Twitter

[Falconius]

Honestly, I don't think that EULA would actually hold up in court since it is contradictory within itself. They are trying to divest themselves of responsibility for the content available on their platform, whilst at the same time claiming that content as their own. Neither of those things is remotely realistic.

Actually getting them to court however would be a huge feat, I'm sure the have a cadre of lawyers whose sole purpose is to keep them from ever seeing a courthouse.

Twitter can go suck a bag of d's as far as I'm concerned.

[Straf]

I am no lawyer, so take my comments as you will....

These terms are pretty standard for social media entities. For twitter in particular, it also states right at the top of their terms of service "You retain your rights to any Content you submit, post or display on or through the Services. What’s yours is yours — you own your Content (and your photos and videos are part of the Content)." They ask for the rights to reproduce etc etc because tweets show up everywhere. Twitter's API allows you to embed tweets in a web site, and twitter needs permission for that. Also, have you ever watched a TV show and they show tweets on screen? Again, twitter needs the rights to reproduce your tweets. They're not selling your pics. They are granting themselves the right to monetise your content by showing ads to the people who view your tweets. It's my understanding that this is pretty much boilerplate legal speak for social media sites, but again IANAL.

For those unaware, I run the Guild's twitter account, and it's my understanding that I can tweet anything that gets upload here. It's in the Guild's terms of service: "Any contributions to this site are assumed to be the property of the poster and may not be used without permission, except for use by The Operators for promotion of the Website." That bit about promotion of the website allows us to reuse the content on the Guild's social media accounts. Now we obviously don't want to make anyone unhappy, but if these terms of service are not to your liking, you're going to have to raise the issue with Robbie. (This is above my pay grade!) For what it's worth, I get tweets & direct messages from people on a semi-regular basis saying (to paraphrase) "I love your stuff, can you make me a map?" I direct these people to the Mapmaking Requests forum and they can deal with the artists direct there. Raising the profile of the Guild benefits everyone, I feel. More eyeballs on our stuff = more members and a new influx of talent, and more commissions (for those who take them) from authors/gamemakers etc who may never have encountered the site before. I should state also that I don't generally tweet the full size images you post (unless they're small to start with). They're shrunk down, quite significantly sometimes, so it's not your original hi-res pic that's shared.

If people aren't happy with Guild posting their stuff to FB and Twitter, then I guess we need to have a conversation about that, because right now J.Edward and I work on the understanding that we can share whatever we choose, and the site's TOS validate our actions. It's my opinion that it's not the Guild's social media sites that are causing the issue with people's maps showing up everywhere. The people who are sharing without permission are coming direct to the Guild and taking the pics from source. Unfortunately, whether you like it or not, once your art's posted in a public forum, you can wave bye-bye to control over it. It's simply the nature of the internet. What you can do is watermark your images. Redrobes has got a nice script to help with that. For many, the lack of credit is the issue, not the sharing, so it's wise to do what you can to protect your images.

Don't get me wrong. I was in no way, shape or form suggesting that the Guild doesn't promote the work of people here. On the contrary, there are far too many things being posted for me to keep up with so sometimes I rely on the Twitter feed to direct me to content that I can appreciate (and rep ) I saw the new Twitter TOCs announced and as I was reading them that jumped out at me. I don't know if it was in there previously or whether it's because I have started reading these things more suspiciously than before. I noticed on I wasn't the only one with this concern. My point in posting about it was to open up a discussion. My interpretation is very likely made up of 78% paranoia, 46% cynicism and 24% of exaggeration and your view on it about retweets, tweets showing up on other media, etc. is a very valid one.

It does make sense when I take into account what you've just said ChickPea. I wonder if they could have worded things a bit better though.

[Azélor]

The way I understand it, while we retain all the rights in theory :

Twitter can do whatever they want with the content without asking permissions, even if the creator is not aware it was posted on Twitter.
Twitter will be able to sell stolen content without shame.

