Museum of Sex pics - yes or no?

Dracil

So, one of the stops from my recent trip to New York was the Museum of Sex. Now I'm wondering if I'm even allowed to put them on smugmug. They're primarily of the first and last exhibit (second exhibit was just porn). First exhibit was of animal sex (does show some animal genitalia and animal mating), while the last exhibit was of sex toys (dildoes and anatomically correct dolls). There's something in the terms of use about "photographs or other Content containing nudity that would be unacceptable in a public museum where minors visit," emphasis mine. The Museum of Sex is 18+ but the pics don't exactly feature nudity, unless dolls and animals can really be considered nude. That, and there ARE dildoes in various smugmug galleries.

caroline

Why on earth would you want to put these pics on your SmugMug site ?
Sorry I find this very strange personally I have no wish to look at them what ever they are, plenty of sheep and rabbits round here at it all the time.

It may well be a breach of copyright for you to display the images

Caroline

agallia

Not often do I see this subject broached on Smugmug. And that is one of the reasons I decided to go with Smugmug. In my humble opinion, the Terms of Use must be adhered to as stated:

"...you agree not to post, upload to, transmit, distribute, store, create or otherwise publish through the Site any of the following:...Any photograph, video, message, data, information, text, music, sound, graphics, code or other material ("Content") that is unlawful, libelous, defamatory, obscene, pornographic, indecent, lewd, suggestive, harassing, threatening, invasive of privacy or publicity rights, abusive, inflammatory, fraudulent or otherwise objectionable or harmful, including without limitation photographs or other Content containing nudity that would be unacceptable in a public museum where minors visit;"

I don't know how this is "policed" by Smugmug but I, for one, hope it is. This is my "two cents" worth on the subject. Let's keep Smugmug clean.

Art Scott

Most any art museum has nudity in it and ages are not restricted as it is considered art.....even my mothers BIBLE has a great deal of nude paintinigs in it.......
Now if the museum has age restrictions then the photos should not be posted, at least not publicly............I see no harm in having a NON public, password secured gallery to archive the photos in.......

But no they should not be open for every Tommy, Dickie or Harriet to peruse thru.............................


EDIT: Just went to the museum's website and there is an age restriction of 18 to enter nothing restricting taking photos.......so I would say as long as photos are not public....DRACIL should be able to archive his work in a password protected, secured and NON PUBLIC gallery...................

caroline

Art Scott wrote:

Now if the museum has age restrictions then the photos should not be posted, at least not publicly............I see no harm in having a NON public, password secured gallery to archive the photos in.......

But no they should not be open for every Tommy, Dickie or Harriet to peruse thru.............................

From the Museum of Sex website
"""Visitor Policies:

All patrons (over 18) are welcome.""""

mbellot

agallia wrote:

obscene, pornographic, indecent, lewd, suggestive

The (age old) problem is of course actually defining what those words mean.

Unless you're hell bent on posting them publicly for all the world to see I would think a password protected gallery should be more than enough to quell any possible complaints.

Dracil

As the above poster said, "obscene, pornographic, indecent, lewd, suggestive" depends on how the community defines it. In this case, "community" would to me really mean the Smugmug admins.

The thing about passworded non-public gallery was that I thought even that wasn't allowed because people could still somehow stumble on them or something. I don't remember the details but it was from about a year ago. Maybe it was because of a bug in the code? If that is actually a viable option I'll go with that and put the MoS in their own separate gallery. But in case this is not a foolproof method, below are my reasoning why this isn't so cut and dry for me.

The reason I'd post them up is for my friends to see. It's basically photos of my New York trip. The Museum of Sex probably consists of 1/4 to 1/5 of that day's photos (out of 8 days). But it WAS part of my trip.

The thing about the age restriction is that it's probably required because of exhibit 2 (and whatever rotating exhibits they have, only the third exhibit is permanent), which basically shows porn. I don't have pics of that. Would the Museum really be 18+ if it was just exhibits 1 or 3 from this time around? You can see exhibit one from outside the museum actually, and probably in various science books, and you can see sex toys outside of sex shops in broad daylight. Also, as I emphasized in my first post, the line containing "no museums with 18+ content" also contains the word "content with nudity". I'm pretty sure it's to say that those nude Greek sculptures are ok. Besides, are dildoes really nude and BDSM devices really nude? And again, there ARE non-passworded public galleries with dildoes on the site.

I've already cut out stuff from events like Bay to Breakers which is common for nude runners even though parents had kids there watching these men running around. Even that felt wrong to me given how the nude runners are one of the defining features of Bay to Breakers (despite the organizers telling people NO NUDITY, I saw at least 20 of them)

Dracil

Hmm, so can I please get an admin response on whether or not the password + non-public gallery actually IS allowed contrary to what I remember reading in the past?

