Message from IB and responses

I'll hold off on posting more PF photos until 1) IB rewrites the policy (I thought the language on the link Miguel provided was excellent in terms of protecting our rights to our images) and 2) I somehow find more time LOL.

Well they are safe to the extent that Flickr does not a policy like DG has that gives them total control of photos posted to their site to modify (meaning remove copyright tag even) and to even sell them.

By providing content to our site, you have granted Dave's Garden unrestricted use of that material. We do make commitments of your privacy, however. Your E-mail address and full name will never be revealed to other entities by Dave's Garden. (See the Privacy Policy for details regarding the displaying of your city, state, and ZIP code.) We reserve the right to modify, reproduce and redistribute materials posted to our services, both internally and for commercial use. Copyright of all material published is retained by the contributor. The contributor does, however, grant to Dave's Garden a non-exclusive license to modify, reproduce, and re-distribute the contributed content in any manner that it sees fit.

I mean it is pretty hard to ignore the truths in the Acceptable Use Policy at DG that is stated here and what we agree to just by posting our photos.

There was always trust between all of us and you Dave but we now know all things change. And even if Internet Brands never intends to interfere with our pictures in PF, I see there is no guarantee now for the next owners and the next, next owners so on and so forth unless the current Acceptable Use Policy is changed to protect our rights.

At least when my photos are stolen off Flickr it is done one by one and not the whole slew of them. And if I find out, I do have some recourse to right the situation. Here I would have no recourse since just by posting my photos I give my rights over to IB.

This message was edited Feb 6, 2010 4:21 PM

Oh dear.

There is no 'Green' writing under your name Dave. That made me sad.

Hugs.

I went to see what Flickr was all about. Pop up ad was the first thing to jump out at me. Then I saw a banner, "share your photos". Now if you don't want to share with anyone, why would you even want to post them. I don't get it!

If you want to see pictures of the world go to the weather forum. A bunch of us from around the world post pictures for all to enjoy everyday. It's nice seeing what other parts of the country & world look like.

Bernie

Happy1, more than one Dave here.....Oh, maybe I missed something...Oops.

Gee, the only thing I've learned to count on is that everyting is going to change.


Boooooo

This message was edited Feb 6, 2010 8:56 PM

This message was edited Feb 6, 2010 8:58 PM

Hi Bernie. It is not about sharing. I think everyone here that posts on the threads, in PF or even Flickr is all about sharing. But why should anyone spend hours and hours taking photos, processing them and posting them only to have someone you do not even know come and take them from you?

And worse, use them to make themselves money while the person who invested all of their time and I might add money for cameras are not free after all get squat? Hardly seems right to me.

Think of my photos like your vegetables. I am sure you do not mind someone walking by your garden and enjoying the sight. But how would you feel if someone came into your garden after you had worked so hard to grow the best vegetables you could and picked them and went off the nearest Farmer's Market and sold them. Then took that money they made home with them and gave you not a penny.

I hear you Bernie! I dont care one way or the other. If I ever take a picture good enough that someone would want to steal ... I would be really proud to see it in print!
LOL And when I do get lucky enough to get a good one I send it all over the world anyway. Especially my Hosta Garden. Oh Boy its almost that time again, I cant wait. I would love to get one of those with the big lens so you can see the hair on a bugs back ... my BF says that would not work for me either. LOL

When we post our pictures, add plants, comment, etc. to the plant files and other databases here on Dave's Garden, we're not just sharing our pictures or information. We're helping to build the worlds largest plant, bug, bird database. If I just wanted to post my photos for others to see, there are a lot of places on the web to do this. I really enjoyed this part of my membership and felt that my contributions (as small as they were) would be helpful to others just as others contributions were helpful to me.

Personally, I'm not that worried about someone else using my photos. In fact whenever someone has asked I've always said yes. But until the policies are changed here, there is more that could happen to our photos then just someone else using them to benefit from .

Joy

Well ... that is a bummer! :-(

That misses the point. Sharing is one thing. Having someone steal your work and profit from it is another! Maybe if you had it happen to you, you would have a different outlook.

