Posted: Wed Sep 23, 2009 11:35 pm
mconnell wrote:FortMental wrote:Big deal, under such terms, ownership is moot, like any "ownership" of materials posted on line to any site not your own. Regardless, we'd be wiser to think of our posted materials as being freely available (public domain) for the collaborative purpose of building an excellent aggregate/reference site for all to use for free. Enough of this self-important baloney.Granting license does not give up ownership
I'm all for attribution, but the manners police (at Summitpost) have to draw the line at having to "ask for permission".
It's not about manners. Its about legal liability.
Under the SP terms, SP owners can use it for SP purposes. That doesn't give any rights to anyone else, including SP members.
Exactly, and that's perfectly clear from that section. This is also in the FAQ section:
2.17 Can I submit photos to SummitPost that I didn't take myself?
Not without the permission of the person who took the photo. Doing so otherwise would violate copyright law. SummitPost takes copyrights seriously. Posting material in violation of copyright law may be grounds for deletion of your submission and of your user account. Also, the copyright holder may prosecute you in court.
It is OK to post images whose copyright has expired, or images that are not subject to copyright (such as images made by the US Federal Government), or images which you have obtained the photographer's permission to post (be sure to state this in your caption text).
Take time to review SummitPost's Terms of Service.
2.18 If I submit my photos or writing to SummitPost, am I giving up my copyright to them?
No. You are authorizing SummitPost to display them on the SummitPost website, but posting to SummitPost does NOT give anyone permission to copy your works from SummitPost. Note, however that you are giving up the right to prevent modifications of your work: you are agreeing to SummitPost's policy of maintaining the site. You are giving the maintainer of a SummitPost page a license to make changes to your text as he/she sees fit, and to move your photos from one section of the page to another. You agree that someone else may someday become the maintainer of page(s) you create. SP management may also alter any text that may legally endanger SP.
SummitPost is a collaborative project, and pages are frequently the responsibility of more than one user. By granting permissions to another user, you allow that user to alter your text and images.
And legal issues aside, it's about ethics. I know this is the Internet age, but one still should not take without asking unless it is expressly in the public domain, as are USFS photos (as stated in the FAQ).
This is simple courtesy and integrity, something taught in grade school. It's not about being self-important.
I would never build a page using others' pictures exclusively. I have used others' photos on my pages, but only after they added or I asked. But that's not even the point here.
The issue is copying others' photos without permission and posting them through your own profile.
Attribution is not enough; we are not doing research papers here. This site is supposed to be about firsthand information, photos and otherwise.
There's no way we can police the Internet for people copying our submissions and posting them elsewhere, but we can show our fellow members here some respect and courtesy.
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By the way, someone mentioned earlier that the member in question had received permission to pull others' photos and post them here. That is not completely true. The person who started this thread is one such person who had his picture(s) copied and posted here, and he obviously had not given consent. Even though there was attribution, he was not happy about it, and I can't blame him.