Twitter

[Voolf]

Hey Daniel

I must diagree with you on that. Yes she can promote the Guild, but she must be aware of what other agreement she agrees to.
By agreeing to Twitter rules she would states that she has a power to license Twitter maps she poster there. In fact she does not. She only has right to copy and distribute maps to promote Guild. She violate regulations set by twitter. The Guild TOC dosen't protect her from that.

[DanielHasenbos]

Hmm, I have very little knowledge when it comes to this, so I can only assume you're right there.

This is just a strange a complicated matter. I think we shouldn't worry about it too much though. As much as I appreciate everyone's work around here, I hardly think that Twitter would go out of their way to take and sell maps of guild users, or even investigate the Cartographers' Guild account.

But yeah, the TOC still sucks...

[Voolf]

Hmm, I have very little knowledge when it comes to this, so I can only assume you're right there.

This is just a strange a complicated matter. I think we shouldn't worry about it too much though. As much as I appreciate everyone's work around here, I hardly think that Twitter would go out of their way to take and sell maps of guild users, or even investigate the Cartographers' Guild account.

But yeah, the TOC still sucks...

That is true, i speak the extreme cases here.... Twitter is all about short text messeges after all. Still they have a green light to do this kind of thing.
Anyway this is very greedy move from their side. It would be the same as if the Guild changed their regulations saying that from now on every map we post will belong to the Guild with all right along with the right to sublicense. I guess 90% of us would never upload any image here anymore....

[Falconius]

I hardly think that Twitter would go out of their way to take and sell maps of guild users, or even investigate the Cartographers' Guild account.

I have to disagree with you here, contracts with clauses like this tend to have them because they are used, if not immediately then later on. And while no one at the Guild may be affected, undoubtedly there is going to be someone using Twitter who is, and more to the point it could just as easily be someone on the Guild.

And that is not even going into fan made maps about content with a licence, or even commissions displayed here with the permission of those who commissioned it (for instance publishers etc.).

Edit: Also I think Voolf is correct, Twitters TOC prevents the Guild from posting there under its current TOC structure. The Twitter TOC requires a person with full rights to the work (and thus the ability to waive those rights) and the Guilds TOC doesn't grant those rights, it only grants limited rights and then only in a specific way (promoting the guild and its members).

[DanielHasenbos]

I have to disagree with you here, contracts with clauses like this tend to have them because they are used, if not immediately then later on. And while no one at the Guild may be affected, undoubtedly there is going to be someone using Twitter who is, and more to the point it could just as easily be someone on the Guild.

And that is not even going into fan made maps about content with a licence, or even commissions displayed here with the permission of those who commissioned it (for instance publishers etc.).

I am more under the impression that they'll use their 'rights' passively. It allows them to sell content to news stations etc. as someone said earlier, but I done think they'll actively go and take content from users. Perhaps when we're talking really big things, but in the world of the internet, the Guild is a teeny-tiny bit. Even with people retweeting and what not.

So, the terms are inuriating, but I don't think they cause harm to any us.

The biggest problem that I see is the one that Mouse named where personal work ends up everywhere on the internet. But that's more of a general problem than specifically with Twitter.

EDIT: Yes, after what Voolf said I guess that the term would indeed prevent the Guild from sharing protected work. But the point I made here still stands. They won't actively go after ChickPea in my opinion.

[DanielHasenbos]

Maybe instead of discussing this here, it would be a good idea of ChickPea contacted Twitter and explains our concerns? But that may also cause more problems than there are now, and I wouldn't know how big that would get. I could imagine that the page might have to shut done or in the worst case Chickpea might be in trouble. Then again I'm no lawyer and I know little to nothing when it comes to this.

[ChickPea]

A point of clarification...

When I said I run the Guild's Twitter account above, I mean in the sense that I manage it on a day to day basis, posting tweets etc. However the contact email/password reset is a Guild email address that I don't have access to (so if Robbie decides to kick me out one day, he has the power to do that). I expect it's the same with the FB site. These are the Guild's 'official' social media accounts, not personal accounts set up by members. Therefore I believe (IANAL) the Guild's Terms of Service grant permission to the social media accounts to post content on behalf of the copyright holder, and members consent to this by maintaing an account here.

[Falconius]

It wouldn't be Chickpea who got in trouble as she and J. Edward are acting as representatives of the Guilt, it would be the Cartographers Guild as an entity that would be held responsible in a copyright dispute, or/and the user who originally uploaded it.

The bigger case here though is rights and ownership and licensing. Essentially the Twitter contract allows Twitter to use content uploaded to its site as it sees fit, and to sell it, alter it etc. really do whatever they want with it with no compensation or consultation to the original owner or rights holder.

I have a guest coming this evening who is a contract lawyer maybe I'll ask him what he thinks of these clauses?

[Voolf]

A point of clarification...

When I said I run the Guild's Twitter account above, I mean in the sense that I manage it on a day to day basis, posting tweets etc. However the contact email/password reset is a Guild email address that I don't have access to (so if Robbie decides to kick me out one day, he has the power to do that). I expect it's the same with the FB site. These are the Guild's 'official' social media accounts, not personal accounts set up by members. Therefore I believe (IANAL) the Guild's Terms of Service grant permission to the social media accounts to post content on behalf of the copyright holder, and members consent to this by maintaing an account here.

So in this case not you, but as Falconius said CG would have trouble. The problem is not that you post our maps on Twitter, the problem is that you (on behalf on CG) break the Twitter rules uploading any map there. The CG Terms give you rights to take our maps and upload them somewhere else to promote the Guild, but Twitter does not allow you to post anything that you do not own. You have our consent to upload image on Twitter, but you dont have rights to sublicense them to Twitter with another sublicensing right for them.

I have a guest coming this evening who is a contract lawyer maybe I'll ask him what he thinks of these clauses?

That would be most helpful Falconius.

[ladiestorm]

Wow,.it's way too early in the AM for me to be thinking about such things. I haven't even had my coffee yet!!!

Perhaps it's my sleep fogged brain going in some weird tangent... But the thing about this TOC that hit me was the fact that they are also giving themselves rights to modify and sublicence? Does this mean that they have the right to change something in a tweet and then pass it on as original content?

Here's what I'm getting at from our perspective. Let's say I post a map of a fictional region. I post a map of a war torn landscape (I'm currently running a mech warrior game) with the caption President Qilment of Levtrovia campaign against the sovereign nation of Guillert. Now let's say someone really likes the map and tweets it to their friends. It's a map that has political potential.

So Twitter has the right to change something in my map or caption for some political agenda ( everything seems to come back to potical agendas these days). And repost sell what ever. Now let's say.the changes border on the slanderous or libel...and Twitter gets called on it. If I understood correctly, and I'm not saying I did...in fact I'm probably wrong on this... Twitter has given themselves the right to do anything with content submitted, and have also given themselves the ability to 'pass the buck' on legal issues...does this mean that the slanderous libel lawsuit that might incur over Twitter's changes could come back to me?