The story of the large real estate company buying out a town and putting the supercenter sounds a lot like WalMart SuperCenters springing up in moderate size midwest towns. Smaller business go out of business or have to charge higher prices because now the people shop for all their needs at one WM store and the smaller stores have to buy smaller quantities which cost more. And so on and so on. Yes, some of the people did buy land and build their own town(s) and some of the family members & old neighbors went to live there with them.

IB didn't notify us because they didn't have to. We are only pieces of the whole property which was for sale and purchased. What was underhanded was NB(?) telling IB that Dave didn't want anything to do with DG anymore. Also underhanded, tho maybe nothing Micheal had anything to do with as far as authority is concerned, is the way IB has treated Dave. I have a feeling they are backpedaling as far as what role they will give him.

Time will tell.

There is a tomato catalogue website and I am sorry I don't remember the name, but when you see a tomato picture you want, if you right click to copy it, a message comes up that says they won't share. I only wanted the pictures for my own personal files so I can watch a tomato while it is growing out to identify what it will look like.

How did I get around that? I hit the button - Print screen. Then pasted it into Word and used the Word tools to crop it to what I wanted. So it seems to me there is always a way around an obstacle if you want it badly enough.

So it seems to me it is very dangerous anywhere to post anything if you feel that strongly about it. I am not a photographer but have heard plenty about people stealing pictures from DG to use on EBay. I am so sorry that happens. Even with a watermark, you can manipulate the photo in a photo program to remove it and patch things up.

Kell, I will miss you pictures. You are such a giving person and things went pretty smooth on here for years with no apparent problems. I certainly don't know of anyone here abusing your lovely photos. We will miss them but you have to be true to your own feelings.

Be Well, My Friend

Please don't misunderstand. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with someone not wanting their photos taken and used by someone else. I respect that probably most people feel this way. I'm just trying to point out that this problem has the potential to be even bigger than that.
For instance, what someone earlier said about having to buy their photos back after they were suddenly taken off line with no warning.

Joy

It seems that ignorance is bliss, after all.

Dave has lost his Admin title, etc that was posted under his name. That made me so sad...

I don't understand. It seems like the only reason you would need to buy your photos back is if you didn't keep a backup copy. If that's the case, that is a serious mistake. If you are depending on a website to store your only copy of a photo or document or anything, then you are definitely living dangerously.

If you care about keeping your photos, you really should keep a backup copy (at your house). As was pointed out earlier, storage is cheap. You can get a 500G, usb drive for around $100. That will hold a lot of photos. Or if you don't want to pay that much, you can burn them to DVD's or CD's although these options take longer and require more storage space if you have a lot of photos. At the very least, if you insist on just keeping them online then post them to more than one site. You can keep them, for instance, on a free webshots account and even mark them as private so others can't see them if that's what you want.

CJ, I didn't see that until you mentioned it. Bums me out, too. : (

You can also get a little Memory Stick for very little for what they do. I have a little 10GB one for my bank records, they run from about $10. on up for the larger ones. I keep a larger one for all my pics. Just plug it in and hit back up.

That works, too. It's just that I have tons of very high res photos, so I need more 'space'. You can get drives that are really just slightly larger memory sticks. They plug into your usb connector the same way except that some have a usb cable so they can sit on the desk beside the computer. But they are very small and light.

Either way, for all the people I 'hear' expressing concerns about loosing their pictures if the site they are on, DG or other, removes them for some reason, I highly recommend using one of these methods to backup your photos, so that you can keep a copy.

Wow, Kell, I just looked, over 7,000 photos you've put here.

I use Carbonite to automatically back up everything on my computer. I was just using that as an example. Guess it wasn't a very good one.

Joy

Joy, do you love Carbonite? My computer never worked the same after Mozy. I am hoping Carbonite will be better.

Hi Melissa. Yes, I have and I really do not think people are getting how much work that has been! Blood, sweat and tears. And not only for me, but there are others that have made PFs a labor of love for years. Look at PalmBob, a true inspiration of sharing! I do not think he ever sleeps. LOL

I think every single one of his photos belong only to him to do what he wants to do with them! He has so enriched PlantFiles for us all!

