Canon RAISE

[Chris_Brown]

https://raise.usa.canon.com

Competition for Instagram?

Helping Canon's AI research, is the stated MO.   

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

https://raise.usa.canon.com

Competition for Instagram?

Helping Canon's AI research, is the stated MO.   

Hi Chris,

It's interesting to note that Canon is specifically looking for Professional Images input. The likes of Google and Instagram have quite a different "training set" to base their Neural Network training on.

Cheers,
Bart

[Martin Kristiansen]

Reminds me of a friend who took some money from Nikon and a bit of sponsored equipment in return for speaking at events to teach aspiring photographers all about the weddings business. Next he went out of business. A true story.

[Rob C]

Reminds me of a friend who took some money from Nikon and a bit of sponsored equipment in return for speaking at events to teach aspiring photographers all about the weddings business. Next he went out of business. A true story.

Why are you suprised: usually, those who can do etc. etc. though there are exceptions to every rule (can we escape rules, ever?).

What would have been a worrying sign for me, were I still of working age, would be to see the number of even high-profile photographers getting into teaching courses, lectures and stuff like that. Once, they would not have had the time, the interest or the need. You'd think the top guns would just slow down to match the available volume of work, or perhaps call it a day and go fishing, sailing or anything at all that's a million miles from photography lessons. How freakin' dull.

[Chris_Brown]

Participation in this “community” is adding metadata to each photo that is uploaded. As if I wanna do more of that.

[chichihuil]

Except Canon will own your images, for free, in perpetuity.
....

8. License to Canon

Canon does not claim ownership in or to your Content. By posting, uploading, inputting, providing or submitting any Content to the Platform, you are irrevocably granting Canon, Canon’s affiliates and any necessary Canon business partners, service providers and subcontractors permission throughout the world, in perpetuity, a license to exhibit, copy, distribute, display, translate, modify, sublicense and use your Content and your name, and /or biographical information for the purpose of making your Content available for viewing, training the Platform (to create a trainable dataset to be used in the development of an artificial intelligence engine currently being developed by Canon) or other related matters. No compensation will be paid with respect to the use of your Content, as provided therein. Canon is under no obligation to post or use any submission you may provide.



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[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Except Canon will own your images, for free, in perpetuity.....

That is simply not true.

[chichihuil]

Sorry. That's what I got from their page. If you can explain their legalese, is very much welcome it.
The project seems interesting, but I don't want to give them and their bis Partners my images

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[Jeremy Roussak]

Except Canon will own your images, for free, in perpetuity.

That is simply not true.

It depends on your perception of the meaning of "own".

• If you believe it implies exclusivity, then clearly Canon won't own your images: you have granted them a licence to do with them as they wish, but that doesn't prevent your doing whatever you like with them as well.

•If you believe in shared ownership, then they will, as will you.

Jeremy

[KLaban]

That is simply not true.


It depends on your perception of the meaning of "own".

• If you believe it implies exclusivity, then clearly Canon won't own your images: you have granted them a licence to do with them as they wish, but that doesn't prevent your doing whatever you like with them as well.

•If you believe in shared ownership, then they will, as will you.

Jeremy

Except of course offering clients the option of exclusivity.

 

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Except of course offering clients the option of exclusivity.

That is not true either.

[KLaban]

That is not true either.

How can one offer a client exclusive rights to an image if it has already been used by Canon?

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

... 8. License to Canon

Canon does not claim ownership in or to your Content. By posting, uploading, inputting, providing or submitting any Content to the Platform, you are irrevocably granting Canon, Canon’s affiliates and any necessary Canon business partners, service providers and subcontractors permission throughout the world, in perpetuity, a license to exhibit, copy, distribute, display, translate, modify, sublicense and use your Content and your name, and /or biographical information for the purpose of making your Content available for viewing, training the Platform (to create a trainable dataset to be used in the development of an artificial intelligence engine currently being developed by Canon) or other related matters. No compensation will be paid with respect to the use of your Content, as provided therein. Canon is under no obligation to post or use any submission you may provide.

(Bold mine)

Unless one wants to obsess over the meaning of “own,” similar to Bill Clinton’s questioning what the meaning of is is, and unless one is a card-carrying member of the conspiracy theory club, I do not see how differently to interpret what Canon is saying: “Canon does not claim ownership in or to your Content.”

Canon clearly says that the only use of your pictures would be for the purpose specifically given (AI training). Canon can not and will no use it commercially or for any other purpose.

