Twitpic Changes TOS, Claims Copyright on Your Images
May 11th, 2011
The popular Twitter photo sharing tool Twitpic recently updated their Terms of Service, and with the change in language, it now seems that they are claiming copyright license on all images uploaded to the service.
Here’s an excerpt of the changed terms:
. . . by submitting Content to Twitpic, you hereby grant Twitpic a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicenseable and transferable license to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, and perform the Content in connection with the Service and Twitpic’s (and its successors’ and affiliates’) business, including without limitation for promoting and redistributing part or all of the Service (and derivative works thereof) in any media formats and through any media channels.
Yes, this means exactly what you think it means – your images now belong to Twitpic, and they can do pretty much anything they want with them.
Even scarier – if you delete an image you’ve uploaded, they may still be able to retain a license to use it as they see fit:
The above licenses granted by you in media Content you submit to the Service terminate within a commercially reasonable time after you remove or delete your media from the Service provided that any sub-license by Twitpic to use, reproduce or distribute the Content prior to such termination may be perpetual and irrevocable.
Now, I am not a lawyer, but as far as I can tell, the new licensing terms apply only to images uploaded on or after May 4, 2011. If you’ve uploaded content since then, you may want to remove it.
As expected, Twitpic received a backlash of angry sentiment, and tried to address it on their blog – but most of the original legalese still stands – they continue to retain the right to sublicense or transfer their license to any other third party.
If you’re looking to find the reason behind these changes, just follow the money trail. This article outlines a deal between Twitpic and news agency World Entertainment News Network (WENN) concerning the licensing of celebrity photos posted to Twitpic. It’s no stretch to think that this deal could expand to include Twitpics of major news events or first-hand accounts, and similar agreements with other media outlets.
So now what? The beauty of Twitpic was that it integrated so well with many popular Twitter clients. A few people are suggesting Posterous as an alternative, as they have a less far reaching licensing agreement which only allows them to use your image for promoting Posterous itself, with no clause to sublicense your image for another use.
April Fool’s Day in Higher-Ed
April 1st, 2011
Ah, April 1st – the day that higher-ed loves to turn institutional homepages into a creative canvas of jokes and tricks. Here’s what I’ve found so far this year – I’ll try to keep this list updated throughout the day!
Marywood University – Scranton, PA
Squirrel takeover
University of Rochester – Rochester, NY
Back to 1996
Bryn Mawr College – Bryn Mawr, PA
Intergalactic Alliance
Syracuse University / S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications – Syracuse, NY
Winning with Charlie Sheen
Radford University – Radford, VA
Passionate Squirrels
Columbus State University – Columbus, GA
Columbus Ninja University
British Columbia Institute of Technology – Burnaby, BC
Timewarp – 1968
Three Years of Facebook Forgery
December 8th, 2010
Update – 12/8/10, 9:45 PM – According to a new post on the New York Times Choice Blog, many of the deceptive RoomSurf initiated groups have added language to identify their affiliation with the company. In addition, the fake profile of Justin Blackwell appears to have been removed.
We’re now entering our third admission cycle with fraudulent Facebook groups dedicated to shilling for a business at the expense of the student experience.
As many colleges and universities set up their “Class of 2015″ pages and groups for soon-to-be-admitted freshman, over 150 fake groups are already out there, created by Florida-based roommate matching service RoomSurf.com.
This year is a little different, however, and a whole lot more deceptive. Last year, the service established groups with names such as “URoomSurf Group for XXXX College Class of 2014,” and used RoomSurf’s logo as the group graphic. This year, RoomSurf has lifted the logos and wordmarks of colleges and universities and used them to populate the group graphic – making the group appear as if it were established and/or sanctioned by the school.
Colleges and Universities that create their own “Class of 20xx” groups and pages usually do so to help foster discussions and relationships between admitted students, and give them a direct line to the institution if they have questions or concerns – many of these groups are moderated by, or at least reviewed by, current students and/or admission office staffers. That same level of engagement and involvement won’t happen on the RoomSurf initiated groups.
