On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 04:05:33PM -0400, Matthew Hunt wrote: > On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 3:38 PM, John Francis <[email protected]> wrote: > > > While the license looked as though it was just boilerplate written > > by lawyers to let Flickr create thumbnails, screenshots, etc., > > that's not what it said. > > OK, thanks, but was there any reason to believe that they crafted it > maliciously, instead of it being a CYA approach? You need to be able > to create derivative works to create thumbnails, etc. You may include > an "any medium" clause, because you're backing on magnetic, optical, > and stone-tablet media, and want to make sure you're covered when the > holographic storage arrays come out. > > I don't disagree that it was probably overreaching, relative to their > actual needs, but I tend to attribute that to lawyers' CYA tendencies, > rather than jump to the conclusion that they're moving into the stock > photo business and keeping all the money. Mark Roberts had a good > recent blog post on this very topic.
Note there's at least one important limitation Mark's blog assumes, which was (IIRC) absent from the original licensing conditions; the termination of the license (after a reasonable period) if the content in question is removed from the hosting site. Again, probably a CYA omission; they're not going to go and scrub every reference to your work if you take the original down. But that doesn't mean they should be able to go and create new derived works from their saved copy. > In other words, it comes across to me as a misstep which they > subsequently remedied; I have trouble connecting it to the intensity > of reactions that some here have expressed. Some of us just don't use Flickr because it doesn't offer us enough benefit (and because the interface sucks, but that's a whole other can of worms). That doesn't mean we all hate and despise Flickr. I use Google (and gmail), but I don't use it for content that is "company confidential". Other people aren't so picky, while on the other side of the fence there are people who wouldn't touch anything from Google with a 10 foot pole. There's nothing special about Flickr (or Google) here - you'll find the same dichotomy exists for Microsoft, for Apple, for Sony, for Ford, for Chevy ... I've only got a limited tolerance for sites that want me to log in (especially since there's very little chance of getting the user name I want, so I have to come up with a new variation, and keep track of what account name I use for which site). Google (and LinkedIn) offer me enough that I'm prepared to put up with the irritation. Flickr does not, at present. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