Thank you Kell for saying what I couldn't.
You'll love Carbonite. You don't even have to think about. It takes care of everything.

My stats (though not as much as Kells, but still shows I've spent a lot of time and effort to contribute to this site and would love to continue)

131 Plants
94 Comments
933 images
2221 zipcode reports
314 Details

Joy

Kell,
I haven't used Mozy so can't compare it with Carbonite, but I've had no problems with it.
It does what it's suppose to do without any effort from me. Hasn't even slowed down my computer and that was my concern before I tried it.

Joy

Next to you guys, my stats look paltry, but even this took up some of my scarce personal time:

* 27 Plants
* 62 Comments
* 273 images
* 66 zipcode reports
* 179 Details
* You have 0 images pending

Kell, you said that no one thanked you for the work you did, and the photos you posted; but maybe we did in our own way. For instance, I was initially prompted to drag out some of my photos and post them to plant files, especially to plants that had none, because of people like you. I 1st came to DG, when I was searching for plant photos. Later, when I joined, for a while PF was the only resource I used. PF was so helpful in keeping me from buying the wrong plants, that in time I felt I should post photos, too, as my way of giving something back to the community and to all of the people whose photos were so helpful to me. So, you see, I posted photos to PF as my way of saying, "thank you". Maybe others did that, too. Maybe you inspired many more PF entries than you ever imagined.

And, of course, that goes for you, too, Joy, and to everyone else who posted photos to PF.

Hmm. Now here is a quandary. Did the rules (forgot the proper term, sorry) for photos posted to PF change at all over the years?

So great to meet you, Joy!

Sounds good, Joy! My computer started having freezing fits. So annoying. Often I would have to crash my computer to start over and get unfrozen.

Also one day I started opening folders and realized that though it all looked like it had been copied on the outside, the inside folders would have maybe 5 pictures in them instead of say 100. Well that so sucked. LOL

My husband said I had abused Mozy by having so many thousands of photos that I expected to have them copy for pennies. So he took their side. LOL

I had to go look at your photos, Joy. WOW, just beautiful. You are a flower girl! I so love flowers, I so enjoyed looking! Thanks!

Dave talked about it earlier in this thread. Scroll up a bit to see his post. It'd probably be better for you to read it in his own words, then me trying to explain it.

Joy

Thanks Kell.
I have 3 hard drives worth of (mostly photos) that carbonite has backed up. There's no limit. But the initial back up took forever. LOL

Good to meet you too. I feel like I already know you from PF. :-)

Joy

beckygardener, I'm not sure why you're so worried about someone stealing your photos -- they look a lot like mine, and it seems unlikely that some evil entity is out there trying to corner the market on muddy back yards.

Right now, I can see Michael pitching us to potential advertisers, in an effort to salvage IB's benighted purchase of DG:

"Hey, I've got this Web site with about 800,000 members, mostly women. You really want this demographic: They are:

1) Savvy. Well, they don't really understand how to navigate a Web site or the Internet, nor have they ever read an AUP or bothered with copyright law, but they know what they want! Mainly the status quo. So they're not into change or innovation but that shouldn't worry you. Just don't jostle them & you'll be fine.

2) Community oriented. They help each other through all sorts of physical & mental crises. While this might at first seem as if they all sit around with too much time on their hands, even people on public assistance have discretionary income and just think about the spending potential if they all got jobs!

3) Owners of digital cameras. Have you ever SEEN so many photos, many of which are not even blurry?

4) Bulldogs. If they are not happy with your product, they will let you know! Over and OVER. Who doesn't need constructive criticism?

5) Astute. You only have to explain something once for them to misunderstand it.

6) Fanatic. They use words like "anguish" and "death" to describe change. They will be the most loyal, if complaining customers, you could ever have.

Dear Sir or Madam, I promise that you want to plumb this demographic. We await your earliest response.

