Geoffrey Long
Tip of the Quill: Archives
Baiting Mr. Butterfield and Ms. Fake.

So you'll notice that I've been playing with Flickr lately. So far this seems like a great tool, and I'm interested to see how I could combine Flickr with Moveable Type to create an automation system for my portfolio. This does, of course, raise the question of whether or not entries into the Flickr system need to be photos. I've just added an illustration to the mix, and I'll probably be adding some more. Let's see if Caterina and Stewart take the bait and comment, shall we?

Comments

Yes, but my question is who owns content stored on Flickr. Uploading your portfolio could be a bad thing, somehow, in the long run.

Scenario:

1) They get bought.

2) Terms of service change.

3) You no longer own your art.

Perhaps unrealistic, but it's the kind of thing I always worry about w.r.t. systems that involve putting my content up on someone else's site...

If that were an actual possible scenario, given the amount of stuff I've pumped into Moveable Type, I'd better shut everything down immediately... :(

However, it seems like Stewart and Caterina and Co. have this pretty much under control. According to the FAQ:

#52. What considerations have been given to copyright?

We plan to offer different types of public pictures, like Creative Commons licensed or public domain. For now though, copyright ownership belongs to the owner.

And, from their Terms of Service:

Copyright (What's Yours is Yours)

We claim no intellectual property rights over the material you provide to the Flickr service. Your profile and materials uploaded remain yours. You can remove your profile at any time by deleting your account. This will also remove any private images you have stored in the system. However, by setting your uploaded images as "public", you agree to allow other Flickr users to view and share your images and you therefore agree to allow us to display and store them.

We encourage users to contribute their creations to the public domain or consider licensing their creations under less draconian terms than have become standard in most jurisdictions. Accordingly, we offer the ability to mark your content as belonging to the public domain or as licensed under a Creative Commons license.

Ludicorp undertakes to obey all relevant copyright laws, however misguided we may all judge them to be. We will review all claims of copyright infringement received and remove content deemed to have been posted or distributed in violation of any such laws. To make a claim, please provide us with the following:

A physical or electronic signature of the copyright owner or the person authorized to act on its behalf;

A description of the copyrighted work claimed to have been infringed;

A description of the infringing material and information reasonably sufficient to permit Ludicorp to locate the material;

Your contact information, including your address, telephone number, and email;

A statement by you that you have a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law; and

A statement that the information in the notification is accurate, and, under the pains and penalties of perjury, that you are authorized to act on behalf of the copyright owner.

Claims can be sent to copyright@ludicorp.com or Ludicorp Research & Development Ltd., 1052 Homer St., 2nd Floor, Vancouver, BC, V6B 2W9, Canada.

So, with all that in place, I feel pretty good about using their system.

Fair 'nuff!

:)

M

(I typically don't trust my content on servers I don't "own"--kinda a paranoia of mine... maybe I'm just lame.)

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