New terms of use feedback

Darragh

Paulw wrote: »

People shouldn't have to ask. Use of it there without the expressed permission of the copyright owner is already a breach of copyright.

Sorry Paul, I had meant - and thought it implied - that this would be where we had already asked and gotten permission, but the photographer now needed us to remove it.

Darragh

PopeBuckfastXVI wrote: »

I think the confusion may have arisen from this (my bolding)...
If you ask for permission on a case by case basis, I don't think anyone has a problem with that.

Yes, understood. Case by case is definitely how we'll be handling it.

Covey

DaireQuinlan wrote: »

welll, Actually, in terms of that pix.ie link at the very least, I think people obviously haven't read their pix.ie terms and conditions properly ...

You're misreading that I think.

The important word is "Could". The clause is just a general one to cover Pix.ie if someone does link/copy your photo illegally.

Paulw

PopeBuckfastXVI wrote: »

If you ask for permission on a case by case basis, I don't think anyone has a problem with that.

Have to agree there.

Asking for permission before using would be acceptable.

Darragh - thanks for the clarification.

So many little areas, where possible confusion (or use of certain phrases) can cause issues.

I don't envy you, trying to get the TOS worded properly, to protect both boards.ie and the users.

Darragh

Covey wrote: »

No, I've never had to delete an image ...... until now.

No the blog isn't a big issue as long as permission is requested. Like others though, I got the impression from previous posts this wasn't always the case.

Re deleting images, is that something you need clarified in the TOU or would the forum charter be enough?

Re the blog, permission will be requested. I think I might start a seperate thread about this, just so we're all clear.

Darragh

Paulw wrote: »

Have to agree there.

Asking for permission before using would be acceptable.

Darragh - thanks for the clarification.

So many little areas, where possible confusion (or use of certain phrases) can cause issues.

I don't envy you, trying to get the TOS worded properly, to protect both boards.ie and the users.

Oh it's loads of "fun".

But important to be (a) clear/transparent and (b) right in these so everyone knows what we're talking about!

Covey

Darragh wrote: »

Re deleting images, is that something you need clarified in the TOU or would the forum charter be enough?

I'd like the ability to do it. I wouldn't post photos anywhere tbh without being able to remove them if I wished to.

PopeBuckfastXVI

Covey wrote: »

I'd like the ability to do it. I wouldn't post photos anywhere tbh without being able to remove them if I wished to.

Unfortunately that has to be balanced with people spite deleting previous posts after getting a ban or just become disillusioned or something, ruining continuity of threads.

I'd like to see something in the T&C's that says that any IMG tag will be removed at the request of the original poster, even if they are banned.

DaireQuinlan

Covey wrote: »

You're misreading that I think.

The important word is "Could". The clause is just a general one to cover Pix.ie if someone does link/copy your photo illegally.

Ah right , yeah that's probably a more accurate interpretation of it. It would appear that it was MY comprehension at fault !

Covey

DaireQuinlan wrote: »

Ah right , yeah that's probably a more accurate interpretation of it. It would appear that it was MY comprehension at fault !

Sorry didn't intend that as a smart remark, if you picked it up that way:eek:

DaireQuinlan

Covey wrote: »

Sorry didn't intend that as a smart remark, if you picked it up that way:eek:

Not at all. For some strange masochistic reason I always feel it necessary to acknowledge when I get stuff wrong on forums (fora ?).

Darragh

DK32 wrote: »

Daragh,

Under the new terms, does it really only apply to images that I upload directly to boards servers directly? By this I mean, if I link from flickr or whatever source to share an image with people, I retain copyright of that image?

Confused.com

Ok I'll try address this as I understand it.

When you create a post on Boards.ie, showing one of your photos linked from anywhere, you give us permission to display that photo - as part of your post - and so on. We do not "own" or have "copyright" over that photo, either on Boards.ie or off it, we just "own" the post.

Say for example you take a photo of me holding a copyrighted piece of art - who does the copyright on the original piece of art belong to there?

So, when you link to or embed a photo on boards.ie, you are granting us the right to display your image on our site. Doesn't mean we own copyright on the original image as far as I know. Now I'm no legal expert and I will get clarification on this AND I'm typing this on a mobile phone on the bus (oh, the glamour) so it's not as clear as I'd like, but that's the basic version of it.

