Twitter’s Pro-Freedom Terms of Service

IP Law, Technology
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Over at the online photography magazine, Photofocus, Scott Bourne warns photographers of the terms of service they may unwittingly agree to by posting a picture on Twitter. From the article:

Ask a real lawyer (not some guy named Larry who plays one on your local camera club forum) what this means. I did. My lawyer says it means that Twitter can do pretty much anything it wants with my photos (other than claim actual Copyright to them) and there’s nothing I can do about that. Is that an issue for you personally? Maybe not. It’s unlikely it will impact you if you aren’t trying to sell your photos. But if you are, read on.

As a professional photographer, I can’t sell “exclusive” rights to any image I decide to publish on Twitter. The reason is that once it is published on Twitter, there is no exclusivity left. That could be expensive. As professionals, we need to decide whether the exposure we get via Twitter is worth that trade off. For some of us the answer is yes – for others the answer is no. The purpose of this post is to get you to understand that you will have to make some hard choices. I am hoping they are informed choices, no matter what you decide.

In the case of the Twitter TOS, it seems that the terms Twitter stipulates are exactly the pro-freedom position: you can do whatever you want with the stuff you own (stuff, not ideas) unless you have contracted some other arrangement. Twitter owns the servers. You own the photo, sure, but you still have the photo after you uploaded it. What the uploader is actually doing is using Twitter’s stuff to create a copy on Twitter’s servers. For the photographer to then claim that he has the right to determine what Twitter does with it is like going to someone’s house and using a dollar bill left on a counter to make origami, then demanding the right to determine what happens to it as a result of your pattern rearrangement. It is nonsense from the start.

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Liberty To Not Kill Trees

Education, Technology, The Basics
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The great Liberty magazine, edited by R.W. Bradford from 1987 to 2005 and since then by Stephen Cox, has decided to abandon paper and become a completely online journal. This is a harbinger of things to come, as the publishing world adapts to the advent of the Internet and digital information. My own journal, Libertarian Papers, was founded in 2009 as an online journal; and, perhaps presaging things to come, Liberty‘s entire archive was recently put online on Mises.org. Cox himself, a brilliant writer, is also the heroic co-editor (with the brilliant Paul Cantor) of the critically acclaimed Literature and the Economics of Liberty: Spontaneous Order in Culture–published in free online epub and pdf formats by the Mises Institute. The November 2010 issue of Liberty contains the following editorial:

From the Editor

I want to make an announcement about an important change in Liberty. After our next issue — December 2010 — Liberty will cease to be a print journal. Thereafter it will appear online, in a free, fully revised website that will carry features, reviews, reflections, comments from readers, and a complete archive of all the issues we have published since our founding in 1987.

This is a big change, and it brings both happy and unhappy thoughts. Unhappy, because we all value the printed word and the familiar appearance of Liberty. Happy, because online publication will enable our authors’ contributions to appear more frequently, and closer to the events on which they comment. And I predict that an online site will bring us more readers.

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Article: The Kidnapping of Cheyenne Irish

Articles, Nanny Statism, Police Statism, Victimless Crimes
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The government’s abduction of Cheyenne Irish just hours after her birth is hardly the first time law enforcement officials and social workers have cited “political extremism” to justify severe and extra-constitutional sanctions against people who have not been convicted of an actual crime.

Read the Full Article by William N. Grigg

Afterwards, discuss it below.

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How Intellectual Property Hampers Capitalism

IP Law
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As noted on my media page, I’ll be delivering a speech entitled “How Intellectual Property Hampers Capitalism” at the Mises Institute Supporters’ Summit 2010, Oct. 8-9 2010, Auburn Alabama. The conference’s theme is “The Economic Recovery: Washington’s Big Lie.” There’s a dynamite list of speakers. The heroic Jim Rogers will be awarded the Gary G. Schlarbaum Prize, “For lifetime defense of liberty, given every year, awards $10,000 to a public intellectual or distinguished scholar.” I am looking forward to the entire event, especially the black-tie-optional reception and dinner honoring Mr. Rogers.

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