To the Legal Experts...RE: Photos & FKB

15 years ago

As I'm sure most of the regulars, at least, are aware, someone recently stole one of our member's kitchen pictures to market his services (no, he did not have anything to do with her kitchen). This has spawned a backlash that may limit the usefulness of the FKB and possibly many of the threads (past & future). Putting passwords, even guest passwords, on albums will make it difficult for us to look at each others photos and browse the FKB.

So, my question to those of you with a legal background in this area of law (copyright law?), if we establish a Kitchen's Forum guest password for all of us to use and put it in the "Read Me" thread, will our photos then fall under the PhotoBucket exclusion?

"..except Content marked "private" will not be distributed outside the Photobucket Services"

We could all make our albums "private" and yet keep them open to Kitchens Forum members.

That may not eliminate theft of pictures, but it may offer legal recourse to anyone so victimized. To be honest, I'm not sure if any of our pictures once posted here are safe since even iVillage/GardenWeb has a similar statement. Would the guest password policy in any way protect us from their (mis-) use of our photos w/o our consent? (I suspect not...)

I know we have quite a few lawyers as members, so, what are your thoughts?

+++++++++++++++++++++++

Excerpt from PhotoBucket's Terms of Service":
6.1 "Photobucket does not claim any ownership rights in the text, files, images, photos, video, sounds, musical works, works of authorship, applications, or any other materials (collectively, "Content") that you post on or through the Photobucket Services. By displaying or publishing ("posting") any Content on or through the Photobucket Services, you hereby grant to Photobucket and other users a non-exclusive, fully paid and royalty-free, worldwide, limited license to use, modify, delete from, add to, publicly perform, publicly display, reproduce and translate such Content, including without limitation distributing part or all of the Site in any media formats through any media channels, except Content marked "private" will not be distributed outside the Photobucket Services. Photobucket and/or other Users may copy, print or display publicly available Content outside of the Photobucket Services, including without limitation, via the Site or third party websites or applications (for example, services allowing Users to order prints of Content or t-shirts and similar items containing Content)."

Excerpt from iVillage's Terms of Service":
"Photobucket does not claim any ownership rights in the text, files, images, photos, video, sounds, musical works, works of authorship, applications, or any other materials (collectively, "Content") that you post on or through the Photobucket Services. By displaying or publishing ("posting") any Content on or through the Photobucket Services, you hereby grant to Photobucket and other users a non-exclusive, fully paid and royalty-free, worldwide, limited license to use, modify, delete from, add to, publicly perform, publicly display, reproduce and translate such Content, including without limitation distributing part or all of the Site in any media formats through any media channels, except Content marked "private" will not be distributed outside the Photobucket Services. Photobucket and/or other Users may copy, print or display publicly available Content outside of the Photobucket Services, including without limitation, via the Site or third party websites or applications (for example, services allowing Users to order prints of Content or t-shirts and similar items containing Content)."

Here is a link that might be useful: Thread: My kitchen photo stolen and used in Ad

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Comments (7)

jessie21
15 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
buehl, glad you posted this and the link to the other thread. I honestly don't know how we can handle this and it is a crying, freaking shame. I suppose we could figure out how to do that writing over your photos thing, where it prohibits others from copying or using the photos so willy nilly, but of course that would take away from the shots and what we all really want to see. Not to mention the hassle.

Also, as far as I know, photobucket doesn't have to SELL the shots...can't anyone just copy the posted pics? I know I've copied and saved some, just to remember a certain paint color or flooring option or cab style.

