Standard Contract Clauses - Who Objects to Them?

[milee]

My friend and I are going on a sort of adventure trip where you learn and do a physical outdoor activity alongside experts who teach and coach you.  Sounds like fun, except one of the standard clauses in the contract (something like page 7, item 57H - all in sand sized print) states that the company putting on the trip has the right to take pictures and video during the course and that those pictures and video will be owned be the company and can be used by the company without further authorization by the participant.

I'm not a model and I'm not famous, so it's not like I would care too much if one of my pictures were part of an ad, but the way the clause is written implies that the company owns the rights to any photos taken and can use those photos however they want in the future.  Which could include things that any reasonable person might not want shown to the world.  

This clause - allowing event organizers to own and use photos without consent of participants - is popping up more and more frequently.  I can understand it from a business standpoint and suspect that 99% of the time it's harmless and wouldn't be misused, but in this day and age where pictures on the internet exist forever and employers, dates, etc. all research people on the internet, it seems like a bad idea.  The company seemed a little surprised when I asked them to remove the clause, so maybe I'm the only one bothered by this.  Anyone else seeing this issue?

[milee]

Nov 1, 2016 12:23:01 GMT -5 @sroo4 said:

When I asked about it,  they gave me the 'no big deal' spiel and looked at me like I was crazy for asking about it.   

Oh, I like it when the response is that the item is "no big deal", means my response is a "Great!  Since it's no big deal it shouldn't be a problem to get rid of it."  

[The Walk of the Penguin Mich]

TD was asked to sign a contract for a job he was working on.  The contract gave the company unlimited access to his immigration records (no problems), finance records, driving records, credit, any police records and a few other things.  It was not that he objected to them checking him out (he was doing engineering for a refinery), there were NO limitations how long they could access these records and how these records were stored.  There was also no limitations as to what they could use the information they received for.

He objected, and refused to sign the contract unless there were limitations and safeguards put into the contract to benefit him.  His company's HR put quite a bit of pressure on him to sign, but he refused.  AFAIK, he never signed the contract because they refused to change it, but he continued working on the refinery.  

[giramomma]

You'd be surprised how many photo sharing sites take ownership of any pictures that are uploaded. At work, I was tasked with finding a program/software that we could use to share photos of kids with parents securely. It was a big deal to read that fine print.

[milee]

Nov 1, 2016 13:21:44 GMT -5 giramomma said:

You'd be surprised how many photo sharing sites take ownership of any pictures that are uploaded. At work, I was tasked with finding a program/software that we could use to share photos of kids with parents securely. It was a big deal to read that fine print.

Similar issue a few years ago when an organization I'm a member of wanted to use one of the "free" email blast services.  Yes, it was "free" to send group newsletters via email, but then this service had access to with no limits put on their use of the members' email addresses...

[GRG a/k/a goldenrulegirl]

Our current school district and our old school district do something similar, except, of course, no contract.  But, if parents don't want their children's images and/or schoolwork to be open to public dissemination, they must opt out.  

[milee]

Nov 1, 2016 15:01:31 GMT -5 GRG a/k/a goldenrulegirl said:

Our current school district and our old school district do something similar, except, of course, no contract.  But, if parents don't want their children's images and/or schoolwork to be open to public dissemination, they must opt out.  

That is so wrong, I'm not sure where to start with that.  99.9% of the time it's no big deal to publish pictures of kids, but sooner or later that .01% is going to be a painful lesson for someone.  

[The Walk of the Penguin Mich]

Nov 1, 2016 13:29:16 GMT -5 @sroo4 said:

Nov 1, 2016 13:17:05 GMT -5 The Walk of the Penguin Mich said:

TD was asked to sign a contract for a job he was working on.  The contract gave the company unlimited access to his immigration records (no problems), finance records, driving records, credit, any police records and a few other things.  It was not that he objected to them checking him out (he was doing engineering for a refinery), there were NO limitations how long they could access these records and how these records were stored.  There was also no limitations as to what they could use the information they received for.

He objected, and refused to sign the contract unless there were limitations and safeguards put into the contract to benefit him.  His company's HR put quite a bit of pressure on him to sign, but he refused.  AFAIK, he never signed the contract because they refused to change it, but he continued working on the refinery.  

Did the company name start with "S"   That sounds exactly like the one I refused to sign... and it was for an oil field services company. 

And ends in "r"?  Yep.

[The Walk of the Penguin Mich]

I remember him coming home from work utterly furious about this.  He had his lawyer look at it, and the lawyer pointed out a few more holes.

TD took it into HR and told them what changes he wanted in the contract to be able to sign it.  As I remember, the biggest change was that they would no longer be able to access his personal info after the job was over, he wanted an end date on it.