One of the threads I'm referencing is: http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=6503&page=2&highlight=nudity+password Here's an example:

Aaron Wilson wrote:

well to speack from my self... I hade a topless model in a private folder password protected.. just to test the upload for galleries as i was new and it was a first attemp to upload... less then 12 hours tos contacted me and told me i had to pull it.

Again, there is no human nudity. There is no pornography. There are just some animal pictures/models/paper mache, some dolls, and some sex toys. And I guess some robots.

ivar

Dracil wrote:

Again, there is no human nudity. There is no pornography. There are just some animal pictures/models/paper mache, some dolls, and some sex toys. And I guess some robots.

Please password a gallery, upload a few shots that are representable for the shots you took (or all if you like), and send us an email at the helpdesk with a link to the gallery. We'll let you know asap what we'd like to happen

Dracil

Thanks will do!

hyachts

This is quite a can of worms to open, but I've got to ask:
How is it that candid photographs of a guys trip that (may) happen to contain nudity are the subject of so much question, when Dgrin has a (sub)forum dedicated to nude and semi-nude photography? I understand that Dgrin and SM are not exactly one and the same, but they're awfully closely tied. There are a number of 18+ pictures in that forum that are hosted on Smugmug. So... what's the rule? If the answer is that the shots in "Go Figure" are "art", I have to take exception.

I have a really hard time accepting that what one particular small group of photographers and enthusiasts find to be art could define what is lewd or not for the purposes of the ToS. The fact that a SM rep asked the OP to post some representative pics in a passworded gallery and then ask permission just seems very wrong to me. Either it is acceptable to store photographs containing nudity on SmugMug or it is not. If it is acceptable, it is either acceptable to display them in public galleries or it is not.

For what it's worth, I have no personal investment in this. I have no intention of storing photographs with nudity on SmugMug, passworded or not. I just find it very hard to stomach the "we'll decide if it's lewd" method.

My personal opinion is that SmugMug account holders should be allowed to upload any and all photographs, regardless of content, to unlisted and/or passworded galleries. A restriction on publicly available photos is reasonable, but should be explicit and absolute - NOT subjective.

bandgeekndb

First, to the OP, sadly this seems to be a violation. If I were a parent, I'd classify that as pornographic, therefore in violation of the TOS as they stand right now.

HOWEVER.... *begin long post, feel free to tune out if not interested*

Warning: EXTREMELY NSFW
http://stevelutzphoto.smugmug.com/photos/10539379_N7TgZ-S.jpg

This was a pic from a link in the thread that was linked in this thread...if that makes sense. Anyway, this is hosted on SM. And it was brought up in a thread from 2005...and no one found it offensive enough to pull it down.

I have no objection to the storing of content like that on SmugMug, aside from the breaking of the rules as they stand. Art is a personal interpretation, and I believe nude, boudoir, lingiere, etc. is acceptable, as long as it's protected. I'm of the feeling, like others, that as long as they are hidden and protected, that is fine by me. I feel SmugMug is a hosting provider, home to many personal and professional photographers' sites. If I decide I want to post my client's "boudoir session" on SmugMug for them to proof and look over, as someone who pays $150 a year for a Pro account, I feel that's my right to post whatever I want AS LONG as I make sure it is reasonably safe from young eyes.

I don't feel the content of a photographer's SmugMug site should reflect on SmugMug. As much as the thought makes me cringe, I can't see why a pornographer shouldn't be able to use SmugMug as hosting for photos, even selling them! As long as my site's visitors aren't forced to view his/her photos, I'm ok with them being somewhere on a server with my pictures. We have no problem with hosting providers, like 1&1, GoDaddy, etc, that allow such material on their hosts. Flickr, based on Yahoo, has no mention of nude, or pornographic material in their TOS. They do mention this though:

[You agree not to use the services of Yahoo to:] upload, post, email, transmit or otherwise make available any Content that is unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, tortious, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, libelous, invasive of another's privacy, hateful, or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable;

I believe SmugMug should try to reword their TOS, if it is possible, regarding these types of images. Honestly, I'm struggling to find a way to word a TOS that allows what I would want, and keeps out what I and I'm sure others wouldn't want. To start, I broke it down like this:

Here is my way to allow galleries of "questionable content" or "content unsafe for minors" and keep it safe (and SmugMug's legal team from pulling their hair out ):

TERMS:

• Galleries MUST be unlisted, and password protected.
• SmugMug would institute a content warning, similar to sites like YouTube, Google Video, flickr, etc.
  • ALL galleries with content that falls under the heading "possible offensive OR unsafe for minors" must be flagged as such so the warning would be displayed, possibly with a simple verification method such as entering a birthday.
• ANY content found in violation of this policy gets 1 warning, sent to the contact email of the account, and if no response is given after one week, then the account is PERMANENTLY removed. Not the gallery, not the photos...the entire account. I would hope the people that are paying for an account wouldn't need an ultimatum like that, but I can't imagine you'd get too many violations when it's a penalty of $30-$150, depending on the account type.

