Or should I be saying: User's beware! ?
What an alarming afternoon... Without being too confusing let me explain how we arrived at here. I was researching a web-developers website for what I thought would be tomorrows blog post when...
- I got sidetracked from my research for a 'Google Blogger web-cloud'; I thought, "Fascinating... a flash widget for Google's Picasa" - [Yeh..you can say it, A.D.D.] which led me to:
- The Developers widget explanation page; "Oh, I need to use my uploaded Picasa pictures?" - which led to:
- The Picasa login page. "Hmmm, I wonder, have I installed and started this before?" - so I sign in to:
- Google services and WHAM! - "What's this?
- Picasa's TOS.
Whatever internalized beacon started flashing to red and whatever siren hailed deafening into my cerebrum both stopped me dead in my tracks. Apparently, I had not been here before. Better follow my instincts a read those TOS, just in case. I value my rights as a photographer and as it turns out: I was dead-right.
Somewhere 3/4 down into the terms I start reading this:
...by submitting, posting or displaying Content which is intended to be available to the general public, you grant Google a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to reproduce, adapt, distribute and publish such Content for the purpose of displaying, distributing and promoting Google services.
Now am I the only one thinking rape+pillage thoughts? Surely there must be another soul out there like me who is equally shocked so I (albeit still remaining the google-search-engine-loving-fanatic) throw my search terms (Picassa [yes I spelled it wrong] - discussion - copyright - usage - photographer - license) into the Google algorithm and OMG.. the first hit on the top of the list and I get exactly what I am looking for. I know I am skilled with my search terms - but I even surprised myself with this search.
The blogger from my Google search, Greg Reinacker, hit the nail on the head in his great article written on August 30th, 2006 entitled: Why I can't try Picasa Web Albums. It is perfect in every way so I will not paraphrase him at all. I'd suggest reading his well written article yourself. But - to put the icing on the cake, Greg Reinacker's Facebook post from yesterday is an undeniable track through destiny. Whenever I find a useful blog entry from any of my web searches, I always take a look to see what the webmaster is doing today. 'Technically' it was yesterday, but it (is) was his most recent blog post (when I hit his homepage), so the Facebook post was headlining - and most relevant to today's discussion.
Note: Even if you are reading this yourself sometime later, you have found (as I did) a signal from the universe. [..it feels like I've found a mummy in an Egyptian tomb.] - Never confuse coincidence with destiny. ..Awesome.
Labels: consulting, facebook, google, photography, web
