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October 21, 2007
Uploading your content to Facebook
I mention this every so often to people, but it's probably best you read it yourself so that you know the specifics about what happens when you upload your photos to facebook. Here is an excerpt from the Terms of Use.
By posting User Content to any part of the Site, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to the Company an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such User Content for any purpose on or in connection with the Site or the promotion thereof, to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such User Content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing. You may remove your User Content from the Site at any time. If you choose to remove your User Content, the license granted above will automatically expire, however you acknowledge that the Company may retain archived copies of your User Content.
The only silver lining here is that if you delete your photos, Facebook can no longer use them for free and they're yours again
Here's an excerpt from the Flickr's Terms of Service
Yahoo! does not claim ownership of Content you submit or make available for inclusion on the Service. However, with respect to Content you submit or make available for inclusion on publicly accessible areas of the Service, you grant Yahoo! the following worldwide, royalty-free and non-exclusive license(s), as applicable: ... With respect to photos, graphics, audio or video you submit or make available for inclusion on publicly accessible areas of the Service other than Yahoo! Groups, the license to use, distribute, reproduce, modify, adapt, publicly perform and publicly display such Content on the Service solely for the purpose for which such Content was submitted or made available. This license exists only for as long as you elect to continue to include such Content on the Service and will terminate at the time you remove or Yahoo! removes such Content from the Service.
The important part here, in my opinion is the section that states that this license that you're granting Flickr/Yahoo covers the activites they list as long as they're "solely for the purpose for which such Content was submitted or made available". By my understanding this means that the photo you upload to Flickr, can't be used in a television ad for Flickr, whereas the photo you upload to Facebook can. Here's the relevant section of Flickr's Terms of Service before being acquired by Yahoo.
We claim no intellectual property rights over the material you provide to the Flickr service. Your profile and materials uploaded remain yours. You can remove your profile at any time by deleting your account. This will also remove any private images you have stored in the system. However, by setting your uploaded images as "public", you agree to allow other Flickr users to view and share your images and you therefore agree to allow us to display and store them.
Posted by gene_wood at 08:52 AM | Comments (2)
October 10, 2007
I can't believe I named a band
So while visiting my friend Allen in Amsterdam last summer, I got to attend one of his bands early performances. They hadn't settled on a name and had a gig that Monday night (April 17th 2006). Kris, Allen and I were throwing around band names, proposing different things for them to use that night (to tide them over till they got a real band name). As most people who know me are aware, I love coming up with band names, and do so in many idle moments. Needless to say, this was no band-name-genesis amateur endeavor. So, for better or worse, I suggested Caspian Hat Dance. There was a general interest in the name, and the band decided to go use it that night.
I'm going to visit Allen again next month and I just went to check google, remembering that Kris had said that, to Allen's chagrin, the band had decided to keep the name. Holy shit! I mean I guess this shouldn't surprise me, they're a really great band, and they're still together performing now a year later, but still to see all of this material out there on the web with a name that I came up with. Well I guess this is what actually creative people must feel like all the time (when Jack hears me humming a song he wrote, or when Kris sees someone reading her article in the paper). I'll settle with seeing webpages of Allen's band with their band name.
Here are some videos of the band.
Posted by gene_wood at 12:06 AM | Comments (0)
October 06, 2007
Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science presents Andy Thomson's lecture titled "We Few, We Happy Few, We Band of Brothers."
I highly recommend setting aside an hour and watching this lecutre by Andy Thomson, a forensic psychiatrist, on the evolutionary psychology behind suicide bombing. It's presented by the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science. Part 1 and 2 are the lecture. Part 3, which I haven't included here, is Q&A and can be skipped.
Part I
Part II
Posted by gene_wood at 04:24 PM | Comments (0)