The most outrageous copyright grab ever!

You may or may not have heard of Fark.com. It is a news aggregator website similar to Metafilter, Reddit and others. It has attracted a large number of followers who submit interesting news articles with witty headlines. An article posted on Fark can attract a hundred comments or more.

Fark is a great site, for those who appreciate its oddly coded humor. No complaints so far.

Fark also has competitions. Audio Masterclass likes competitions, as you might have noticed. And like Audio Masterclass, Fark offers no prize other than exposure and attention, and the fun of taking part. There are Photoshop competitions, 'Farktography' competitions and AudioEdit competitions. Often the entries are amazing.

But there is a problem...

If you submit to Fark.com, Fark will take ALL of your copyright. That applies to headlines, comments, Photoshop montages, photographs and audio edits. In other words everything. Here is their copyright notice...

Copyright Notice

Fark.com is the legal owner of all copyright interests of Fark.com content. Each and every submission to Fark.com carries with it an implied assignment of the entire copyright interest in the submission. In exchange for the content and publication of that submission on Fark.com, Fark.com grants back to the submitter a non-exclusive, non-transferable and royalty-free license to republish that submission in any and all forms.

If you are not absolutely horrified by this, then you should be.

Basically Fark.com takes the ENTIRE copyright in your work, and then gives you back a license to use it yourself.

Fark can sell your work, re-publish your work wherever and whenever they please, license it to others, repurpose it, sell the film/TV rights - anything they like for as much money as they can get.

YOU GET NOTHING!

Notice that you can't even transfer the license they gave you back. Basically you've been shafted. Totally.

This is the most oppressive and outrageous copyright notice I have ever seen. But Fark.com has another little bit of cheekiness, right down at the bottom of every page...

Fark.com is the legal owner of all copyrights in the content on this site.

Yeah right! So none of the Photoshop montages or audio edits are derivative works, containing other people's copyright material (probably unlicensed)? Anyone who believes that should look for a gullibility competition to enter right now.

In summary, if you submit to Fark.com - anything - then you will be shafted. Be aware. Be very aware!