I don't see why SmugMug should have a problem with a system like this in place. Obviously, the warning system would have to be done by SmugMug which is a cost/time issue, but is it worth it to provide the flexibility that subscribers may want? I'd be surprised if a lot of people said that they didn't want the ability to post this type of material AT ALL. Although I may not use it a whole lot, I want the flexibility to do so, especially since I love SmugMug for so many other reasons that I pay good money to own a SmugMug site!

Sorry that is so long winded, I'm kind of opinionated when it comes to the features of services. It's one thing if I hadn't paid for SmugMug. My motto is, if it's free, you can't complain. But, if I'm paying, I should be allowed to post content as long as legal issues are dealt with.

To any SmugMug staff, I'd love to hear why the strict TOS was implemented, what (if any) problems were had in the past with this type of content, and how many problems and hurdles would be associated with my solution, or a variant of it (I have no idea how effective/hard to manage/useless/etc my solution might be, hence why I ask ).

Looking forward to some insight and some good discussion on this issue.

Sincerely,
Nicholas Blew
http://www.nickblewphotography.com

Andy

Thanks for the suggestions, really appreciate them! It's rather timely and we'll be discussing 'em.

caroline

This thread began with referring to images of 'sex', as in the act not gender, between animals, and of sex toys. Nudity wasn't part of the question.
Caroline

Dracil

I think the reason I don't think they're pornography is I don't think they were arousing. Not exhibits 1 and 3 anyway. It was more educational/humor for me. Exhibit 2 was a bit, but that exhibit was essentially pornography through the ages and I don't have pics of that exhibit.

At the same time, I would also agree they're NSFW which is why I'm ok with the whole passworded+non-public gallery, except the old thread seemed to indicate that even if passworded+non-public it's a no-no, but then we have the fully open galleries showing NSFW nude/semi-nude pics and galleries that people have brought up.

While I certainly don't want to stumble upon those at work or in front of children, nor do I want smugmug to become a cheap porn provider, I also feel that there should be a way to achieve a better middle ground that can allow people to share photos privately but also making sure they don't get seen inadvertently by the wrong eyes. One of the big reasons that Picasa (and some other sites like Facebook) excels at this but Smugmug has issues is that Picasa is linked to free Gmail accounts which means accessibility can be tied to the accounts. Even if Smugmug were to provide free accounts for viewing purposes, people are generally unlikely to sign up for it just so they can view pics if they can't do anything else with those accounts. The password + unlisting thing kinda works in a similar way though but it's a little more manual for both sides.

My understanding is that unlisted galleries are also not shown in smugmug searches nor indexed by search engines nor shown on your page, so unless someone has the direct link to it, it can't be seen by anyone, and if you add a password to it, it should make it essentially invisible. Is there something we're missing that makes this a problem? There was a post about inappropriate gallery titles and people being silly about security (putting passwords out in the public) but wouldn't the gallery titles be hidden too unless you had permission to be in there in the first place?

I think it's just an inherent problem in the dual nature of photography (and other stuff really), especially on a site like smugmug that has a strong emphasis on selling public photos. Some photos are meant for public viewing, and some are meant more for private viewing. I've sometimes wondered if I should really just unlist all the galleries with pics of me or my friends (for privacy reasons), but then there's the problem that the majority of the photos do not have people, but then I don't really want to make two galleries all the time either (one with friend photos and hidden, and the other one just more general pics)

A sort of, I wanna be famous, but I also wanna be anonymous kinda thing that's part of the Internet.

Alexander

Hi,

so the "sex" issue seems sorted out, but is there any SmugMug statement on the Copyright issue?


Thanks
Alexander

Andy

Alexander wrote:

Hi,

so the "sex" issue seems sorted out, but is there any SmugMug statement on the Copyright issue?


Thanks
Alexander

what copyright issue?

Alexander

As far as I understand it:
A lot of museums allow you to take pics of the exhibits, That does usually not include any publishing rights.

I'm not saying it HAS to happen or that it WILL happen, but I've seen it happen (though I was not the photographer): In theory a museum could sue in case such pictures from an exhibition (no pun intended) where published.

An, then, they could try to hold SmugMug liable for such copyright violations.

So, I'm just asking: What is SmugMug's point of view on the copyright issue?


Bye
Alexander

Andy

Alexander wrote:

So, I'm just asking: What is SmugMug's point of view on the copyright issue?


Bye
Alexander

Hi, I'm not going to speculate, sorry. Not enough cold, hard facts.

Alexander

Interesting. But thanks for answering! ByeAlexander