FARK's New Copyright Policy: Mine

FARK grabs users' copyrights for Photoshop posts. (0)

FARK.com, the popular time-suckage blog, has kicked the same look for ages, but it just got a makeover and with it a new copyright policy. In FARK's new FAQ (or, FARQ, in this case) now states:

Fark.com is the legal owner of all copyright interests of Fark.com content. Each and every submission to Fark.com carries with it an implied assignment of the entire copyright interest in the submission. In exchange for the content and publication of that submission on Fark.com, Fark.com grants back to the submitter a non-exclusive, non-transferable and royalty-free license to republish that submission in any and all forms.

It's a big deal, one of FARK's more popular features is its recurring Photoshop challenge, where users post remixed images to FARK's forums. FARK already earns ad dollars from the traffic these challenges generate, but according to the new policy, it now also owns the copyright to anything a user posts there in perpetuity. Although it does state that users can re-publish their own works. Which is nice. Sort of. But not really.

UPDATE: Drew Curtis responds, stating:

Short version: current language has been in place since 2005, we don't claim to own submitted PS, AE, Farktography stuff etc. Language needs some cleaning, we're on it. Rock on Cleveland

And for much more on the subject, see the excellent analysis at Plagiarism Today.

Via Backing Winds