," I thought, since I had a general idea of what all was covered anyway. But, since my habit is to actually skim through all terms of service anyway, even though it's boring to do it, and most all are pretty consistent, I started reading through.
I'm glad I did. Because although Photobucket does declare that you remain the owner of your pictures (assuming that you are indeed the owner of the things posted there), by posting a picture publicly (which includes uploading and then linking to the picture) you are giving Photobucket the non-exclusive right to also repost that image, even sell it, without paying you royalties for any such use they might make of it.
Huh? I sat up. Ooops.
Mostly, I don't care about that -- I mean many of the images I post are general "public" images of my activities or travels, or (yes, copied) reference photos for blog articles. But I have in the past posted some original artwork, things I actually intend to reproduce commercially myself (like on Zazzle, for instance). I'm not keen on having a competing vendor having possible "rights" to be selling my work without paying me a license or royalty. So, I'll be taking some of the images off Photobucket, which means that some links to old LiveJournal posts will be broken. And it will change how I choose to upload images in the future.
What I'm likely to do is host artwork images on my own website server. That way, I'm not inadvertently giving reproduction rights to other possible vendors. And I'll probably start putting watermarks into original material I upload, so that my copyright shows in any copying. I have to study up on that process however.
Ah! One does have to pay attention to the details, these days. Especially if you want to keep control of your Intellectual Property rights. The trade offs of "I'll give you internet hosting space 'for free', but you'll give me the right to copy your images for merchandise if you make it public." For many people, I realize that quid pro quo is okay, because they aren't really concerned about making money off their own images. But then for those of us who are thinking that way, it makes a difference.
It's all about staying on your toes.
"No big deal," I thought, since I had a general idea of what all was covered anyway. But, since my habit is to actually skim through all terms of service anyway, even though it's boring to do it, and most all are pretty consistent, I started reading through.
I'm glad I did. Because although Photobucket does declare that you remain the owner of your pictures (assuming that you are indeed the owner of the things posted there), by posting a picture publicly (which includes uploading and then linking to the picture) you are giving Photobucket the non-exclusive right to also repost that image, even sell it, without paying you royalties for any such use they might make of it.
Huh? I sat up. Ooops.
Mostly, I don't care about that -- I mean many of the images I post are general "public" images of my activities or travels, or (yes, copied) reference photos for blog articles. But I have in the past posted some original artwork, things I actually intend to reproduce commercially myself (like on Zazzle, for instance). I'm not keen on having a competing vendor having possible "rights" to be selling my work without paying me a license or royalty. So, I'll be taking some of the images off Photobucket, which means that some links to old LiveJournal posts will be broken. And it will change how I choose to upload images in the future.
What I'm likely to do is host artwork images on my own website server. That way, I'm not inadvertently giving reproduction rights to other possible vendors. And I'll probably start putting watermarks into original material I upload, so that my copyright shows in any copying. I have to study up on that process however.
Ah! One does have to pay attention to the details, these days. Especially if you want to keep control of your Intellectual Property rights. The trade offs of "I'll give you internet hosting space 'for free', but you'll give me the right to copy your images for merchandise if you make it public." For many people, I realize that quid pro quo is okay, because they aren't really concerned about making money off their own images. But then for those of us who are thinking that way, it makes a difference.
It's all about staying on your toes.