A couple of years ago, I was selling some of my aunt's good china on ebay....a very expensive and desirable pattern...and caught someone using my photo in their listing a couple of weeks later. They denied it, but I knew it was stollen (pixel by pixel match!!) and they stopped using it after I told them to. They also copied part of my text........the story of my aunt and her china, substituting "mother" for aunt. oooooh, i was ticked. My story was true.

this is all pretty awful, I think....unless people really don't care where their pics show up and who profits from them.
jenswrens
15 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
FWIW

When GW was taken over by iVillage a few years ago, there was a very similar huge uproar on several of the forums about that same phrase in the (then-new) iVillage terms. Some of you oldtimers may remember this, newbies wonÂt. Everyone (including moi) was very upset, threatened to never again post or embed photos, or write anything clever or share anything novel that iVillage might decide to legally "steal" and use for their own profits Â like writing and publishing a book containing all of our threads, photos and ideas.

Well, to my knowledge, that never happened. iVillage never used us like that. We may have lost a few members over it, posting was down for a while & tempers were up, but eventually the hoopla died down and people continued to post, continued to share photos, and nothing untoward happened.

I am no lawyer, but I do think it is prudent for us to weigh the odds in a situation like this. Does photo-stealing happen? Yes, obviously. But how many times? How many members have found their photos from GW somewhere else? Two? A handful? Is it really worth it for all of us to stop sharing photos here Â spoiling something that is an integral part of the GW community? I think not, but YMMV. At least, I hope it doesnÂt come to that. The odds are in our favor that it wonÂt happen. Could I get struck by lightning when I go outdoors? Of course, but that doesnÂt mean I become agoraphobic.

Just something else to considerÂ
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moonkat99
15 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Not an attorney here either, but to me there is a big difference between someone copying a photo for personal use (no biggie, imho) - even copying it & publishing it somewhere with the caption saying something like "Isn't this a cool kitchen?" (still, really not a BIG thing, albeit not very nice) & copying a photo & publishing it & saying "Look at the work *I* did!" (not cool, not kosher, not OK in anyone's moral world, & perhaps not legal?)

Thanks for bringing this up buehl.
bluekitobsessed
15 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Buehl, I'm a lawyer who knows nothing about copyright law or IP. This suggestion is being made solely as a TKO and not as a lawyer. I use Flickr, which has a semi-private setting; you give your password to friends and family, and only they can see the pix; we could put the password on the "readme" thread. I'm right now trying to dig through the Flickr policies to see how they handle semi-private postings.
sautesmom Sacramento
15 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Also a lawyer, but also not a copyright lawyer, so not legal advice:
Changing it to private would not offer any better protection than what you already have, or not much anyway. That Photobucket language says they don't own the photos but merely distribute them. They didn't give permission to whomever to steal them, did they? So restricting Photobucket's license won't make a difference. Even if the password is posted here, it's just as likely the thief came from here as it was from surfing, so they could still steal it once they have the password. And the only recourse is suing them anyway--it's like SPAM, the threat of a lawsuit is of little deterence because it's such an effort that few people will use the law to make it go away. A password wouldn't hurt, but it most likely would offer little real protection. If you don't want your pictures copied, the best protection is to put COPYRIGHT diagonally across it before posting it.
coffeehaus
15 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
I would like to share a positive experience with posting photos on GardenWeb. I was recently contacted by a publishing firm that wanted to use a photo I had posted on another GW forum. The inquiry was very polite and had a release form attached to the request, and included what type of attribution I would like to appear in the publication. Frankly, I found this approach flattering and I was happy to comply in contributing to a publication promoting recycling of building materials. I wonder if the response would have been different for the poster who had her photo "lifted", if a request with appropriate attributions had been submitted? Perhaps including an email address on your member page would enhance this type of interaction. I, for one, would not like to see restrictions placed on our access to all of the fabulous resources currently available on this website. That being said, there is a moral obligation to respect the rights of those who trust all of us by sharing photos, and what happened to the member who had her picture stolen is indefensible.
eandhl
15 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
I do know anyone can copy and use the pictures without buying them. I was surprised once on the decorating forum to see one of mine show up. Not angry, just surprised and would have preferred it didn't happen. And as above I am sure there are some good outcomes too.

To the Legal Experts...RE: Photos & FKB

Comments (7)

jessie21

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