The terms and conditions mentioned were copied from our Miller’s Professional Imaging website and were written for our web hosting application only. These terms should not have been included on the Mpix.com or MpixPro.com websites and have been removed.

Again, thank you for bringing this to our attention and for understanding our regret in this error.

I did find this TOS interesting from a Lab I’ve used in the past. They have excellent quality output, practice sound color management and say this on their site (http://pictopia.com/pub2/legal.html):

Information Collection and Use
Pictopia expressly disclaims any interest in or ownership of clients’ and customers’ images deposited on this site. Pictopia is the sole owner of the information about customers’ use of this site, and we will not sell, share, or rent this information to others in ways different from what is disclosed in this statement.

Now how difficult is that?

derek

Thank you very much for looking at this. Maybe Scott can get involved and get comments from MPIX. The same paragraph in question for MPIXPro exists at MPIX (where I have been sending pictures for the past 2 years). I have a bad feeling about this. We need to be sure exactly what we are giving up by using these types of services.

Brian

I’m afraid Addrew is correct. You are granting them a license to basically do as they please with your photo. They do not need anything else from you to display or use your photo. You are granting them a license.

What they basically have is most of the rights of copyright without the actual copyright. Some of the wording like “publicly preform” is a red flag to me that shows a rights grab from a lawyer. Preformance rights are clearly spelled out in your “bundle of rights” under copyright law, but really are for the proforming arts, not the visual arts. But they still ask for it.
“Derivative” works is another red flag, that means they can even take a piece of your photo and combine it with another photo and again, do as they please. I’m afraid that wording is as bad as any photo contest that transfers your rights. Having those wordings tells me the lawyers looked at the copyright laws and are effectively having you granting all those rights.

In my non-lawyer opinion, they can protect themselves as much as they need to, which they should do as any company should, but without over grabbing rights as this does.
I just went through this with a job where the client provided a model release that went beyond what was negotiatied. We helped them re-write it to both the model’s and the client’s satisfaction.

[quote] You certify that you own all intellectual property rights in Your Content. You hereby grant Miller’s, our affiliates, and our partners a worldwide, irrevocable, royalty-free, nonexclusive, sub licensable license to use, reproduce, create derivative works of, distribute, publicly perform, publicly display, transfer, transmit, distribute, and publish Your Content and subsequent versions of Your Content for the purposes of (i) displaying Your Content on our Site, (ii) distributing Your Content, either electronically or via other media, to users seeking to download or otherwise acquire it, and/or (iii) storing Your Content in a remote database accessible by end users, for a charge. This license shall apply to the distribution and the storage of Your Content in any form, medium, or technology now known or later developed. [/quote]

I wonder what Jack Reznicki and Attorney Ed Greenberg would have to say about this (I think I’ll ping Jack).