I understand that people can steal art. It bothers me but at least I did not gave them the right to do it.
Stealing is wrong and I don't understand why we should be ok to let Twitter do it.

Assuming my understanding is sound, it is very disturbing if this doesn't break any laws. (but I'm no lawyer either)

[Falconius]

Azelor is correct. The idea that a EULA would allow Twitter to take stolen work and be legally protected is ridiculous. Even pawn shops are liable for selling stolen goods. A third party cannot abrogate your rights to your work, no matter what they sign. And Twitter can certainly be held accountable for hosting stolen content. As I said earlier however actually getting them to court would be nigh on impossible without some sort of tort action.

[ChickPea]

It's my understanding that Section 230 in US law provides immunity to platforms for the actions of their users. Essentially, platforms can't be held liable for someone uploading copyrighted works onto their network. The fault lies with the user, and any repercussions should (in theory) be targeted at them, and not the platform. So, Twitter/Facebook/Pinterest etc etc get a pass here. They do have to respond to takedown requests or they become liable. Even the Guild has a policy in place for this. After all, should we be sued for copyright infringement if someone uploaded a map that was created by someone else, and they passed it off as their own? The blame lies with the one committing the crime, not the platform.

[Straf]

I think this is where the word 'knowingly' comes into play. There's be a certain amount of 'reasonableness' comes in as well. Saying "I didn't know it was copyrighted to someone else but I'll take it down" may be a defence in a lot of cases. However, if it was something well known such as the original Star Wars film I'm sure you'd reasonably be expected to know that that wasn't alright.

YouTube has a system whereby copyright claimants can have any revenue transferred to them, even on derivative works. For example someone doing a cover version of a song or a tutorial or something. There is a fair use clause with music which allows a certain number of bars to be used for non-profit or non-commercial purposes. An amateur production of a play could use a couple of bars of a song as an introduction, for example. At least that's what I understood from it but it was always best to seek permission just to be sure.

I think my biggest concern is if I post something online now, putting it in the public domain, could that cause me publishing problems later on. The wording of the Twitter TOCs seemed to state that I am giving them licence to do what they like with it, and that made me wonder if it would compromise any future publishing rights.

[Falconius]

Actually I think it helps protect your works. It establishes a date, ownership, and witnesses.

Posting on a site with that kind of contract however... My experience with contracts is that you can't trust the other party not to use clauses designed to exploit their position. In fact if there are wonky or questionable terms they are almost guaranteed to be used to your detriment.

[Mouse]

I've been away for a few hours, so the conversation has really moved on, but I'd like just to add that both ChickPea and J.Edward have my unlimited permission to repost any of my uploaded maps including on Twitter - as they see fit, because neither of them have ever treated my work with anything but the utmost respect. They are both very honourable people and make sure that credit is given every time, in such a way that my ownership is always clearly defined whenever or wherever they repost my maps. When its done this way I am happy to share my maps through their actions.

Its when those few anonymous individuals come along and take what they want without asking, and go on to behave like they automatically own what they've taken just because I've uploaded it to a Guild forum thread to ask my friends for advice that I get a bit riled. That's why I no longer upload the maps that will eventually become my book illustrations - no longer leave myself vulnerable to the nameless ones who are not my friends, and have no such respect.

With social site attitudes veering ever closer to apparently stripping creative people of any and all their rights as authors (whether its legal or not doesn't matter, because its the notion they're passing on to the global community that's important), its becoming a prudent move to avoid pre-publishing any map you want to keep pure for the sake of the unpublished book it is intended to illustrate.

[Voolf]

But I'm not trying to sell myself as a mapper, so I don't need the publicity....

Mouse i totally agree with what you said. None should ever take any of our maps and just upload them wherever they want, no matter the reason. I was just pointing a different issue with the Twitter TOS.

These terms are pretty standard for social media entities.

For me ChickPea, Twitter form their TOS far from standard. It is normal for the social networking services to state that they will use users content to promote their site which include reproduce, distribute and public display. When uploading your image you agree to grant them those non-exlusive rights for only site promotions reason, nothing esle.