[973beachbum]

My kids school district always requires the students social security number to sign them up for school.  I always write N/A on it and move on.  No way am I putting that on their file for them to let every person there have access to. 

My main problem is it is an item that has tons of risks with absolutely no benefit. No way in hell!

Every year someone does call up though and say they must have "lost" it.  I always calmly say no I am not providing it and it legally isn't something that should even be asked for by them unless they are giving them a job.  So how much does it pay?

[Chocolate Lover]

Nov 2, 2016 9:04:09 GMT -5 973beachbum said:

My kids school district always requires the students social security number to sign them up for school.  I always write N/A on it and move on.  No way am I putting that on their file for them to let every person there have access to. 

My main problem is it is an item that has tons of risks with absolutely no benefit. No way in hell!

Every year someone does call up though and say they must have "lost" it.  I always calmly say no I am not providing it and it legally isn't something that should even be asked for by them unless they are giving them a job.  So how much does it pay?

I skip it there and at the doctor's office. They don't need the kid's SSN to treat them either. They sure aren't sending them to collections either. No one has ever asked me if I forgot it though. 

[whoisjohngalt]

I don't allow ANY pics of my kids to be posted anywhere.  Yes, I've gotten "how weird ARE you look", but I don't care.

I don't post any pics on any site myself and wouldn't appreciate anyone else doing it.

But I've been called paranoid, so what do I know?

[milee]

Nov 2, 2016 9:49:04 GMT -5 whoisjohngalt said:

I don't allow ANY pics of my kids to be posted anywhere.  Yes, I've gotten "how weird ARE you look", but I don't care.

I don't post any pics on any site myself and wouldn't appreciate anyone else doing it.

But I've been called paranoid, so what do I know?

It's a tough issue.  People can be naive about what can happen.  When I brought up my objection to the photo release to my friend who's doing the trip with me, she asked why I was worried about that - after all, we're not going to be acting like Girls Gone Wild and as long as we're just doing normal stuff, who cares if a picture of us doing it shows up somewhere?  I explained that even if you're just doing your normal activity, things can go wrong and when they do, there could be pictures you wouldn't want circulating on the internet available for a future employer or date to see.  My example was of my other friend's experience.  She and I were sailing in a regatta and when the boat had to make a quick move in the middle of the race, my friend slipped and fell off the boat.  As she fell, I grabbed her life jacket so although she was in the water, we still had a hold of her and were dragging her along with us.  When we went to pull her in the boat, she stopped us and sheepishly explained that during the fall, her shorts had been ripped mostly off so she'd rather stay in the water TYVM.  Well, we couldn't do that because it's not really safe but there was a lot of debate on how and when exactly to pull her out of the water given that she was pretty much naked from the waist down.  I'm pretty sure that she's very grateful that she hadn't signed a photo release form for that regatta.     Anyway, that's always been a good reminder to me that even when you're not doing anything stupid, things happen and you don't want to ever give anybody else the blanket right to own and publish pictures of you.

[whoisjohngalt]

Nov 2, 2016 10:40:15 GMT -5 milee said:

Nov 2, 2016 9:49:04 GMT -5 whoisjohngalt said:

I don't allow ANY pics of my kids to be posted anywhere.  Yes, I've gotten "how weird ARE you look", but I don't care.

I don't post any pics on any site myself and wouldn't appreciate anyone else doing it.

But I've been called paranoid, so what do I know?

It's a tough issue.  People can be naive about what can happen.  When I brought up my objection to the photo release to my friend who's doing the trip with me, she asked why I was worried about that - after all, we're not going to be acting like Girls Gone Wild and as long as we're just doing normal stuff, who cares if a picture of us doing it shows up somewhere?  I explained that even if you're just doing your normal activity, things can go wrong and when they do, there could be pictures you wouldn't want circulating on the internet available for a future employer or date to see.  My example was of my other friend's experience.  She and I were sailing in a regatta and when the boat had to make a quick move in the middle of the race, my friend slipped and fell off the boat.  As she fell, I grabbed her life jacket so although she was in the water, we still had a hold of her and were dragging her along with us.  When we went to pull her in the boat, she stopped us and sheepishly explained that during the fall, her shorts had been ripped mostly off so she'd rather stay in the water TYVM.  Well, we couldn't do that because it's not really safe but there was a lot of debate on how and when exactly to pull her out of the water given that she was pretty much naked from the waist down.  I'm pretty sure that she's very grateful that she hadn't signed a photo release form for that regatta.     Anyway, that's always been a good reminder to me that even when you're not doing anything stupid, things happen and you don't want to ever give anybody else the blanket right to own and publish pictures of you.

Not only that, but I've seen how pics can be photo shopped. 

I know my kids won't be able to escape this forever, but for now - I am OK with what I am doing.