On Fri, Oct 9, 2009 at 11:19 PM, Jon Davis wiki@konsoletek.com wrote:
"Does the contract (private use only for photos) implicitly agreed to by Giles when he bought a ticket to the Olympics invalidate the CC-BY-SA license" -- In my recollection, the answer is no. It is similar to someone taking a picture where it says "NO PHOTOGRAPHY". They might be breaking someones rules, and could risk getting thrown out, but the picture is still theirs to keep. The IOC could sue the photographer for breach of contract (which would be hilarious to watch the PR beating they get for that), but once again, that doesn't effect us. In short, contracts can be broken, laws can't.
Yes, but the CC-BY-SA license is also (usually understood as) a contract. I don't think the IOC is arguing that Giles doesn't own the copyright to his photos. But agreeing to terms and conditions is different from walking past a "no photos" sign. Contracts can be broken, but contracts can also affect other contracts.
And not that I need to remind this crew, but the CC license is non-revocable, so the IOC is too late. The photographer licensed his image under CC, and that is the end of it. You can change the license back on Flickr, but that doesn't mean it isn't still legally available under CC. That is the _entire_ reason we have the Flickr Reviewer bot.
The IOC's argument, I imagine, would not be that the CC license should be revoked, but that it was never valid in the first place since, by agreeing to a prior contract, Giles had given up the right to enter into certain other kinds of contracts for the photos he took. I don't think that's right, but it seems more complicated than typical cases of against-the-rules photography and attempts to revoke licenses.
-Sage