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I can see potential ambiguity in hashtags and wouldn't apply my argument carte blanche, but this specific instance doesn't have any confusion in usage. My main
by jrandm 11y ago
I can see potential ambiguity in hashtags and wouldn't apply my argument carte blanche, but this specific instance doesn't have any confusion in usage.
My main concern here is that the positions are often reversed -- in this instance a company used an individual's content in a friendly, appropriate way, and did ask permission before any standard commercial use. Usually an individual is using a corporation's content in a friendly, appropriate way and is forced to desist.
I'd rather see more sanity in IP rights and look at specific instances than broadly apply some one-size-fits-none legal interpretation. I'd also rather the discussion be about practical concerns in (public) sharing on social media; any image tagged with popular terms and public is out of your control regardless of IP enforcement. My point is more that the chain of events is predictable and will continue to happen, so rather than attempt to enforce a virtually-meaningless copyright on a photo tell people this is normal and be mindful of what and how you share your content.
- delinka 11y agoIn this instance, they did not get permission first. From the article: "...posted it to their website with other UGC content. It was only much later that Crocs sought explicit permission..." And that's unacceptable. The TOS of these sites with embeddable content have content creators licensing their creations for embedding, provide attribution when embedded correctly, and generally attempt to be fair in the arrangement. Explicitly taking content from any place online simply because it was publicly accessible and dropping it into your site without the proper embedding code is not acceptable. It doesn't matter that there's a mention of a hashtag that the company's marketing department encouraged the creator to use.