13
Twitpic takes pictures, literally
Screenshot of Twitpic homepage.
To view this content, Javascript must be enabled and Adobe Flash Player must be installed.
CORRECTION: This report mischaracterizes the Terms of Agreement of Twitpic, an app for tweeting photographs. The terms do give Twitpic the right to use or distribute any user's photos. But they also say: "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."
Kai Ryssdal: Let's say you're visiting Los Angeles, and you're having dinner in one of those celebrity hangouts. And some well-known starlet fresh from rehab just happens to go past you on the way to the ladies' room. You grab your phone, snap a picture and upload it to Twitter with an app called Twitpic. That way you can share your paparazzi moment with your friends, then maybe pay for the trip by selling the shot to gossip sites like TMZ for thousands of dollars.
Sounds great, except for that last part. Marketplace's Mitchell Hartman explains that even though you took the picture, you don't own the rights to it anymore.
Mitchell Hartman: A celebrity photo agency called World Entertainment News Network now has the exclusive right to license and sell photos Twitter users post to their own accounts, using the app Twitpic.
Molly Wood is executive editor at technology website CNET. She says this is just the beginning.
Molly Wood: Now, these news and photo agencies are coming along and saying 'We're going to take control of the rights to these photos, make money off them, and sue you or other people if they try to use them.'
This photographic land grab is included in the "terms of service" -- it's all that small-print legalese most of us just scroll through, then click "Agree."
Wood: You have very few rights when it comes to terms of service, and the fact is, they almost all have boilerplate language around being granted some sort of license to your photos.
There's already a backlash. Ellen DeGeneres, who has millions of followers on Twitter, announced she won't post pictures using Twitpic anymore.
Technology analyst Carl Howe at the Yankee Group says this isn't just about celebrities.
Carl Howe: Recently, Stefanie Gordon took a picture of the Space Shuttle launching.
No reason you should know who Stefanie Gordon is -- she's not rich or famous. She just happened to be on an airplane above the shuttle as it burst through the clouds, pulled out her phone, snapped, and uploaded to Twitpic.
Howe: And that photo was shown on all the major broadcast networks.
But if she ever wants to sell the images, let's say, for a "Great Moments in Shuttle History" coffee table book, well, she better have a good lawyer.
I'm Mitchell Hartman for Marketplace.
Pages
Thanks for the correction - I think this whole situation was a bit of a tempest in a teapot, really just a poorly communicated change to the ToS.
I was hopeful that it had mostly blown over, so it was alarming to see Marketplace join in the discussion with such an alarmist (and incorrect) reading.
AREN'T TWITTER & FACE BOOK WEALTHY ENOUGH?! Do they REALLY need to claim ownership of my work, my art & prevent me from making a MEAGER LIVING from said art? COME ON T & FB, CUT A PHOTOGRAPHER A BREAK! Remove that NOT SO LITTLE CLAUSE from your sign up agreement. Then take to the bank your millions that will continue to come in, without your stealing my work, & leave me my mere pittance to put food on my table!
@John Bilow - Twitpic is a 3rd party app. There are others.
@Nemo Nusquam - Seems like they have as well as NY Times, Mashable, and others. Article seems accurate.
@PJ Blank - No service will expect you to give up copyrights to an image. This is done the moment you take the photo. Fair trade off? You use their service (they make money on advertising revenue and licensing your phtos) and you get to share it for free? Thats not a trade-off.
@Boyd P - Correct. They can license your photo without your consent and keeping all of the $$$. As far as deletion, from what i read, they will prevent it from being viewable on their site however, this doesnt invalidate any license agreement they may have due to your photo in a magazine, newsaper or somewhere else.
@Benjamin Zack - They cannot take ownership of your shared media. This is a given. Blanket license to your media as they wish? Not fair.
Seems fair to me. They leave you ownership of the photo. If you have a photo you value, don't go posting on the internet on a whim. I there are services that take full ownership of your content and that is different. I believe that the Dilbert website takes full ownership of any email you send them.
Seems fair to me. They leave you ownership of the photo. If you have a photo you value, don't go posting on the internet on a whim. I there are services that take full ownership of your content and that is different. I believe that the Dilbert website takes full ownership of any email you send them.
I believe this is the statement which is particularly unnerving and cause for concern:
------------------------------ (URL: http://twitpic.com/terms.do)
You retain all ownership rights to Content uploaded to Twitpic. However, by submitting Content to Twitpic, you hereby grant Twitpic a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicenseable and transferable license to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, and perform the Content in connection with the Service and Twitpic's (and its successors' and affiliates') business, including without limitation for promoting and redistributing part or all of the Service (and derivative works thereof) in any media formats and through any media channels.
------------------------------
Pretty sure this means they can sell your image without your written consent. While you may still be able to sell the image for profit (as you own the copyright), you've already granted TwitPic and its affiliates a license to use the image.
Now, I wonder if that still holds true if you delete the image from TwitPic. Does that remove the license as well?
Not sure there's an actual problem here.
No matter what Twitpic does with your photo, their ToS states that the "owner" retains rights to the photo -- excerpt here:
"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 Twitpic.com or affiliated sites."
... This looks reasonable to me, a fair tradeoff when you are using a free (to you) service to disseminate images.
Funny I don't ever recall reading or agreeing to any ToS when Twitpic automatically was used on my iPhone app.
I wonder how this works internationally. In Australia any content created by an individual is generally automatically copyrighted. The user does not have to explicitly state it or display a copyright notice.
I think this is further momentum towards sharpening the user privacy laws.
Pages
