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TwitPic Will Sell Your Photos, But No Cash For You

Posted by timothy on from the click-no-to-agree dept.

Andy Smith writes "Twitter picture-posting service TwitPic has defended its plans to sell users' photos, but still won't cut users in on the deal. TwitPic founder Noah Everett claims that the move has been made to 'protect' users of the service."

8 of 102 comments (clear)

  1. Non-story by x*yy*x · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Ah, more submissions from Andy Smith. Just like last time it's completely off. TwitPic is not "planning to sell users' photos", it's just adding a clause in TOS that they have the right to them too. Just like YouTube and tons of other user content sites. In nowhere they state they plan to sell them, but Andy again twisted it like that.

    You know what, if you intent to sell your photos yourself and have full copyright on them, what about not uploading them all around the internet and giving them right to use them?

    1. Re:Non-story by Rurik · · Score: 4, Insightful

      If they're securing the rights to do so, then they have plans to do so.

    2. Re:Non-story by M.+Baranczak · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "We've partnered with organizations to help us combat this and to distribute newsworthy content in the appropriate manner."

      What plausible interpretation of this sentence can you give that doesn't involve selling content?

    3. Re:Non-story by cgenman · · Score: 4, Insightful

      A few months back I had photographed a subway fire here in Boston, and tweeted it. It showed up on a few news organization's websites, with proper attribution. It didn't occur to me to be outraged about it or anything, as it was a newsworthy photo. And if you're putting something up on Twitter it's not like you're intending to horde it. They used it well, in context of the story, and actually attributed it. Good on them.

      The thing is, by partnering with certain organizations (aka getting paid), this implies that Twitpic now plans to stop others from doing this. I.E. by posting to Twitter via Twitpic, they now plan on stopping the dissemination of the photographs to people who don't pay. They're reducing the possible distribution of newsworthy images. Which to me, reduces my value of uploading it. Further, it adds situations where things aren't attributed, or are used entirely out of context (photos of my children being used to sell Viagra would be totally legal).

      It's strange. This takes things from basically the situation an end user would want... Things intended to be disseminated get disseminated, while bad uses can be sued to be stopped... into one where the good uses are cut back and the bad uses are suddenly AOK.

      Does anyone know which twitter clients use twitpic for hosting?

      --
      The ______ Agenda
    4. Re:Non-story by x*yy*x · · Score: 1, Insightful

      It should also be noted that the submitter calls him "newspaper photographer". It's out of his income if people post newsworthy images on twitter and newspapers use those instead, so it makes sense for him to rant about it and twist it.

  2. What a stupid article. by chemicaldave · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Oh wait. It's not an article. It's an opinion piece. TwitPic will sell your photos? Where the fuck does it say that? You just made that up. This is FUD to the extreme. Who the fuck allowed this on the front page?

  3. BREAKING NEWS!!! by Schnapple · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Seemingly altruistic social media site which performs a useful service to millions of users for free turns out to have business plan to profit from people's usage of the site, and does not in fact exist just to be free.

    I'm disheartened to realize that there are still people who do not get this concept. Of course TwitPic is going to sell your photos and not cut you in on the deal. You agreed to it in the T&C. Even if it wasn't in the T&C, the clause of "oh hey we can change this at any time with no notice and you proactively agree to any changes" is probably in there. Why in the hell did you think they set up this service? Because they want to "connect people through social experiences"? Fuck no, they want to sell this shit to whomever will pay for it.

    Same as Facebook. Same as LinkedIn. Same as every other site that does this for free.

    You should just assume anything that you put online will be sold to the highest bidder and adjust your habits accordingly. If you don't what that photo of your dick to be on a porn site don't put it on TwitPic.

    --

    Schnapple

  4. Re: Of course they sell - WENN news agency anyone? by Elbereth · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Isn't this the exact argument that Slashdot usually uses when people talk about piracy? It's impossible to steal content, because the content producer still has their own content, and, by God, they should be happy that you're pirating their content, because now it's the dominant software or a popular song.