Sincerely,
IB"

Hi to you too DreamOfSpring! I had to take a peek of your lovelies too! LOL It is fun to post pics to PFs isn't it? Not all work like I claimed! LOL

And I thank you too DreamOfSpring! Gosh, I love your name. Spring is my most favorite time of the year. I would love to travel across the country having spring all the way! LOL

I didn't mean to make it sound like those who post more info or pics are more important, even 1 posted is 1 more to enjoy! So every single one posted is so special! I was just trying to explain that to some of us, our posted pictures are our body of work that took a lot of our time and heart and no one else has any rights to it.

And I have been thanked, just earlier on this thread my DG friend Alice thanked me. I was talking more in official terms. Joan in PFs has thanked me too. Poor girl, I have bugged her a lot in PF over the years. She devotes so much to PF. We should all thank her a lot!

I missed the policy all these years or I did not understand the severe ramifications of it. So I can't really tell you its history.

Thanks, Joy, I must have missed that earlier. Ouch! Well, no quandary after all. Looks like the AUP has always said that DG could redistribute the images. Looks like we all agreed to those terms when we posted our photos. We are at fault for not paying attention to the 'fine print'.

Yes, We sure are. But for anyone who new Dave, we knew he was a man of integrity. So there was nothing to be concerned with before.

Joy

LOL Summerkid, I was so hoping you would not trash my photos as I read through your post! LOL When I come across my ugly photos I do ask for them to be deleted. I admit to more than a few. Thankfully no one has pointed them out here yet.

I was looking at pics of your relatively new house the other day. It looks like such a nice home! You are so lucky to have found your slice of heaven! I often think I too should move to Oregon! I hope it brings you much joy.

No, no, Kell, I would never question your contribution to DG. EVER. So please come visit me & we will go whale watching.

Despite my sanguinity about the sale of DG to NameMedia & then to Internet Brands, there is one area that will suffer, in my opinion:

For several months, I was one of the DG writers, and I got paid $50 per story. Not so much, but I am a professional and can whip out a passable garden-related article in a couple of hours. I was happy with that hourly rate, especially because I usually turned the article around for the local newspaper, which paid $100.

However, NameMedia recently switched from publishing several articles a day to just two -- and one of those is, as you might have noticed, a reprint (for which the writer receives no additional recompense).

Michael says that IB welcomes all of you to give writing a shot under the new ownership -- and I see that IB's Web site offers 10 bucks per article.

So that doesn't bode well for DG's future articles, given that most good writers don't work for peanuts. I don't do ANYTHING for $10, unless you're going to pay me to brush my teeth & I was already headed for the bathroom.

Hi Kell,

I didn't take your comments as meaning your work was more important due to volume or anything like that. Gosh. I can totally understand your concern. I felt like it took a lot of my time to locate, crop, choose, and post my couple hundred photos. I can't imagine the work and time you put into posting your 7K photos. That truly is admirable, and you should be most proud of your work and contributions. This is the sort of thing I was talking about a few threads back (I think, I've lost count of threads now) about that sense of ownership we all felt here at DG and how we were motivated by it to give to our community - and how IB would be smart to continue to foster that spirit (or better yet, bring back Dave, so he can).

Anyhow, in my post above, I just meant that even though I didn't post anywhere near as many photos, you did help to motivate me to post what I did. At the time, I realized that the photos I was using and from which I was deriving such benefit were posted by others who did so freely, and, as a result, I felt obligated to post my photos in return. (...so if my photos get sold, it's YOUR fault. LOL. kidding!)

About the name, thank you very much! I think spring is just THE most awesome time of year, a time when everything, plant and animal, comes to life. I would love to travel the world and see spring everywhere, too, but in a way we do so here through the lenses of all of our fellow DGers. I don't want it to be spring all the time though. I need the other seasons for contrast to really appreciate spring.

$10 for an article is...I better not say. If it takes a couple of hours to research, organize, write, edit, format, and post the article, then writers will be working for less than minimum wage.

Reselling it to the paper, now that was a great idea. Wish I had thought of that. Too late now though.

Summerkid, that's funny!