I am not a lawyer (Jeremy is). However, I sold two licenses to Canon for $11.5K for a single picture and can vouch for their fair treatment of photographer’s rights, however anecdotal my example is.

The first license, for $10K, was for advertisement purposes, wordwide, one year, exclusively. Here is the catch with exclusivity. There is exclusivity and then there is exclusivity. Mine exclusivity was limited to photographic industry, meaning that I could sell it to a tourist industry, publishing industry (e.g., book cover) etc.

A month after the first license, Canon approached me asking if I would be willing to sell (license) the same image for their internal training purposes for $1.5K.

Now, several things to note here. 1. Given that it was for their internal use, chances are I would have never found out. 2. Even if I did, I personally would not make a big deal about it, assuming they already paid real well for the initial use and that internal use might be implied. Kudos to Canon for asking me and paying it separately.

[Rob C]

One can't, Keith.

That was one of the things that Tony Stone was very clear about, and rightly so: if you enter into a contract without knowing what somebody else might spring on you because they have shared rights... avoiding that's the entire purpose of an exclusive deal.

It's a silly thing for a pro to entertain. It reminds me of the "clients" who offer you a job on a low rate for this particular job, with the promise of gold next time. Right.  Only nobody seems to be offering even coppers this time.

Perhaps they have imagined the pro mindset to be the same as that of the amateur who does it for the imaginary glory; let's hope things haven't got so bad some fall for it.

Rob

[Rob C]

(Bold mine)

Unless one wants to obsess over the meaning of “own,” similar to Bill Clinton’s questioning what the meaning of is is, and unless one is a card-carrying member of the conspiracy theory club, I do not see how differently to interpret what Canon is saying: “Canon does not claim ownership in or to your Content.”

Canon clearly says that the only use of your pictures would be for the purpose specifically given (AI training). Canon can not and will no use it commercially or for any other purpose.

I am not a lawyer (Jeremy is). However, I sold two licenses to Canon for $11.5K for a single picture and can vouch for their fair treatment of photographer’s rights, however anecdotal my example is.

The first license, for $10K, was for advertisement purposes, wordwide, one year, exclusively. Here is the catch with exclusivity. There is exclusivity and then there is exclusivity. Mine exclusivity was limited to photographic industry, meaning that I could sell it to a tourist industry, publishing industry (e.g., book cover) etc.

A month after the first license, Canon approached me asking if I would be willing to sell (license) the same image for their internal training purposes for $1.5K.

Now, several things to note here. 1. Given that it was for their internal use, chances are I would have never found out. 2. Even if I did, I personally would not make a big deal about it, assuming they already paid real well for the initial use and that internal use might be implied. Kudos to Canon for asking me and paying it separately.

Your deal was nothing like this one.

[KLaban]

Slobodan, your example was for a time-limited and industry specific exclusivity. As you have suggested there are differing licensing agreements.

I'm not a lawyer either, but it's been my experience that non-commercial use can be a particularly grey area.

I challenged one of the largest corporations on the planet over their definition of non-commercial use and took on their London based lawyers single-handedly. They eventually capitulated and settled out-of-court, the only downside being that I had to agree to a NDA. At the time I couldn't afford to pass on their settlement but that agreement still rankles.

Grrr...

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Your deal was nothing like this one.

Meaning?

I mean, obviously it isn’t on several levels, but on one level, relevant for this discussion, it is. So, which part are you actually debating and what exactly are you claiming? That Canon is going to steal his photographs and start using them publicly, free of charge, for its brochures, etc.? Or that he can not offer some form of exclusivity to other, paying, clients?

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

... you have granted them a licence to do with them as they wish...

That is not true either. “As they wish” is very narrowly and specifically defined and limited (AI training), to the point it cannot be called so anymore.

P.S. Keith, there you go, I am single-handedly taking on one of the best lawyers on the planet 

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

... I challenged one of the largest corporations on the planet over their definition of non-commercial use and took on their London based lawyers single-handedly..l

Obviously, without specifics, I can’t comment on your case. Except to say that if Canon uses his pictures outside of the narrowly-defined scope, he too could single-handedly take on their lawyers and win 

[KLaban]

Your deal was nothing like this one.

Agreed.

Slobodan's deal, nice though it was, is a fairly typical time-limited, rights-managed agreement. Over the years my images have been party to such deals hundreds of times. It and they have about as much exclusivity as does my postal address.

;-)