Burning Man Legal Stuff
This website, purplicity.com, is a personal website that displays images from the Burning Man event. These images are for my own personal use and cannot be used for any other purpose. Downloading or copying of these images is prohibited, except in accordance with the Creative Commons’s by-nc-sa license where the licensee agrees to use the image for non-commercial purposes and only for his or her personal use (as defined herein) (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/)
Additionally, I have agreed that in the event Burning Man notifies me that any such images must be removed, for any reason whatsoever in Burning Man’s sole discretion, I will promptly remove or cause to be removed those images.
Additionally, I have agreed that in the event Burning Man notifies me that any such images must be removed, for any reason whatsoever in Burning Man’s sole discretion, I will promptly remove or cause to be removed those images.
The license means that you are free:
- to Share — to copy, distribute and transmit the work
- to Remix — to adapt the work
Under the following conditions:
- Attribution — You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).
- Noncommercial — You may not use this work for commercial purposes.
- Share Alike — If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same or similar license to this one.
With the understanding that:
- Waiver — Any of the above conditions can be waived if you get permission from the copyright holder.
- Public Domain — Where the work or any of its elements is in the public domain under applicable law, that status is in no way affected by the license.
- Other Rights — In no way are any of the following rights affected by the license:
-
- Your fair dealing or fair use rights, or other applicable copyright exceptions and limitations;
- The author's moral rights;
- Rights other persons may have either in the work itself or in how the work is used, such as publicity or privacy rights.
- Notice — For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work. The best way to do this is with a link to this web page.
Why all this legal stuff?
On one hand, as a photographer, you should have the right to use and enjoy your photos as you wish. On the other hand burning man has to protect its name and the people who go there. Can you imagine what an advertising agency would do with burning man imagery? "Smoke Mongboroughs! Cool people at burning man do!!" or "Use this brand X shampoo to clean that burning man dust right out of your hair!". Burning man has to protect its name against this sort of exploitation. On top of this there are unscrupulous people who would take photos of the (many) naked people at burning man and use them out of context or without their permission. Crappy soft porn producer assholes do that sort of thing. Burning man has to protect against that as well.
So Burning man has always had heavy restrictions on the use of imagery shot at burning man. But wait! Isn't burning man all about freedom?? This conflict/paradox/hypocrisy was noticed by the EFF (electronic freedom foundation) and in late 2009 they 'took burning man to task' in a blog post. If your a burner and serious citizen of the world you have respect for both burning man and the EFF, and a conflict between them is like a bad tooth you ignore.
As a photographer this was a bad situation: I want to put my pics up on my website and people want to post stuff to facebonk or wherever, but it was hard to work out if doing that was illegal or not.
So what happened!?!?
Burning man sat down with the EFF and Creative Commons and did what we expect of people who we respect. They created a new 'terms and conditions' that: protects burning man; protects people who go to burning man and most importantly allows me to put my pics of burning man on this website without fear of legal action, without fear of hurting my fellow burners.
Personally I think this a great development. I think that no organisation is perfect, but that this is a great example of how to behave like a citizen. I now know with certainty that I can publish my burning man pics on this site without fear of prosecution.
So read the terms and the links dammit! And enjoy my burning man pics :-)