CabanSail

Covey wrote: »

I'd like the ability to do it. I wouldn't post photos anywhere tbh without being able to remove them if I wished to.

You can request any of the Mods to delete posts. I imagine this mechanism is in place to stop people going back & changing the context of post so the answers have a different meaning.

Darragh

Nisio wrote: »

I didn't know that boards would download a file from a 3rd party website that was linked to on boards , resize it and rehost it on the blogs.boards.ie.

I think I've picked that up right?

And if we have permission to do so, the problem there is..?

CabanSail

Darragh wrote: »

AND I'm typing this on a mobile phone on the bus (oh, the glamour)

You have just destroyed my illusion of the Admin Lifestyle!! :rolleyes:

PopeBuckfastXVI

CabanSail wrote: »

You can request any of the Mods to delete posts. I imagine this mechanism is in place to stop people going back & changing the context of post so the answers have a different meaning.

Troll: Would you rather own a Spider or a Horse?

Boardsie: No contest, definitely a horse, they're really beautiful animals.

---

Troll: What animal would you sleep with if it was the last day of the world?
Last edited by Troll 1/1/2010

Boardsie: No contest, definitely a horse, they're really beautiful animals.

Darragh

PopeBuckfastXVI wrote: »

Unfortunately that has to be balanced with people spite deleting previous posts after getting a ban or just become disillusioned or something, ruining continuity of threads.

I'd like to see something in the T&C's that says that any IMG tag will be removed at the request of the original poster, even if they are banned.

The latter would be up to the forum moderators in the first instance, specifically to avoid what you say in the first part of that.

Nisio

this question was cleared up earlier; a forest of replies sprung up while I was typing

Darragh

CabanSail wrote: »

You have just destroyed my illusion of the Admin Lifestyle!! :rolleyes:

Ah see, the Admins are a different class altogether. They get limo chauffered with coke and hookers aplenty.

Darragh

Nisio wrote: »

this question was cleared up earlier; a forest of replies sprung up while I was typing

Phew

Nisio

CabanSail wrote: »

You have just destroyed my illusion of the Admin Lifestyle!! :rolleyes:

probably one of those "Spinal Tap" type buses

masteroftherealm

Darragh,
Advice from my Lawyer, over lunch

Simplest way to say it is that if "Original Material" is going to be used by Boards.ie, or any of its partners, for the purpose of Marketing or Advertising, or any other commercial purpose, excluding its reproduction within the express confines of the boards.ie website, express written permission needs to be sought by Boards.ie from the Author "The Poster" for said usage. Such a license must not be sub-license-able or perpetual.

This way boards can have access to the valuable photograph forum for promotion, a tool that would work very well as there's a lot of good photographers here that enjoy the boards, and it would be taken by the community here that we by posting will have an agreement that we will grant boards.ie a limited license when requested.

Furthermore you grant us a similar perpetual, irrevocable and fully sub-licensable license to use, distribute, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, publicly perform and publicly display Content other than photos and graphics (in whole or in part) and to incorporate such Content into other works in any format or medium now known or later developed.

This looks fine.

We do not claim ownership of photos that you choose to post to or link to on Boards.ie. Boards.ie Ltd neither has nor wants any ownership of your photos.

This line while it sounds nice has no legal point, you cant claim ownership so why say that you don't want to do something that is illegal anyway...
I understand where your coming form with it tho.

The license you grant to us is non-exclusive, royalty free and fully paid, sub licensable, and worldwide.

This needs clarification as there are now two areas of license one for content one for photos and graphics.

You agree that your Material displayed on Boards.ie may continue to appear on Boards.ie, even after you have terminated your user privileges or have had your user privileges terminated by Boards.ie.

The way around this is IMO offer an amnesty for say a month after the T&C are finalized for people to submit applications for content removal on sound grounds, such as a photographer asking for photos to be removed. Its the advice of my lawyer that if this was forced upon me I would have recourse to take boards to court for the removal of images to which a new license has been applied to. (Not that I would but just for your reference)

If theres anything you want me to elaborate on please feel free.

masteroftherealm

Darragh wrote: »

And if we have permission to do so, the problem there is..?

