Burning Man Responds To EFF's Criticism of Policy

Briden writes "Earlier this week, we discussed the EFF's criticism of the Burning Man Photo Policy. Burning Man has now responded at length on their own blog. Here's an excerpt: 'In fact, there are but two essential reasons we maintain these increased controls on behalf of our community: to protect our participants so that images that violate their privacy are not displayed, and to prevent companies from using Burning Man to sell products. We don't remove images from pages just because they criticize us (I've never been involved in taking down an image from an editorial blog criticizing Burning Man, and it's certainly not because there haven't been any!). We're also not at all interested [in] preventing participants from sharing their personal imagery or impressions of the event on third party sharing sites in a noncommercial manner, so long as they observe the concerns about privacy and commercialism. We're delighted to see people sharing videos, stories, and pictures on our official Facebook page, and we know that it, along with Flickr, YouTube, Vimeo, etc. are representative of the way many of us share personal imagery in the digital age.'"

Comments

Re:No sir, I don't like it

[impaledsunset]

But, but, but we are doing it for your privacy! We ask you to give us rights to your works, and give some of them up, _solely_ for your own good, don't you get it? We're thinking 'bout you! How can you acuse us like that?

And, no, we're not lying, no... No, really!

There's tickets?

[savanik]

Since when did you have to buy tickets for Burning Man? I thought it was a counter-culture, anti-corporate, neo-society experiment out in the middle of nowhere that sounded like a really cool idea. Now they're saying that they're trying to 'keep it real' and prevent crass commercialism by... putting a highly restrictive EULA on the tickets they're selling for the event at anywhere from $280 to $450?

For that matter, now they're saying they're building a community/city out in the desert. Since when do you get charged a fee for walking into a city?

I was actually thinking about going to Burning Man this year. It sounds like I already missed the good years.

Re:There's tickets?

[Bigjeff5]

Real life is free; it's humans who add a cover charge.

That really depends on what you consider "free". In real life we evolved ways to free up people from the task of hunting/gathering for their own personal needs. Smaller and smaller groups of people were needed to supply food and materials for the entire community, which meant everybody else was free to do something to make their slice of the world better for the community. Thus, the modern world was born, and eventually grew into what it is today.

That things may have gotten out of hand a little bit does not suggest in any way that devolving culture by 10,000 years is going to make life better. In fact, if you ever listen to archaeologists or read books about what things were like back then, it really sucked. Life was hard, most people died early. Convenience was a piece of flint chipped to the shape of a spear, which meant you might actually get that buffalo this time and be able to feed your family for the month.

But in real life, apart from landlords and capitalists, food actually, literally, grows on trees. As does fuel for cooking and heating, and a wonderful building material called "wood". The sun shines for free; the photosynthesis that makes the oxygen you breathe is provided free of charge.

You've got an odd idea of what living in nature is like, have you ever actually tried it? I know people who have, and it's no walk in the park, as you seem to suggest. Why the hell do you think we developed away from it?

The fact is, all of you people who claim life would be better if we all just "got back to nature" are nothing more than a bunch of hypocrites. You could do it now, as you say everything is free, so all you have to do is leave, find some place secluded, and live. But nobody from Burning Man, or any of these other "freedom" parties ever does, because nobody wants to give up the luxuries the modern world provides. It's really nothing more than an excuse to have a raucous party.

Your idealism is faked.

Make it clear in writing.

[GrantRobertson]

If you have a rule written in a way that allows for broad range of interpretation, yet you claim that you only enforce within a narrow range, then it is incumbent on you to rewrite the rule to only cover that narrow range. Otherwise that rule or law can be selectively enforced or more harshly enforced later.

Never trust a vague or partially enforced rule or law. They are quite often used against the citizenry or "community" later.

Re:Public Event

[cmdahler]

It's always fun on slashdot to see the IANAL-but-I-KNOW-I'm-right crowd come out of the woodwork on articles like this. No, he's not a moron - you are. BM is held on property that is leased for the event. That makes it private, you can't get in without a ticket, which does indeed hold you under a binding contract while you are on that property. The only way you could get around this legally would be to find a location that is not on the leased property from which you could view BM, and then take pictures there. Now, go back under your rock.

get a clue, slashdot

[Aurisor]

I know. EULAs are evil. But, this is not your garden-variety EULA. This is an EULA expressly designed so chicks can feel comfortable *running around topless.*

Can we just take a deep breath and stow the nerd-rage on this one?