Artists Beware!!!

I just have to comment on those little "terms of use" agreements that we accept without reading when we sign up for websites, especially the business and social networking kind.  These sites can be great places for us to meet artists and encourage collectors so they do provide a service but what is the cost?

So I get an email from someone at bizspeaking.com who was looking at my ArtFire.com shop. The email invited me to post images of my work within their business networking site...I was considering this until I read the terms of use...

"You retain your rights to any Content you submit, post or display on or through the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying Content on or through the Services, you grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, reproduce, process, adapt, modify, publish, transmit, display and distribute such Content in any and all media or distribution methods (now known or later developed).

You agree that this license includes the right for Bizspeaking to make such Content available to other companies, organizations or individuals who partner with Bizspeaking for the syndication, broadcast, distribution or publication of such Content on other media and services, subject to our terms and conditions for such Content use.

Such additional uses by Bizspeaking, or other companies, organizations or individuals who partner with Bizspeaking, may be made with no compensation paid to you with respect to the Content that you submit, post, transmit or otherwise make available through the Services."

REALLY!!! By using your site I agree to give you and 3rd party subcontractors the royalty free right to PUBLISH my images without compensating me for such use? Hello this is our bread and butter!!!  Do they think artists are stupid!!!  Well I guess we are if we check the little box accepting internet “terms of use/service/etc without reading all that legal “mumbo jumbo.”

We ARTISTS must be very wary of sites like this and before you post your images online make sure to watermark the heck out of them first. You may also want to make sure they are very small low resolution images as well... It’s a difficult choice and a fine line to walk, post images that make our artwork shine in the best possible light or protect our artwork from copyright infringement by making it unusable for illicit reproduction…