For non commercial use no problem, i.e reproduction on blogs.boards.ie, for commercial use, i.e advertising, marketing, its a breach of copyright law with out a license, see above.

Fajitas!

CabanSail wrote: »

You can request any of the Mods to delete posts. I imagine this mechanism is in place to stop people going back & changing the context of post so the answers have a different meaning.

I think Covey is refering to a being deleted for good, rather than soft deleted, where it's just hidden from public view (Which is all a moderator can do, it's down to the Admins to hard delete, afaik).

I'd like the ability to do it. I wouldn't post photos anywhere tbh without being able to remove them if I wished to.

Tbh, I think even the likes of Flickr and Pix will archive your images, you don't really have that control...

AnCatDubh

Fajitas! wrote: »

I think Covey is refering to a being deleted for good, rather than soft deleted, where it's just hidden from public view (Which is all a moderator can do, it's down to the Admins to hard delete, afaik).

But there is a work around of sorts if required You can destroy the content of any post by editing it - removing the text, links, etc.. This is a user function which is permissible for a few days afaik but moderators can continue to edit. (need to verify if there are any time restrictions here). The 'soft delete' will also remove it from normal viewing as you said and just leave a stub.

Probably still archived in backups somewhere though and like you say, this is most likely the same across the world and his mother of internet services. Worse still something like the internet archive / way back machine, can and does archive content. It may not yet do it down to individual thread level but who knows what does or what will. Such granular level of backup archive access is extremely unlikely even from a technical perspective.

Fajitas!

AnCatDubh wrote: »

But there is a work around of sorts if required You can destroy the content of any post by editing it - removing the text, links, etc.. This is a user function which is permissible for a few days afaik but moderators can continue to edit. (need to verify if there are any time restrictions here). The 'soft delete' will also remove it from normal viewing as you said and just leave a stub.

Even with editing, the forum software retains the original (You should be able to see it if you open up anyones edited post - afair, it shows one line in red, the other in green, of any changes, the green being current, and red being the old one).

Probably still archived in backups somewhere though and like you say, this is most likely the same across the world and his mother of internet services. Worse still something like the internet archive / way back machine, can and does archive content. It may not yet do it down to individual thread level but who knows what does or what will. Such granular level of backup archive access is extremely unlikely even from a technical perspective.

Absolutely, I'm just clarifying that for the masses :pac:

AnCatDubh

Fajitas! wrote: »

Even with editing, the forum software retains the original (You should be able to see it if you open up anyones edited post - afair, it shows one line in red, the other in green, of any changes, the green being current, and red being the old one).

Hmnnn..... never seen that to be honest but it may be in there

/off to look and see what dirt I can now dig up

Fajitas!

Iirc, if there's an edited post on the forum, it should be highlighted in blue and underlined - click it to see the original!

smelltheglove

This thread has come a long way since yesterday.

Darragh can I ask, when you first mentioned the blog you said 'we may not ask you' but now you say you request permission, it was a quick change of heart and leaves me wondering about the sincerity of statemnts made hereafter.

The issues raised here leave me wondering if boards is changing from anenjoyable albeit occasionly argumentative community;) to a a more policed Internet soceity.

smelltheglove

Darragh wrote: »

Where I don't feel I have to ask you is where I'm taking a screenshot of a page on Boards.ie for a presentation and your photo just happens to be on it, as posted, with others. Is that fair enough? Or would you prefer me to do that? Equally, if I was doing a blog post about what's on the photography forum - for example, here - http://blog.boards.ie/2009/07/17/thread-the-boards-3-round-up/ - I might not ask you, but I will link to the original thread in the forum and state your username.


Darragh

This is the part I refer to above. Sorry getting used to Internet on the phone.

KarmaGarda

Darragh wrote: »

Say for example you take a photo of me holding a copyrighted piece of art - who does the copyright on the original piece of art belong to there?

