

Twitter Paid $6 or Less for Crowdsourced ‘Birdie’ Graphic - tfincannon
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/03/twitter-designe/

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dandelany
This is just straight up linkbait. We're supposed to be mad because they
bought a cheap graphic on iStock and don't credit the designer? Isn't that the
point of buying rights to stock photos/graphics?

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andrewhyde
<http://twiter.com/> (a misspelling) uses it too. Purchased from the same
place.

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ctingom
The article title is misleading. Twitter bought the rights to use the image
and they did this on istockphoto.com.

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Huppie
What makes it misleading? It says just that. Although the article also says
that by not buying the _exclusive_ rights to the image the 'cheap logo'-trick
might backfire when other (twitter-like) websites would (legally) use the same
image.

"Nothing is stopping people from making sites that ape, mock or build upon
Twitter using its own official graphic."

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petercooper
It seems to me that ambiguity in iStockPhoto's license _could_ mean Twitter
would owe many thousands of dollars for this.. hear me out :)

The iStockPhoto standard license has an easily ignored, and rather confusing,
clause:

 _[You may not] either individually or in combination with others, reproduce
the Content, or an element of the Content, in excess of 500,000 times without
obtaining an Extended License, in which event you shall be required to pay an
additional royalty fee equal to US $0.01 for each reproduction which is in
excess of 500,000 reproductions. This additional royalty does not apply to
advertisements in magazines, newspapers or websites or to broadcast by
television, web-cast or theatrical production._

"advertisements in magazines, newspapers or websites" is ambiguous. I first
read it as meaning "(advertisements) in (magazines, newspapers or websites)"
and the error page on Twitter is not an advertisement. But if this were so,
then wouldn't pretty much any graphic purchased from iStockPhoto end up being
used over 500,000 times _eventually_ on the Web? Twitter would probably owe
hundreds of thousands of dollars in royalties.

Or is it "(advertisements in magazines), (newspapers) or (websites)" in which
case, fine. Hurrah for vague legal wording! It's a shame it's so vague because
it does open things up for interpretation.

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jkent
Online or electronic publications or uses, including web pages to a maximum
image size of 800 x 600 pixels... is covered by the Standard License
(<http://www.istockphoto.com/license_comparison.php>)

The impression count is seemingly for offline reproduction.

~~~
petercooper
Cool comparison table, and hopefully that would be a good defence if
iStockPhoto ever came to annoy anyone, but still.. that table doesn't quite
match with what the actual license text says :-( (which is, I suspect, the
legal version of events)

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davidsanger
The issue is relevant for stock photographers who were the audience of the RT
since the price is considerably less than traditional home page logo
licensing. that's all.

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sneakums
You know they paid even less for their architecture.

