Twitter

[Mouse]

OMG, Storm!

If this is you without caffeine, then I really don't want to end up having an argument with you AFTER the coffee!

LOL! What a question!

I really don't know. Surely it would be down to the person or organisation that altered the graphic and effectively claimed it as their own by redistributing it as if it belonged entirely to them. After all, its not like you instructed them to do what they did with your original artwork, is it?

[Voolf]

...does this mean that the slanderous libel lawsuit that might incur over Twitter's changes could come back to me?

No Storm i don't think so. They have the right to prepare derivative work from your map, and use it as they please, but they will be responsible for whatever they made, because it is new product and they are the authors, not you.

You can only be sued if you upload something that you don't own, even if you have the consent of the author. Twitter may want to use it and they will assume it is yours because you agreed to their terms. If the real owner will sue them, they are not liable because you were suppose to be the person that owns the work. In the end they will have to take down the map, but you will be responsible for copyright infrigement.

[Falconius]

Ok, my friend thinks that Twitter does not gain any ownership of the material (ie it wouldn't give them the IP etc.), and its just a clause to protect them since they have no real interest in doing that sort of thing (taking work and using it to make money etc.). However if there was a copyright dispute it is the Guild who would fall in trouble possibly (I think the guild is protected though because people have given permission that the guild post their stuff around to social media).

Now my thoughts: There is a clause in the Twitter stuff where if the license owner requests a take down that the one who posted it is not liable once Twitter takes it down (or something along those lines). So in the end it is the original copyright owners responsibility to file a take down notice with Twitter if they want to protect their stuff, and if they do so there stuff will be taken down and the permissions given Twitter nullified. Meaning that if ever there was a copyright dispute (which would most likely be started by the person who posted here in the first place) they could stop the rights given to Twitter. Going around behind the back of the guild and the guild account getting a bunch of take downs noted against it may cause trouble for the guild account there.

I would also point out that Facebook has almost the exact same clause in its TOS. I really wouldn't trust either of these corporations however, since what they are interested in actually doing may change, and their TOS does allow them a lot of leeway. My suggestion is to keep the stuff posted to the sites low res, as the Guild has been doing. And if it really bothers people to have their stuff on Twitter etc perhaps the Guild can accommodate that when specifically requested in the map posts to do so?

[waldronate]

What those clauses actually mean is open to broad interpretation. If I recall correctly, the organizations include such clauses to allow them to engage in actions such as hosting your information on third-party system (e.g. cloud infrastructure not owned by the company) and to change the encoding as needed to improve the performance of their systems (e.g. reduce the size of the image and strip out metadata for the purposes of making thumbnails). It also covers them in the case where they might use the works in question in their advertising, possibly aggregated with other content, and warped, twisted or sized to fit within the new media context.

Consider preparing a commercial with a smiling and happy person in the foreground talking about how much better their life is now that they use the service, while images of various works from the site scroll by in the background. A case can be made that those background images are derivative works because they were changed from the original form; they would not be fair use because the company is using the work for profit. Once that video has been made, it needs to be delivered to a third party for distribution. That third party will usually require some sort of licensing agreement. Because it's expensive to do a license search for every item that you might want to use in this sort of context (or cloud hosting or backups), it's easier to just require that users let you do anything that you want with their works if they want to use your service. Mark Zuckerberg has graciously informed us that privacy is dead. Now things are moving just a little bit over to the "all your work are belong to us" zone.

The terms of service do, theoretically, allow the organization to do anything that they want with uploaded content. However (and it's a big however), doing so would destroy the only thing that lets the services survive: trust of the users. If users start getting abused and decide that they don't like it, they might start departing those services.

[Mouse]

How odd it is that the bigger an organisation gets the more idiotic their TOS becomes, until it is little more than a foggy patch of disjointed contradictions.

Maybe there should be a new universal law whereby if more than a certain number of people ask for an explanation of such a confusing document, the company that published it is obliged to explain every last word of it - giving examples where necessary to indicate what the heck they were thinking when they sat down and wrote it.

[Azélor]

if more than a certain number of people ask for an explanation of such a confusing document, the company that published it is obliged to explain every last word of it - giving examples where necessary to indicate what the heck they were thinking when they sat down and wrote it.

That's a boycott. It could have an impact only if we had a Twitter account in the first place.

I understand that Twitter might not have bad intentions but the way it's worded would allow them to do it if they want.

Another example like this that I was reading a few days ago: CD Projekt, the company that made The Witcher has trademarked the word Cyberpunk. Cyberpunk is a genre and yet, they have the exclusive rights on using the word in a title (game, movie, book..). If you want to use Cyberpunk in your title, they can file a lawsuit if they don't like your project. Of course they might let it pass but they have the right to prevent you from using it. They own the word.

I don't like that trend.

[Mouse]

Sorry Azelor, I don't understand what you mean when you say 'that's a boycott'?

(My Aspie brain is trying for a literal interpretation, and failing rather badly)

[Straf]

Personally I don't think that would stand up as it's been in use for a long time and is listed in dictionaries. It is therefore part of the language and is used to describe a genre. Similarly I don't think a certain technology company could stop me from describing products as 'apple flavour' or 'apple green'. I couldn't use the word as a brand name though, so maybe that's what those chaps have done - registered it to use as a brand name. Anyway Steampunk is better

[Azélor]

It's a way to put pressure on a company or a country in order to get a result. You are right, it was not really clear since you mentioned getting an explanation and the boycott tends to aim at getting a result.

[waldronate]

"Policies are the scar tissue of an organization."