Just to answer that question for you, and I'll make it even more confusing. Let's say I take a photo of a photo that Covey owns. Covey still owns his photo. I own my photo of his photo. Even if you can barely tell the difference between the 2 side by side I can sell my photo of his photo and it's perfectly legal. As well as I don't try to claim the original art as mine everything is super duper. The only real life example of this I can think of is unfortunately quite a controversial story. You can read about it if you research the controverial nude photos taken of Brooke Shields when she was young (thought I best tell you what they are in case you google them and then end up frantically trying to close your browser in shock ). The Photos of the photos were open for viewing in the Tate Modern (if I recall correctly). No copyright was broken.

Anyway, I'm fine with what you are suggesting in the TOU. As well as it states that permission will be sought before using a photo/graphic/piece of art then it's all cool with me.

CabanSail

KarmaGarda wrote: »

Just to answer that question for you, and I'll make it even more confusing. Let's say I take a photo of a photo that Covey owns. Covey still owns his photo. I own my photo of his photo. Even if you can barely tell the difference between the 2 side by side I can sell my photo of his photo and it's perfectly legal.

Just to confuse things further. This situation was brought up last year when we had a talk from a Barrister who specialises in Media Law. According to her the law is not that simple. If it's a direct copy then you will have breached the original artist's copyright. If their work is incidental to your own then it's fine.

The other thing that I found out that night is that there are exclusions to the copyright laws that operate here in Ireland at least. One of those is that you can copy works for educational puposes.

DaireQuinlan

CabanSail wrote: »

Just to confuse things further. This situation was brought up last year when we had a talk from a Barrister who specialises in Media Law. According to her the law is not that simple. If it's a direct copy then you will have breached the original artist's copyright. If their work is incidental to your own then it's fine.

Well, I could namecheck Richard Prince here, he's made a career of just photographing other peoples photographs, thus re-contextualising them. The most recent example was that Brooke Shields photograph in the Tate that occupied quite a few pages of a thread here

The other thing that I found out that night is that there are exclusions to the copyright laws that operate here in Ireland at least. One of those is that you can copy works for educational puposes.

Most countries have some form of this in a 'fair use' clause . Interestingly enough though, despite what many people think, it's actually illegal here to rip a CD to your MP3 player. The UK has a quite reasonable provision in its copyright law that allows you to do just that, but it's missing here. I think the only fair use here is excerpts for educational or review purposes. Media industry representatives here have accordingly and jocularly promised not to sue people for doing it though. Assuming you trust them :rolleyes:

masteroftherealm

Yes but he has gotten permission if he did it wouthout permission is would be copyright breach. If you take an exact photo of a photo no you do not own the copyright to it and cannot sell it, thats not the real legal situation.

DaireQuinlan

masteroftherealm wrote: »

Yes but he has gotten permission if he did it wouthout permission is would be copyright breach. If you take an exact photo of a photo no you do not own the copyright to it and cannot sell it, thats not the real legal situation.

If you're talking about prince then no, he never got permission. Various law suits have in general found in his favour, so it's not quite as clear cut as the above

masteroftherealm

I looked at some of his work and he is stealing fair and square, courts have been quite ambigiuos in their rulings on him, hes backed by a good team of lawyers.

But in general the principal stands, isn particular to this discussion, under current copyright law in Ireland and the UNited states, taking a photo of a photo and reproducing it without modification is illegal. The only reason Price is getting away with the plagarism is because of a small fair use clause that he is exploiting.

DaireQuinlan

masteroftherealm wrote: »

But in general the principal stands, isn particular to this discussion, under current copyright law in Ireland and the UNited states, taking a photo of a photo and reproducing it without modification is illegal. The only reason Price is getting away with the plagarism is because of a small fair use clause that he is exploiting.

well that's my point, it's not black and white. It's not simply 'illegal', Price isn't taking advantage fair use, he's maintaining that his photographs are entirely new works. By re-contextualising them as he does he creates a new work of art. That's why the courts generally find in his favour, and something isn't 'illegal' in this regard until the courts find it to be illegal, indeed each case has to be decided on its own individual merits so you can't merely dismiss his activities as 'illegal' and leave it at that.

Darragh

Okay folks, I'll tell you what I have to do now.

I have to go and redraft the TOU sections applicable here and send them on to our legal advisors for feedback. I have to think about how we'll handle this in future. My initial feeling is that we'll include a seperate section for photographs and other creative works where we outline exactly what your rights to your work are and what we need you to grant us to allow us to continue the service.

