[UbuntuWomen] Work Play Day - Discussion and Review of Announcement and Photo Model Release Waiver

[Matthew East]

Hi,

On Mon, Apr 5, 2010 at 9:19 PM, Amber Graner <akgraner at ubuntu.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Apr 5, 2010 at 3:39 PM, Matthew East <mdke at ubuntu.com> wrote:
>> On Mon, Apr 5, 2010 at 8:32 PM, Elizabeth Krumbach <lyz at ubuntu.com> wrote:
>> > On Mon, Apr 5, 2010 at 12:29 PM, Matthew East <mdke at ubuntu.com> wrote:
>> >> On Mon, Apr 5, 2010 at 3:53 PM, Amber Graner <akgraner at ubuntu.com>
>> >> wrote:
>> >>> However, before we can tell the world about it, we need to look at the
>> >>> announcement and the photo/model release waiver and see if the team,
>> >>> Canonical, or the CC may have noticed something we may have
>> >>> unintentionally,
>> >>> especially when it comes to using photos of minors.  Please take a
>> >>> look at
>> >>> the proposed competition announcement [3] as well as the Sample
>> >>> photo/model
>> >>> release form  and please take a moment to let us know your thoughts.
>> >>
>> >> Could you explain what the purpose of the "release form" is? It's
>> >> rather difficult to evaluate it without understanding what problems it
>> >> is trying to solve, and at the moment I can't see it.
>> >
>> > AFAIK the problem here is the use of photos of minors in promotional
>> > material/contests/etc has limitations in some countries, permission
>> > from parents is required.
>>
>> I can see that this would be what the first and sixth paragraphs of
>> the document are addressing, but not the second to fifth paragraphs
>> inclusive. Is there another problem that has caused the insertion of
>> these provisions?
>
> We have never done this before so there no problem that has caused the
> inclusion of provisions.  We are trying to avoid any problems by making sure
> we are addressing this properly.  Are there changes we should make and if so
> where? We are asking for the reasons Lyz mentioned above.

I personally find all of paragraphs 2-5 in the document to be formal,
unnecessarily legalistic, and at times disturbing. I don't see why the
person submitting a photo needs to transfer property in that photo to
the Ubuntu Women and Ubuntu Projects (and I don't think that those
projects are capable of possessing property anyway, as they aren't
legal persons). I don't understand why we need the right to edit the
photos. Most disturbing of all is that someone who submits a photo
would have to indemnify the project against claims from third parties.

Waivers like this will act as a barrier to submissions. The more
legalistic the waiver and the more swingeing its provisions, the
higher the barrier to submission.

I asked about what problem the document was trying to solve because of
course, if there is a good reason for some of these things, then that
might change my opinion. If the only problem is to ensure that the
people sending the photos have a legal right to do so, I would suggest
something much simpler in a single sentence saying exactly that: "[I
am the lawful parent or guardian of the subject appearing in this
photograph and] I authorize the Ubuntu Women project to use this
photograph as described at [link to announcement] under the terms of
the Creative Commons Attribution No-Derivatives license."

-- 
Matthew East
http://www.mdke.org
gnupg pub 1024D/0E6B06FF