Insult to Injury: AFP Suing Photographer It Stole Images From
"AFP finally sued, asserting that the Twitter Terms of Service are perfectly clear: Anything uploaded to Twitter is free for re-distribution. Besides, AFP says, Morel didn't indicate that he was putting any restrictions on the use of the images that he tweeted."
Posted by Ed Cordes on January 6, 2011 at 11:08 PM
While the rulling was a correct one and generally good for us, However, it doesn't seem to directly address the legality of allowing free use of images posted to social media sites.
I think photographers should know by now never to post your images directly onto facebook/twitter, but rather post LINKS to your image.
Posted by David Bostedo on January 7, 2011 at 11:58 AM
Ed - Sure it did, for anyone other that the social media site itself. The ruling plainly stated that twitpic's terms grant a license only to twitpic, not to third parties. And this is good because the end users in this case got the images from someone else who had copied them from the photographers' twitpic post. So they upheld the contention that the AFP needed to find out who the photographer was and not just use them blindly.
Of course, you're still granting a license to Facebook itself (and its partners) to use your images. But for now, that language has just been in there as a CYA for the site and how they post/repost/link to your items. I wonder if it will ever come to them mis-using images; Maybe one of their "partners" will be a stock photo site or something one day.
Discussion
5 replies"AFP finally sued, asserting that the Twitter Terms of Service are perfectly clear: Anything uploaded to Twitter is free for re-distribution. Besides, AFP says, Morel didn't indicate that he was putting any restrictions on the use of the images that he tweeted."
http://pdnpulse.com/2010/04/insult-to-injury-afp-suing-photographer-it-stole-images-from.html
http://www.pdnonline.com/pdn/news/Morel-Wins-Pre-Trial-1388.shtml
He appears to have won his case and hopefully it will become a precedent.
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101230/02083312463/as-expected-court-tells-afp-that-posting-image-twitpic-does-not-grant-anyone-license-to-use-it.shtml
Of course, you're still granting a license to Facebook itself (and its partners) to use your images. But for now, that language has just been in there as a CYA for the site and how they post/repost/link to your items. I wonder if it will ever come to them mis-using images; Maybe one of their "partners" will be a stock photo site or something one day.