This is going to take at least a couple of days.

When I have that done, I'll come back to you with it for your feedback. As above, the law is a tricky beast with so many intricacies that I'm sure there's just no real "one size fits all" solution - those that don't fit will have to be handled, if possible (and, pretty much as before) on a case by case basis.

We'll get there. Eventually.

Promac

If we use the img tags to link to an image that's not hosted on boards.ie is that still counted as a submission here?

Misa-san

I read through this thread, initially thinking it would be resolved quickly; but I feel there's a vital point that has been missed.

Once you post on the internet, anything, you've lost some of your ownership. Facebook have rights over your photos you post, Youtube have right over any videos you post. If you post something on boards it's on their site, even if it belongs to you - you chose to post it on their site, hosted on their machines; and you chose to do this under the assumption you agreed to the TOU.

I assume this every time; that the site have ownership of any content there, user-generated or not. They mod it obviously because they are responsible for it and they are answerable. It is always my understanding that I surrender some of my rights of ownership if I upload or post content. For this reason, I tend not to post my images - in many cases it counts as publishing - you can't submit a film to a competition if you already had it on youtube, or if you make a script publicly available it can't always be entered into a competition that states it must be previously unpublished.

If you want to retain full ownership of your images, post them on your own site. This links to other sites part I am unsure of. If you don't want anyone to use your image - don't put it on the internet. The TOU are in place, as I see it, not to tread on toes - but they are not obliged to inform you every step of the way either. They are there however there so that you can't say you weren't told if the site uses your image - if you have accepted the T+Cs and/or TOU of the site, you have surrendered your right, as far as I am concerned at least, to control what the site does with the site. They can delete it, repost it or do with it what they wish as it's their site and you chose to contribute.

I don't know how this will get resolved, the TOU are clear and no different to any other sites I have come across. Simply put, if you don't anyone to use it - don't put it on the internet, especially on a public forum. If you really want C+C on images or to host online - get your own webspace, you'll have full ownership then and only then.

I may have annoyed some people now, but I just couldn't sit back and stay quiet after reading 13pages...

DK32

My limited understanding of this is that linking or embedding a link to an image here or on any other public forum does not mean they own the image. In the same way if I were to link to a story from the BBC website on this forum. That does not mean boards own it.
If I upload an image to boards directly, then I basically relinquish ownership / rights in some part. Same applies to facebook or other public forums, myspace etc..

AFAIK this does not apply to Flickr Pro accounts. Otherwise you can be sure that pro photogs would not bother using their services.

Darragh

Promac wrote: »

If we use the img tags to link to an image that's not hosted on boards.ie is that still counted as a submission here?

Hey, I had attempted to answer that either - http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=63806213&postcount=163

I think people should think of "submission" as "submission to Boards.ie about Boards.ie" - i.e. a suggestion in Help Desk, Feedback, Site Dev etc but again, I'll come back during the week and confirm this for you.

Covey

This seems to have been conveniently forgotten. In case anyone hasn't fully understood this, these terms are now fully effective from December 23rd last.

It seems Boards is no different from anywhere else on the net, quick to insert unfavourable terms and very slow to remove/amend them.

CabanSail

It has not been "convieniently forgotten" but there has been a hell of a lot going on with the Admins since the site was hacked. There were al lot of people putting in very long hours to keep the site going & sorting out the mess.

Coincidencely I raised the TOU with the Admin earlier today. I am sure that there will be some resolution to this fairly soon & if it wasn't for the major problems of late then it would have happened already.

Darragh

Covey wrote: »

This seems to have been conveniently forgotten. In case anyone hasn't fully understood this, these terms are now fully effective from December 23rd last.

It seems Boards is no different from anywhere else on the net, quick to insert unfavourable terms and very slow to remove/amend them.

Sorry Covey, as CabanSail has said above, we've been up the walls trying to reunite people with their accounts.

I'll do my best to be back to you before the end of tomorrow with the new TOU revisions.

These have not been forgotten.

Darragh

Just for the sake of completion, I have published a revision for review today and invite people to give their feedback on the new revisions over there:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055825295