Originally Posted by
PTravel
Couple of points (speaking as intellectual property lawyer). . .
2. I'm not aware of anything in the FT TOS that forfeits copyright in any images that we post. I construe the FT language as a license, not an assignment. Note that the license is broad enough to allow FT's owners to exploit, commercially, any posted images however they want. If you're concerned about that, I'd recommend either (1) watermarking the image, (2) posting only low-res images, or (3) don't post images.
3. Though FT reserves for itself a license, there are no user-provided reps and warranties against non-infringement, i.e. FT could use these images only at its own risk. Speaking as a lawyer who counsels clients who acquire and distribute IP, I would never advise using images posted in such context -- it would just be asking for trouble.
4. Posting images to FT involves exactly the same kinds of considerations, from FT's perspective, as posting text, i.e. infringing text could could result in liability if it is maintained after a "take down" demand per the DMCA, "deep-linking" can be problematic, etc. There should, of course, be incorporated in the TOS a prohibition against posting or linking IP that is protected by copyright without the permission of the copyright owner.
To #2/3... For example, say that I take a picture of myself with Mickey Mouse at a Disney park. The next FT photo contest has the theme "Mice", so I submit that image. I'm not making money off of it, and as part of a contest, it's subject to critique, which makes it editorial, and therefore doesn't require a license from Disney. However, IB/Randy cannot commercially exploit my image without permission from Disney, irrespective of whether I've given permission explicitly or implicitly per the TOS.
I think that the correct answer to this is that IB/Randy should just change the terms, because while they can certainly claim a license to use our images, as you rightly note in #3 it would just be asking for trouble. I just did a little sniffing at a few of the photo sites I frequent, and I found that the ones I visit most disclaim any rights to images posted in their discussion forums (in fact, they disclaim rights to everything in their forums). For example:
Originally Posted by dpreview.com
All text, design, layout and graphics (unless otherwise noted and excluding messages posted on the discussion forum) on this website are (c)1998-2007 Digital Photography Review™ a website owned by Askey.Net Consulting Ltd.
Hey, if IB/Randy are crazy enough to want to make commercial use of my images, they can PM me and I'll give them a reasonable price as well as something a little higher res than 800x600.