Libertine Hippy festival Burning Man has fallen foul of
the Electronic Frontier Foundation after it tinkered with its rules to claim
that all snaps taken at the event belonged to it.
The event will have tens of thousands of creative people
gathering in Nevada’s Black Rock desert for Burning Man, an annual art event
and temporary community celebrating radical self expression, self-reliance,
creativity and freedom. Apparently, Burning Man is concerned that people will
take pictures of the even and post them on the world wide wibble, as you do.
It has changed its Terms and Conditions for the event
which says that as soon as “any third party displays or disseminates” your
photos or videos in a manner that the Burning Man Organisation (BMO) doesn’t
like, those photos or videos become the property of the BMO. In short “we automatically own all your stuff” man.
The BMO also limits your own rights to use your own
photos and videos on any public websites and you are not allowed to licence
your snaps using open source licences. You will not be able to label their photos “Burning Man
2009” or even use the words “Burning Man” on their Facebook walls or Twitter
updates.
The EFF said that BMO's not the first to misuse the DMCA
this way. Some doctors recently have begun to use the DMCA process to take down
negative comments patients post about them to websites like RateMDs.com. It is just hugely ironic that an outfit dedicated to
freedom of the individual, creativity and free spirit, should be such a bunch
of fascist control freaks, the EFF says.
Published in
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Burning Man festival gets all RIAA
It's the rules man