I was having difficulty adding content to a new thread and thought I'd check on the main 'Community' forum' page to see if there were any technical issues, which is something I never normally do. At the top of that page there is a thread i which is titled - '
Now if this is so important I think it should be circulated on all of the available forums, because not everybody even knows about this page - especially folk who've just typed in the name of their local reserve and hit upon the forum by chance, as I did.
Anyway if I've got this right the terms and conditions appear to take your rights of ownership away from you. It states -
It says, 'Full copyright title shall be retained by the author of any submissions. By submitting any Contribution to the RSPB, you specifically give us the following permission: you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, irrevocable worldwide licence to use freely, edit, alter, reproduce, publish and/or distribute the Contribution you produce on the Website and/or in any promotional material. This licence will be free of charge and perpetual. Contributions that you post onto the Community may be available in perpetuity and be shared with other users or third parties over which we have no control'.
Now although I can understand that if you submit a cracking photo the RSPB might want to use it in promotional material (not that I foresee this as being a particular problem for me!) but I would have thought that the honourable thing to do was to ask specific permission, notify the contributor and offer a commercial rate for reproduction (which you could refuse if you feel that you wish this to be a contribution to the charity).. The terms seem to be in contradiction to the first line that full copyright title shall be owned by the author. I suppose the only way around this if you want to contribute but not have your work used commercially without recompense is to submit images of a resolution too low for printing or maybe use photoshop to mark the image.
Some of you might remember Bob's-Retired-Now who used to contribute to this forum and posted some brilliant photos - particularly of birds in flight.: a few month's ago he left the forums and I thought it was a bit extreme because he insisted that his complete history was wiped. Now his photographs were really of commercial quality and I'm guessing that when he read through there T&C's he thought it was not really fair to take contributors' compliance for granted.
There used to be a similar paragraph in the old T&Cs (can't compare now of course). To a certain extent, the words have to be there as the RSPB manipulates any photo you upload (the webserver moves it around, stores it, re-sizes it for the page etc). These words do go further than that of course, and when I started uploading pics I pondered for a while on whether to do so for that reason. However I decided that, as I directly support the RSPB anyway, I would not have an issue if an image of mine did get used to benefit them (incidentally, Facebook also claim commercial rights to any images uploaded to their platform, just one reason I don't use it).
As an honourable and responsible organisation, the RSPB should make attempts to request permission for any use (that's been my experience anyway).
Of course, it gets somewhat murky in some situations. I'm too lazy to resize and upload images on here directly, I normally link to the Flickr location I've already put them. In that situation, does it count as an image "produced" on the website here? Feels like one that would earn lawyers oodles of cash :-)
Remember also that your "Contribution" includes words, so the T&Cs allow our Mods to move threads, delete obnoxious comments and the like.
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Find me on Flickr / All about your camera - The Getting off Auto Index
john_l_uk said:Some of you might remember Bob's-Retired-Now who used to contribute to this forum and posted some brilliant photos - particularly of birds in flight.: a few month's ago he left the forums and I thought it was a bit extreme because he insisted that his complete history was wiped. Now his photographs were really of commercial quality and I'm guessing that when he read through there T&C's he thought it was not really fair to take contributors' compliance for granted.
Our herring gulls are red listed birds. Think about that the next time you hear some flaming idiot calling for a cull of them.
Bob asked for his photos to be removed. It was coincidental that his posts removed prior to the new T&C's being posted, nothing else. The main community page will be where all new messages as regards updates etc will be posted and I would recommend that everyone dip into from time to time.
I wouldn't worry about it, John. The RSPB have always said that they would ask the owner's permission before using one of their photos even though they probably don't have to. I'd be quite flattered if they wanted to use one of mine. I do put a copyright watermark on mine though.
Not being affiliated to a particular group I have little choice but to access the forum via the Community Home page so I see everything including all the Group's postings. I do urge people to view the Home page from time to time although very few members of Groups seem to. There's menu bar across the top of every page so it's not difficult.
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Tony
My Flickr Photostream
If you don't access via the Home page, you miss an awful lot of interesting threads :-)
This type of thing is standard now on the majority of websites, it's required to allow the manipulation of the images involved in running the website.
The intellectual property rights and/or copyright remains with the photographer except where there is a pre-existing commission or other contract involved.
I never post the original image and all my posted images are digitally marked.
Saying this I have already given the RSPB, Through a verbal agreement with my local reserve, rights to publish any of my work as long as I receive suitable acknowledgement
Best regardsNigel
| My Images | Newport Wetlands on Flickr @barman58
Thanks folks for your contributions, very thought provoking. I guess coming from a creative arts background where intellectual property is a hot topic just seeing the words 'you grant us irrevocable and perpetual licence' is a bit alarming because people make a living from creating and selling images. However I guess it's up to the individual to accept the conditions or not participate.
Mrs T. I think everybody was saddened by Bob leaving, but at the time I thought that he was a bit O.T.T. for having his history expunged. The only reason I can think of for having his photos removed is because he didn't want to make them freely available.