Photo Sharing Don't's

A few random thoughts about photo-sharing:

Be careful about copyright violations when using photos you didn't personally shoot. A story in the New York Times ("Enforcing Copyrights Online, for a Profit",http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/03/business/media/03righthaven.html?pagewanted=1&_r=3) tells about a 20-year-old blogger being sued for using a picture of an airport security person doing a pat-down of a traveler. It didn't matter that the picture had already "gone viral" by the time the young man put in on his blog. The lawsuit was filed by Righthaven, a company that is in the business of finding copyright violations for newspapers, and then filing the lawsuit. The company has been criticized for "trolling for lawsuits".

Be honest. A Honda product manage got into hot water for commenting on Facebook about a photo of a new Honda model without identifying himself. Apparently, Honda put the photo of the new car on Facebook and asked for comments from friends. A lot of comments were negative so the product manager decided to add his two cents. He was "outed" and made to look foolish.
("5 Social Media Disasters", http://www.penn-olson.com/2009/09/21/5-social-media-disasters/)

The new app, "Color" was backed up with $41-million in start-up money. (Color: A Twitter for Photo and Video", http://blogs.forbes.com/bruceupbin/2011/03/23/color-a-twitter-for-photo-and-video-launches-with-41-million/) It's supposed to be a Twitter-like app for photos but reviews have been less than glowing. ("Color App is Universally Slammed, Expecially by One Reviewer", http://appadvice.com/appnn/2011/03/color-app-universally-slammed-reviewer) I'm not really sure I get it. You take pictures and can also see pictures from other amateur photographers who are near you. One problem is that the app was launched with so much fanfare (and so much money!) I think it was doomed to be heavily criticized from the start.

Do your pictures belong to you? An article in the Business Insider about Twitpic's Terms of Service ("Be Careful What You Post: Twitpic May Be Keeping Photos Even After You Delete Them", http://www.businessinsider.com/twitpic-updates-terms-of-service-2011-5) explains that, while your pictures belong to you, Twitpic can still use them. On Facebook, just because you delete a picture from your site, it still may exist on a friend's page.

And finally, Anthony Wiener is the poster child for over-sharing. But there are plenty of examples of photo sharing gone wrong. They are cautionary tales that remind us not to post anything we wouldn't want Grandma to see.