Forum as a photo repository for Members?

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21

I take photos, I object. Moot point.

You can claim fair use by using photos posted on the forum somewhere else within the forum. But if you take those photos off the forum and use them on some other medium, you’re now crossing a line that is no longer covered under fair use.
The ToS is a legal document and there isn’t room for, ‘most people wouldn’t mind’. Consent is legally required to take a photo from one medium and use it elsewhere.

You also have a problem of asserting that the user who posted the photo is even the legal rights holder to that content. I could post something I bought from the pro photographers at a 24 hour race. The license on the photo is for my personal use only, it doesn’t allow a third party to take that photo and use it in some marketing material.

I feel it’s rather lazy and unprofessional to say it’s too difficult to contact a few people and ask for consent on their photos. Yes, most people would have no problems and would be happy to have their photos used. You can probably even get long term consent on future photos from the people who contribute the most here - people like Alain, Mark, Lauren. But that doesn’t mean it’s a yes for every single person and making that assumption can get people into legal trouble, and at the very least is an act in bad faith.

How often is the need to snag photos from the forum really going to happen? I can’t see it happening so much that asking for consent is a huge barrier. Create a business workflow and I’m sure there’s a way to utilize our technology to make it less painful.

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22

I’m a firm opponent to using service agreement to strip people of their rights. And I’m not implying that’s what is intended here, but steering clear of that kind of language is wise in my personal opinion.

The proposal is not to strip any rights, it is just to grant rights to the club to use the photos, whether that be at club social, social media, whatever.

If the club wants to use a photo they should ask the poster for permission. If there’s a chance things will be re-posted as part of the policy, less people will post.

As someone who has spent lots of time trying to promote the club both internally and externally, this seems like an unfair burden on the club volunteers. Many use social media as their one way of following the club. So, yes, Twitter is used for internal promotion.

I would suggest a clearly worded statement in the terms of service with an opt-out option. E.g. If you don’t want the photos you share in posts to be used by the club beyond the forums add the following to each post with pictures you don’t want shared: No sharing of photos please!

There should likely be an automated quarterly reminder of the opt-in photo policy.

It seems like a small number who would want a photo posted in the forum, but nowhere else. If you are really concerned, then just don’t share any photos.

This term of service should be in your face when you register, preferably with a checkbox that must be checked to proceed. Its only publication should not be in a document that nobody reads.

For the photo upload forms we have used in the past we simply said: “I am giving Waterloo Cycling Club permission to use my submitted photos for club related discourse.” It is not written by a lawyer, but hopefully it is clear that if you give the club a photo, you are giving the club a rights to use it.

If you have an open invitation for photos, you will get some photo. They will be varying quality. You may or may not know what the picture represents. When the club wants to use them it will take time to find what you want. I think promoting Alain’s method is the right thing: Forum posts with pictures and at least a few words setting the seen.

There are a few prolific photographers in the club. I think collecting photos from them as they are willing is still a good thing. I think the place for that is still Flickr. I paused collecting pictures during Covid because there were many photos where adherence to protocols and club policies was unclear. I plan to resume after protocols are lifted.

Cheers,
Bill

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23

100% we cannot just use people photos. If we are going to do anything with photos we would need to modify the ToS.

This would require us to define what we are allowing the club to do. I think it should be defined and not just the WCC can do whatever it wants.

Is everyone gonna lime this no. But that is why we are having this discussion to see what people think.

24

I have a proposed solution that may make everyone happy.

We are able to add custom fields to user profiles. Why don’t we add a field called photo consent. “If you consent to WCC using your uploaded photos for marketing purposes, type I agree”

Then when you’re looking for photos, it’s a simple check on the user’s profile to see if you can use their content or not

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25

That was my point. Leave the photos on the forum only, then it’s inclusive.

I don’t think in practice that the club will have a hard time acquiring photos, by asking permission.

26

Sorry Bill I disagree. TOS to have the photos within the forum is fine but Tom is right re any external use without explicit permission is not appropriate.

I don’t want my forum photos on social media without my permission. Within the forum is fine as it’s a closed ecosystem. This is purely from a privacy perspective, not commercial. (though there are obviously commercial considerations too)

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27

I’ve added the photo consent field to the user profile for testing.

It will even show up in the user card when you click on someone’s profile picture on a post:

Here’s an example with Carolyn consenting. You see the Photo Use Consent: true. So when you’re looking for photos to use, you don’t even have to leave the page to find out if you can use it or not.

Screen Shot 2021-04-16 at 11.18.34 AM
Screen Shot 2021-04-16 at 11.18.34 AM1162×478 81.4 KB

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28

I didn’t consent to this.

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29

Your profile says otherwise :upside_down_face:

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30

What about a middle ground in the consent answers: Yes, Please Ask, No
If I saw someone had a no for consent, I would never ask to use their photos except in exceptional circumstances. Using Please Ask would mean - no consent but they are open to discussing it.
Or does the current “no” mean: no consent but we can ask them for permission?

As for Flikr, if we continue to use that for mass uploads (e.g. prior to or after a social event) we could then create a forum post with the flikr link and say pics were recently uploaded.

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31

Sure, that sounds reasonable to me.
I’ve added a “Please Ask First” option to the consent field.

You can view my profile card as an example. I’ve set mine to please ask first.

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32

The most time consuming use case that I was thinking about is the compilation of slide shows for events like socials, AGM, website, etc. It is time consuming to put these together. Adding consent will make these either more time consuming or less diverse.

I wonder if there is some way to put these together directly from images in Discourse. Something like a slideshow plugin. In a quick internet search I found some interest, but I didn’t find any working solutions. If anyone knows of anything, let me know.

Thanks,
Bill

33

So, the question is what are we going to default this setting to be?

It could go any of the three options, but logically ‘please ask’ makes sense and should not offend anyone.

We should probably also somehow inform users of this though and could possibly explain it to members in a post, faq, or message.

34

In my opinion you have to start with don’t share.

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35

@ChrisP if it is set to ask, and then we ask and you say No, then we know your answer ( and the setting can be changed).

Why assume No, when you don’t know that to be the case? What is the possible harm of asking someone the first time?

36

Oh sorry, I was thinking about the yes/no option and not the please ask first. What I meant was we can’t default to yes.

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37

It is currently a required field that has to be filled out on account creation.

This doesn’t apply to existing accounts, however. So all of the beta testers should update their profile settings in their preferences panel.

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38

…and I had to refresh the site before I could see the setting in my profile.

39

I think we might be over thinking and over engineering the concept of consent. I have been working copyright issues for large organizations a long time and dealing with social media campaigns where photos/video are a concern since they represnt valueable product or a person who has photographic value (not to say we are not worth something ourselves :slight_smile:). If a club member is uplodaing pictures/video of an event they participated in, or standing beside their good friend they went group riding with it will only be consumed on this site. I think the “Yes/No” is perfect and all that is needed. BTW, I have never been asked by Facebook, Twitter, Instragram, ICQ, YouTube etc to preempt a consent before uploading…its assumed (BTW, all of those assume ownership of the content once it hits their platform - its in your agreement with them). There is not enough hours in the day to police this. If anything we can put something in the sign-in or update the membership contract stating that anything being being uploaded to the site has assumed consent and that any complaints can be dealt with on a case-by-case basis with the site admin or committee. I don’t see this ever being used… except by @Carloyn_Smith :slight_smile:

My 0.02 cents.

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