> Karl, take a deep breath and step into their shoes for a second. What is > the minimum rights they would need to be able to display your images to any > visitor in the world and protect Fuji's interests if someone copies an > image from their site without your permission? let me take this one step further.. they offer an online printing service where you can upload your images to be PRINTED at a fuji fronier lab at full print image resolution, it goes like this: "Ordering Digital Photo Prints Online Do you want real photo prints from your digital camera? Did you know you can upload your images and order real photo prints online? Forget the hassles at the print shop, converting photos to digital images - Fujicolor's online services make digital photo printing easier than ever before in Australia. With free online services and a national network of photo labs, what could be more convenient? Print @ FUJICOLOR Australia is designed to make photo sharing and digital photo printing easy and fun for you. Digital photo files that you or your photo lab upload are stored in a high resolution format to ensure your photos are as clear as possible. We make smaller copies of these images for convenient web viewing, but store the original for future printing and fulfilment. You can search for your nearest participating online digital printing photo lab. The photo labs participating in our digital printing network all print digital images on high quality digital print devices like the FujiFilm Frontier Digital Minilab and the FujiFilm PG Photo Quality Digital Printer. <blah, blah blah.. costs & other irrelevant bits deleted..> Long Term Storage: Every internet upload or Photofinisher upload receives 30 days of free storage. Prior to deleting any images, you will be sent an email at your registration email address. The option to purchase long term image storage will be available soon, until then no images will be deleted. this too is subject to the same temrs and conditions! "you grant to us and to any store which uses the Service ... a non-exclusive transferable worldwide royalty-free copyright licence to reproduce, adapt or alter your images or photographs" eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek! > Lets look at it piece by piece. The web is "World-wide". Fuji makes this > service free and they don't charge subscribers so it has to be > "Royalty-free". ..and for the services they DO charge, you still surrender partial ownership and control! > Fuji may get acquired some day, or they may sell the web > site to someone else, so it has to be "Transferable". maybe they sell part of it to an image library? <more eeeeeeeek!> > Your protection here is the fact that the license is > "non-exclusive". You still own the copyright to it. As do they, so they can find a buyer and sell the image, leaving you out of the loop :-( > The second paragraph reemphasizes that pictures on the web are easily > stolen and that Fuji does not want to be held liable in the case one of > your pictures is stolen. that's valid.. > There is a simple concept in civil law, sue big > rich companies, never sue a poor person. So if I were to copy your image > from Fuji and use it and you found out about it, you could sue me for the > $12 in my bank account or you could sue Fuji for millions. Which are you > likely to do? So they are stating up front to make sure you understand > --- they are not responsible for protecting your images. but they are happy to charge you to print and store your images, and then equally happy to take partial posession .. <eeeeek! again> > Sadly, the first part of the language would in theory permit them to take > some of the better published photos and use them for their own advertising > purposes or for stock usage. It certainly would! >But the main reason that language is there > is to be able to legally offer the service. maybe, maybe, but I won't be using their 'service' knowing that I'd be paying to surrender part of my ownership! > If you want to use their service and you want your images protected there > are several things you can do. First, watermark your images. hehe - I wonder if my customers would like final prints marked suchly <joke man! ;-) > > Put a big > ole Copyright (C) Karl Shah-Jenner on the photo. Second, don't upload > anything bigger than say 350x500. There isn't enough data to get a good > print from, so its less likely they would use your image. :-P you're spoiling my perfectly good gripe Rob ;-) > If I were running an image hosting site, I would have to put in the same > language. and I'd be a fool to do business with Fuji ! karl
