I recently joined the new BlackEyedPeas website, the new technology and the idea of extending their brand is exactly the right way to do things. But I have some concerns over the site’s terms of service. I started reading them because I’m accutely aware of the issue of digital identity, intellectual property, and the issues surrounding collaborative communities and now that its becoming mainstream there are some interesting issues that are arising.

It also seems like people are hypocrites, for example, the recording industry expects fans/listeners to respect their copyright/intellectual property rights, but when you become part of their site and contribute your IP/copyrighted materials then they “hijack” them. And most of the users will not read the terms of use. (http://www.blackeyedpeas.com/about/terms_of_use)

Pay special attention to the following, “User Content”:

User Content
“We allow Members (as defined below) to make contributions to the Site (”User Content”) through chat rooms, bulletin board services, member profiles, and other means. By submitting any User Content to the Site, you hereby grant us a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free right and license to use, reproduce, display, perform, adapt, modify, distribute, have distributed and promote such content in any form, in all media now known or hereinafter created, anywhere in the world, and for any purpose. Furthermore, you thereby waive any so-called moral rights or other similar rights in your User Content.

You agree not to submit or post any User Content that: (i) infringes the rights of a third party, including, without limitation, copyrights, trademarks, patents, trade secrets, rights of privacy and publicity, (ii) is libelous, defamatory or slanderous, (iii) condones, promotes, contains or links to warez, cracks, hacks or similar utilities or programs, (iv) is pornographic or sexually explicit, (v) does or may denigrate or offend any ethnic, racial, gender, religious or other protected group, through use of language, images, stereotypical depiction or otherwise, (vi) is designed to or does harass, threaten, defame or abuse others, (vii) exploits minors in a sexual or violent manner, (viii) promotes, condones or encourages illegal activity or (ix) is generally offensive or in bad taste.

You agree that all of your User Content, whether publicly posted or privately transmitted, is your sole responsibility. User Content does not necessarily reflect our views or opinions. We shall not be liable to you or any third party in any way for any User Content, including, but not limited to, for any errors or omissions in any User Content, or for any loss or damage of any kind incurred as a result of the use of any User Content posted, emailed, transmitted or otherwise made available via the Site.

We generally do not pre-screen, pre-edit or otherwise control User Content and, as such, do not guarantee the accuracy, integrity or quality of User Content. By using the Site, you agree to assume this risk. We reserve the right, but have no obligation, to monitor interactions between you and other users of the Site or take any other action in good faith to restrict access to or the availability of any material that we or another user may consider to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing or otherwise objectionable.”

Note, they do acknowledge in their Entry Guidelines that the and I quote: “All images are copyright protected unless otherwise noted, even celebrity photo’s and other images to take from the web, unless with the permission of the original author. Once an image is created, its author holds the copyright to the image. That means the image material may not be used without written permission of the original author. This rule applies to photo’s of celebrities, clipart, other peoples artworks and all other images. Copyrighted image material may only be used if the material is altered in such a way that it can no longer be identified as the original artwork or is placed in such a context that it has become a part of a new work.”

However, if you post any of your images on this site then the band or record company get the right to use, distribute, change etc without any acknowledgment of the original copyright owner.

Next issue isn’t a question but a comment and should be clearer when someone actually uploads something to the site and it should be “agreed” to before the person uploads their intellectual property. I know this doesn’t seem like a big deal now but your terms of use states, “By submitting any User Content to the Site, you hereby grant us a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free right and license to use, reproduce, display, perform, adapt, modify, distribute, have distributed and promote such content in any form, in all media now known or hereinafter created, anywhere in the world, and for any purpose. Furthermore, you thereby waive any so-called moral rights or other similar rights in your User Content.”

I would like to see the site to review their policy and consider stepping into the 21st century and use the creative commons license (http://www.creativecommons.org) Because at least if something is used then at least the person who created it should get recognition for their work.. Also, one other note, I don’t think this should/could apply to a person’s image.

What’cha think? Geeks have discussed these issues for several years but these issues are becoming even more important as the main stream develops digital communities.