TOS

Avoid Confusion – Talk About Usage

March 30, 2011 By admin

[by Shawn Henry]

The major point of confusion between clients and photographers with many photo assignments, both editorial and commercial, is the scope of the usage allowed by the photographer and those expected by the client. This confusion often results because the photographer fails to address the usage issue up front, instead relying on “boilerplate” terms and conditions on the invoice to limit the use, while clients are sometimes ignorant about the issue of usage altogether, believing “we paid for it, we own it.”

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ASMP’s Best Practice for Social Networking Sites Part 4

March 18, 2011 By admin

Hypothetical:

To give you an idea of how your images may or may not be used according to the TOS, let’s pretend we have a photographer, Melissa, who has posted a photograph of a cow on top of a lighthouse.

A. Can the hosting company create a coffee table book called Stranger than Fiction, which includes Melissa’s photograph?

Photobucket — yes. Twitter — maybe. All other sites — no.

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ASMP’s Best Practice for Social Networking Sites Part 3

March 18, 2011 By admin

Common Terms:

Before offering our recommendations, it’s helpful to review the basic contours of the TOS. These are general areas of common ground, but you should review the specifics of each site’s TOS before posting.

The companies acknowledge that they are not getting a copyright interest in any of your photographs. (When discussing photographs, unless noted, the same would generally be true for any media).

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ASMP’s Best Practice for Social Networking Sites Part 2

March 18, 2011 By admin

As you decide whether to post images on a social networking site, you’ll have to keep in mind the great difference between legal rights and technological capability. Although we strongly recommend that you read the TOS for any site before you post any images, we want to warn you that the terms are only one consideration. Although they provide some shape to the legal landscape of your rights and the rights of the hosting company and other users, they are also limited in their practical effect for at least four reasons:

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ASMP’s Best Practice for Social Networking Sites Part 1

March 18, 2011 By admin

ASMP commissioned attorney Chris Reese to undertake a review of the Terms of Service (TOS) of six social media sites and to prepare findings and recommendations. The sites included in his assessment are Facebook, Photobucket, Flickr, MySpace, YouTube and Twitter. This report presents recommended best practices, considerations, common terms used, and hypothetical situations photographers may face when images are posted on social networking sites.

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