In regards to Yahoo’s Wii site; Flickr users go nuts.

If you don’t want Yahoo using your photos for commercial purposes, don’t put them on Flickr. And no, it isn’t outrageous. It’s completely predictable:

9. CONTENT SUBMITTED OR MADE AVAILABLE FOR INCLUSION ON THE SERVICE

Yahoo! does not claim ownership of Content you submit or make available for inclusion on the Service. However, with respect to Content you submit or make available for inclusion on publicly accessible areas of the Service, you grant Yahoo! the following worldwide, royalty-free and non-exclusive license(s), as applicable:

[…]

With respect to photos, graphics, audio or video you submit or make available for inclusion on publicly accessible areas of the Service other than Yahoo! Groups, the license to use, distribute, reproduce, modify, adapt, publicly perform and publicly display such Content on the Service solely for the purpose for which such Content was submitted or made available. This license exists only for as long as you elect to continue to include such Content on the Service and will terminate at the time you remove or Yahoo! removes such Content from the Service. (emphasis mine)

Yahoo responded to the uproar by using only photos that have been tagged with Creative Commons licenses. I don’t think they had to, I think the TOS is pretty clear that they are allowed to use the photos ‘for the purpose for which the Content was submitted.’ It’s completely reasonable to consider the Flickr-branded box in which the photo thumbnails appear fitting into the definition of the service. It’s a little grey, but I think they were within the rights they claim in their TOS. And for crying-out-loud, it is just thumbnails linking to Flickr user pages!

I’m sorry Yahoo caved. Yahoo did nothing wrong, but TOS-ignorant Flickr users forced Yahoo to give up rights they own to avoid bad PR (that they’re getting anyway). Folks using servicess like Flickr and YouTube need some scares like this before they realize what rights they’re signing away by using them. permanent link to this post