If you work in higher education and find that RoomSurf has usurped your logo or school picture and has created a group on behalf of your institution, here are a few things you can do to help mitigate the damage:
1) Work to direct your prospective and admitted students directly into YOUR group. E-mails, links from the Admission page to the correct group, and a notice in the acceptance letter with a customized URL are all easy ways to make this happen.
2) Since RoomSurf grabbed your logo or picture without your permission, you can click “Report Group” in the lower left-hand corner of the page and report the group to Facebook as “Spam/Scam.” You should also report the theft of your image by filing a DMCA Notice of Copyright Infringement with Facebook. Make sure you include the link to the fraudulent group on the DMCA form to ensure Facebook can find the issue. There is no guarantee that Facebook will take action, but I can speak from experience in that I was able to have Facebook remove a bogus (although non-RoomSurf-related) group for our college last year.
3) If the RoomSurf-created group has a number of misdirected students already joined, you can join the group as well and post a message to the wall explaining the issue and pointing them to the official group.
More information and background on this issue:
Class of 2015 Groups – News Articles:
- A Facebook ‘Welcome’ That May Not Be
- Colleges Caution Against “Welcome Class of 2015″ Facebook Groups
- Beware of bogus university welcome groups on Facebook
- Facebook Freshmen, Watch Out For Roomsurf
- Company Sets Up Unauthorized College Facebook Groups
- ‘Welcome’ Groups for College Freshmen on Facebook Revealed as Subtle Marketing Scheme
- Students: Be cautious of Facebook welcome pages
Class of 2015 Groups – Blogs:
- Facebook, Trust and RoomSurf.com – Georgy Cohen
- Coming together: Colleges unite to fight Facebook fraud – Tim Nekritz
- Dealing with Fake Facebook Groups – Michael Fienen
- Facebookgate all over again? – Andrew Careaga
- Facebook Class of 2015 Groups: Deja Vu All Over Again – Lori Packer
- Is FacebookGate ‘Troll Marketing’? – Lougan Bishop
Class of 2015 Groups – Discussions:
Previous “Facebookgate” issues:
The Value of Stories
November 18th, 2010
Only a few short comments here before I pass you off to Georgy Cohen’s thoughts on this subject. Her post came about after a recent episode of Higher Ed Live where a number of us, in higher ed marketing and communications, chimed in on the Twitter backchannel.
In particular, I believe these few sentences by Georgy truly captured our discussion:
“A brand needs good stories like a website needs good usability. Both guide our audiences toward desired ends, supporting core objectives. And how do you craft an effective story? By knowing your audience. And in higher ed, we live and breathe with our audience every day. That is not easy to replicate externally. It’s part institutional knowledge, but also part investment in the institution and connection to its mission.”
As communications professionals, we need to know and understand our various audiences, and we need to be able to craft stories to communicate the value of an education at our institutions. Only by being committed to the mission, and understanding the goals of our respective institutions, can we do this with any degree of success.
Enough from me – go read Georgy’s great post.
A Video I Love and Why: The Machine is Us/ing Us
November 10th, 2010
After reading through Tim, Andrew and Todd’s posts on this subject, I felt compelled to jump in too.
The video I love is The Machine is Us/ing Us by Michael Wesch, professor of cultural anthropology at Kansas State University. And if I had to pick a second video, it would be Information R/evolution also by Wesch.
It’s over three years old at this point, but The Machine is Us/ing Us does an excellent job of showing the foundation of our digitally connected world, and where it will take us in the future.
I’ve incorporated this video, in whole and in parts, into a number of presentations I’ve given over the years, and it has always helped my audience “get it” with it comes to Web 2.0 and beyond.
Despite being a little fast, and somewhat technical at the outset, my (mostly non-technical) audiences always seemed to understand the message, and it served as a way to initiate discussions about where we wanted to go after Web 2.0.
Wesch continued to build on the themes from this video with future works. Information R/evolution is another one of his videos that also takes the viewer from old methods to new paradigms, and shows the need for examining how we will store and manage information (content) in the future.
Both videos are below:
The Machine is Us/ing Us
Information R/evolution