glamour pics wrote:
There's an EXTREMELY significant lesson here if you read closely. Twitter's terms, and the TOS w/ many other photo-sharing sites, include giving the site a right to sub-license and license. This means that once you upload, the site can license the use of your photos

well, in this case, it's completely not what you're describing, because twitter is not a photo sharing site; it's a site on which this photographer linked to a different photo sharing site (which, admittedly, does that some sublicensing text in their ToS, and isnt clear on who its affiliates are). But i see your point, in that people have to be very careful where they put their images nowadays.

glamour pics wrote:
You are not giving away your copyright, since you can still make use of your own photos. You are, however, giving up the right to control the use of your own work.

a copyright is... a right... to copy. if you no longer have a right to determine who copies your work, semantically, you *don't* have copyright anymore.
Yes, i know there are other legal structures built around copyright, but the core of those is the right to copy.

glamour pics wrote:
I predict that in the future, especially if Google succeeds in its efforts to gut copyright law, sites like Photo Bucket or FlickR will be looking at openly operating as stock image banks, licensing images out for cash. Perhaps they'll do it through subsidiaries with different names, to muddy the waters. But even if most of the millions of photos on these giant sites are worthless, there are still millions more with genuine commercial value.

It's definitely possible. I predict an enormous backlash if they ever try something like that. Following the backlash, i predict some sort of microstock opt-in solution, which will likely have the effect of eroding, even more, the ability of artists to protect their work (that is, if flickr does an opt-in microstock kind of deal, most people won't see any difference between images in each category, and will just use any image they come across. like now, but more rampant).

Fat Kitty Studios wrote:
Yeah, that didn't really end so well for them.

can you be more specific?

Mask Photo wrote:

you are basically failing at everything and need to stop.
twitter's rights STOP at anything beyond the actual text that is used in the tweet.
twitpic only retains the right to sublicense to affiliated sites.

the photographer retains copyright (quite literally, the RIGHT TO COPY) to his photos in both of these cases. AFP made unauthorized copies, thus violating the photographer's rights.

I strongly suggest you a) learn about what exactly twitter is and b) school yourself on what copyright actually means BEFORE you go mouthing off complete falsities in "public".

I suggest you learn to read. You have not made a single point that has merit. With that said, I have an ecological disaster unfolding in "my backyard" and have no time to educate you, because I am about to be on call to go deal with it.

Nice try.

Wilde One wrote:
The article states that AFP is used to bullying photographers, and now they ran into a pro with this, and are panicking.

quite delicious; their tactics stank of bullying. I hope they get raked for this.

MerrillMedia wrote:
You have not made a single point that has merit.

please either respond to each of my (extremely valid and backed by law) points with a rebuttal, or cease your uneducated trolling.

Mask Photo wrote:

can you be more specific?

Sorry, out of court settlement means the details are private. No offense but I'm not willing to risk my job to reveal the details about that situation.

Jerry Bennett wrote:
From the article on PDN:
"AFP is suing a Haitian photojournalist for 'antagonistic assertion of [his] rights' after it distributed his news-breaking earthquake photos all over the world without his permission. AFP is mad because the photographer, Daniel Morel, sent cease and desist letters to numerous AFP clients, allegedly made false and defamatory statements about AFP, and made unreasonable monetary demands of AFP for infringement."

http://www.pdnpulse.com/2010/04/insult- … -from.html

It seams to me there is enormous pressure out there to make copyright meaningless, unless of course you can afford a team of lawyers.

The other part of the Deal is  wireservices have Always been Work for Hire.  I have shot riots for $15.00 a pix all rights. 
   Wirephotos are great to build a portfolio and move on to a national magazine or International Photo Agency.
   If you are in a breaking National story call Getty Images or Corbis.  I don't think I would trust a daily newspaper either.  There is too much money involved.   My career skyrocked because the old Gamma Liason sold nine frames to Newsweek for a full page spred. It ran Wiorldwide, paid $5,000.00 several times over for about 10 minets work.