Photography copyright – Colgate Flickr group
I am on the Flickr groups page. On the right side of the page one of the sponsored groups catches my attention: Colgate Smile. I click through and look at the photos and than move on to the discussions to see what other activity is there on this group.
I did not think about joining the group, my intent was to simply look over the photos in the group pool, but one topic caught my eye and that topic had to do with what was written in the group joining conditions, to which you have to agree of course if you plan on joining the group.
Here is the quote:
"The Colgate Smile Group (“Group”) permits you or other users to submit photographs to the Group ("Submissions") and the hosting, sharing, and/or publishing of such Submissions. Colgate-Palmolive Company (referred to as "CP," "we," "us," or "our") will not acknowledge or return any Submissions. Submissions may be published by CP if deemed appropriate by CP in its sole discretion.In connection with your Submissions, you represent and warrant that (i) you own or have the necessary licenses, rights, consents, and permissions to use and authorize us to use all patent, trademark, trade secret, copyright, intellectual property or other proprietary rights in and to any and all of your Submissions to allow inclusion and use of the Submissions in the manner contemplated by the Group and these Terms and (ii)you have the written consent, release, and/or permission of each and every identifiable individual person or his/her parent or guardian in the Submission to use the name or likeness of each and every such identifiable individual person to enable inclusion and use of the Submissions in the manner contemplated by the Group and these Terms.
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Ownership Rights/ License to Use SubmissionsYou retain all of your ownership rights in your Submissions. However, by submitting the Submissions to us, you hereby grant to CP, its affiliates and agents a worldwide, irrevocable, non-exclusive, royalty-free, fully paid, sublicenseable and transferable license to reproduce, display, exploit , modify, distribute, create derivative works of, display, and use the Submissions (including, your name and likeness and the names and likenesses of any people, and any other material, embodied in the Submission), your Flickr user name, and any title(s) and description(s) of the Submission, in any manner, media or venue, whether now known or later devised, including, without limitation, on flickr.com and any websites owned or controlled by CP or its affiliates or agents, for any purpose, including, without limitation, commercial and advertising uses until July 31, 2010, without compensation or notice to, or approval from, you or any third party.
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Now I don't want to grant anyone the use of my photos in a business related matter and not get anything in return, as in cash (well.. maybe a statue will do too). Read this thing out loud and listen carefully to how it shounds: "irrevocable, non-exclusive, royalty-free, fully paid, sublicenseable and transferable license". Do you like the way this sounds ? I don't.
Quite similar to this story about UK Expert and their horrible Terms and Conditions on Photocritic entitled Be Careful What You Sign.
Of course the problem is that nobody ever reads these things and since every mail service, every forum and so on have ToS and EULA to which you have to agree, hitting that OK button has become an impulse. You just do it out of habit. And maybe that is exactly what these people at Colgate and at UK Expert are hoping for. In fact what I believe they are hoping for is that they get some amazing photographs with rights on them so that they can use those amazing photographs, online, on banners, who knows where, places which will bring in money fro these companies, for free! They hope to make it big on your photos without paying anything.
So here is the advice and you better take it: READ carefully EVERYTHING you sign and BEFORE you sign it.