C’mon… the best of us lose our inhibitions (and some of our clothes) at music festivals. Don’t we?
The people behind the popular US Burning Man Festival have been criticised over their strict photography rules. They’ve cracked down with copyright for all images and videos taken at the fest – all in an attempt to stop images of nude participants ending up on porn websites.
Organisers will have the right to request the removal of any pics they don’t approve of – from any website.
The festival is well known for a touch of nudity - 50,000 punters attend each year in a celebration of “community, participation, self-expression and self-reliance”; sounds pretty mind-expanding to us. You’ve got to admit, if you’re a professional that wants to let your hair (and your clothes) down, it’ll take that next morning fear factor out of things. Then again, we live in an online age; pics don’t take long to spread like Burning Man wildfire.
Burning Man spokeswoman Andie Grace said: "There are a lot of nude people out here, and this protects the school teacher from Iowa who doesn't wasn't want to appear on a porn site," Ms Grace said.
The US Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) doesn't agree with the photo restrictions.
"We do empathize with Burning Man Organization (BMO)’s desire to preserve the festival’s noncommercial character and to protect the privacy interests of ticket-holders. But by granting itself ownership of your creative works and forbidding fair uses of its trademarks, BMO is using the 'fine print' to give itself the power of fast and easy online censorship."
“Those Terms and Conditions include a remarkable bit of legal sleight-of-hand: as soon as 'any third party displays or disseminates' your photos or videos in a manner that the BMO doesn’t like, those photos or videos become the property of the BMO.”
The Burning Man terms and conditions also strip attendees of their trademark fair use rights, the spokesperson said.
”The ticket terms forbid any use of Burning Man trademarks on any website, which means that ticket-holders can’t label their photos 'Burning Man 2009' or even use the words 'Burning Man' on their Facebook walls or Twitter updates.”
The debate rages on… but it seems pretty simple – don’t get your kit off unless you’re willing to see your bits all over the web. Will this kick off in Australia? Time will tell.
Interestingly, the photo to the right was the only one that came up in our WENN photo search - that didn't include nudity.
Photo credit: Axelle Woussen
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