Change to terms and conditions

Hi all,

In response to a few queries, we just like to update you all on a slight tweak to our terms and conditions, relating to the uploading and use of content on the Community.

Here’s the original paragraph in full

By submitting any contribution to the RSPB Community you agree to grant the RSPB a perpetual, royalty-free, non-exclusive sub-licensable right and world-wide licence to use, distribute, display, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works and display and exercise all copyright and publicity rights with respect to your contribution. The RSPB also reserves the right to incorporate your contribution in other works or media now known or later developed in accordance with privacy restrictions set out in the RSPB's Privacy Policy.

And here’s the amended paragraph in full as it now appears:

Full copyright title shall be retained by the Author of any submissions. By submitting any contribution to the RSPB Community you agree to grant the RSPB a perpetual, royalty-free, non-exclusive sub-licensable right and world-wide licence to use, distribute, display, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works and display and exercise all publicity rights with respect to your contribution. The RSPB also reserves the right to incorporate your contribution in other works or media now known or later developed in accordance with privacy restrictions set out in the RSPB's Privacy Policy.

So what’s changed?

We’ve added in the sentence: ‘Full copyright title shall be retained by the Author of any submissions’ and removed the word copyright from ‘exercise all copyright and publicity rights’ so that it now says ‘exercise all publicity rights’.

Why have we done this?

We love you submitting your images and messages. That is why we’ve amended the text to make it clearer that we do not own the copyright of any content added to the community. We might like to use it elsewhere (and reserve the right to do so), but we do not, and have never intended to, own the copyright.

Whilst primarily used for images, this paragraph also applies to other posts. For example, if someone wrote a poem or short story and posted it to the site. The author retains the copyright in these cases too.

So you’ll see that it’s not actually a change to the terms and conditions, we’re just trying to make it clearer as to who owns the copyright of community images and postings.

I hope that makes sense and is helpful, if you have any questions please give us a shout.

Happy posting!