They went far beyond that saying that they will not only receive those licence but aslo right to sublicense. Of course most of the time i will agree that they will sublicense those to other mass media (i.e TV news station) so they can display and pass your content further, but this sublicense statement gives them right to simply profit from the user content sellling it to any third parties. I wonder to whom they want to sublicense user content so much?

I don't have problem with the Guild ChickPea, i understand that you and J.E. uploading our maps. I actually get to know that 2-3 month after i joined the guild, but i agree to that. I want to warn you though using Twitter now, because by uploading our maps there you are breaking Twitter TOS, exposing yourselt as a potencial target for copyright infringement. They clearly stated

You represent and warrant that you have all the rights, power and authority necessary to grant the rights granted herein to any Content that you submit.

That means they don't even have to read anything you posted along the maps, they can just copy them sublicense to third parties and those on the other hand will be selling those maps. If the author of the map finds that out he/she can sue the third party, the third party will bounce the ball to Twitter because they bought the license from Twitter, then Twitter will say "no no no, we have the agreement from the user" which is you ChickPea "saying that person is the owner of the content and gave us the rights to sublicense". By breaking this rule you will held responsible for copyright infrigiment even though IRONICALLY you may have had the real owner consent to upload his work to your twitter account.

It's my understanding that Section 230 in US law provides immunity to platforms for the actions of their users. Essentially, platforms can't be held liable for someone uploading copyrighted works onto their network. The fault lies with the user, and any repercussions should (in theory) be targeted at them, and not the platform. So, Twitter/Facebook/Pinterest etc etc get a pass here. They do have to respond to takedown requests or they become liable. Even the Guild has a policy in place for this. After all, should we be sued for copyright infringement if someone uploaded a map that was created by someone else, and they passed it off as their own? The blame lies with the one committing the crime, not the platform.

That is correct, but it is made for different reason. As you said it is to protect the social services from going down because some users uploaded something they should not (ie. pornography, content prohibited by site, or copyrighted materials). They are not responsible because it was not social service that uploaded it but user. Twitter went one step furher. They can take your content and make money out of it and they don't care whether it is yours or not, because they protected themselfs from beeing liable.

Honestly, I don't think that EULA would actually hold up in court since it is contradictory within itself.

It actually isn't Falconius. They made it very clever. They agree that you are the owner of the Content, but they force on you to license all of your intelectual rights along with sublicensing right. Moreover they protected themselfs from infrigiment by saying that you have to upoad content that you own. If you own it, you gave them permission to do with it whatever they like. If you don't own it, they are not responsible because you broken their TOS rule making you the only one responsible for the copyright infrigiment.

[DanielHasenbos]

I want to warn you though using Twitter now, because by uploading our maps there you are breaking Twitter TOS, exposing yourselt as a potencial target for copyright infringement. They clearly stated

That means they don't even have to read anything you posted along the maps, they can just copy them sublicense to third parties and those on the other hand will be selling those maps. If the author of the map finds that out he/she can sue the third party, the third party will bounce the ball to Twitter because they bought the license from Twitter, then Twitter will say "no no no, we have the agreement from the user" which is you ChickPea "saying that person is the owner of the content and gave us the rights to sublicense". By breaking this rule you will held responsible for copyright infrigiment even though IRONICALLY you may have had the real owner consent to upload his work to your twitter account.

Earlier ChickPea stated that the Guild TOC states that 'any content posted on the Guild may be used by the Guild to promote the Guild' or something along that line. I don't think ChickPea would be in trouble since the Guild's TOC protects her. Only stuff from the Guild is shared on Twitter, so that means that it had been posted by people who have agreed to the Guild's TOC. This gives her the right to share the map on social media, as long as it's just for promotional purposes. Again it comes down to the original artist: if you don't want your maps to be shared online, don't post them online.

The best you can do is state in the original thread that you don't want to map to be shared, and the Guild users will probably respect that request. But legally they're still allowed to share it.