Introduction

The mission of BirdsEye is to create mobile and web tools that encourage participation in worthy citizen science projects such as eBird, Odonata Central, the Migratory Dragonfly Partnership and eButterfly. Developing a strong library of photos for every species to help educate and engage participants in these projects is central to our mission.

We appreciate the generous contributions that photographers make to the BirdsEye community. We work to provide as much exposure for photographers and their work as possible. Our websites and apps provide a great opportunity for us to showcase you as a photographer to other photographers, birders, nature enthusiasts and citizen scientists. Contributors of photos used in our apps get:

• Credit wherever the full photo is displayed
• Free copies of our apps (see below for more details)

Terms and Conditions for Submitted Photos

Our websites and apps can provide valuable exposure for your work. We do not pay for submitted photos, nor do we sell them. You retain full ownership of your work. By submitting a photo, you are granting Birds in the Hand, LLC the right to use it on our websites and in our apps without limitation. Some of the best images may also gain added exposure if they are chosen for use in marketing the BirdsEye project, in our apps, in our newsletter, or as a featured photo of the day. We display the copyright text provided by you with full-screen images as shown in the example below.

You may include watermarks or other embedded copyright information in your photos. You grant permission for us to edit or otherwise modify your photo to allow attractive display, including but not limited to cropping, resizing, modifying the resolution, renaming, adding annotations and/or adding arrows to highlight field marks. Note that in some cases our editing could inadvertently partially remove or obscure your embedded copyright information.

Submitted photos may contain metadata, such as a location, date, photography equipment or photo description. In some cases this information can be helpful or interesting to users. For example, it can be helpful to know which month a photograph is from, or which country it is from. Please be aware that by submitting photos you are granting us permission to view and in some cases display the embedded metadata. We are aware that some metadata, such as the exact lat/long, can be very private and sensitive especially for photos of endangered species. Our policy is to use location metadata only at a very general level, such as state or country and to not reveal exact locations. However, if you want to be absolutely certain that this information is not inadvertently revealed to the public, please remove it before submitting photos.

By submitting photos, you represent that you are the copyright holder, or are acting on the explicit instructions of the copyright holder, and that the copyright information you supply is correct. We cannot accept responsibility for any damages arising from submissions by you of photos that you do not own. If you are unsure of the ownership or copyright of a photo, please do not submit it. We do our best to respond to requests to edit or correct copyright information, but please be aware that such changes take time.

We reserve the right not to use or display submitted photos. We also reserve the right to remove what we believe to be offensive or otherwise inappropriate photos.

We agree to use and display your photos subject to your acceptance of these terms and conditions.

Photo Submission Suggestions

Images can be cropped after they are submitted. The current crop option is a portrait orientation 1:1.25 ratio which is optimized for display in the apps and website.

Images display better if they are saved with the web standard sRGB color profile instead of other color profiles like Adobe RGB. If you don’t know what this means, don’t worry, chances are you are already using sRGB.

Free Apps

Photographers who contribute usable photos to the BirdsEye Project are entitled to one or more free copies of our apps, or in some cases in-app purchases of roughly equivalent value. You may use free copies for yourself or give them to friends.

We provide a free app for your first submission and an additional free app for every 20 photos thereafter.

We can only provide you with free copies of apps that are under our control and which are available at the time of your request. In some cases we can provide free copies of in-app purchases. However, please be aware that some of our partner organizations (such as the publisher of our sound packages) have not granted us permission to give away free copies of their packages, so these packages are excluded. Please email us if you have questions about which packages are available to photographers.

The offer of free apps is available to you for one year after submission, although we will make every effort to accommodate requests after one year if we are able to do so.

We contact each photographer as they submit photos to offer a membership/app. If you have not received a membership you are due, contact us at BirdsEye Support.

Example of how photos appear in our apps:

To the right is an example of how a photo is displayed on the iPhone version of BirdsEye™. In this case the copyright and URL appear as a watermark on the lower portion of the photo. In other cases the user can tap on the photo to view the copyright information. We do not display copyright information with thumbnails. In some cases, such as in the Daily Bird App, we also display photographic equipment used. Please be aware that the way photos are displayed is constantly evolving as we seek to improve. As one example, we hope that in future versions we may display month and country/state (if known) to help educate users about geographic and seasonal variations in appearance.

Images, Text and Sounds in Third-party Packages

Some third-party packages that include images, text and/or sounds (collectively “Content”) are distributed by their owners for sale through BirdsEye.  In general, that Content may only be used by BirdsEye within those third-party packages and for the purpose marketing those third party packages.  The third parties agree to provide only Content that they own or which is provided with the explicit permission of the copyright owner.

The use of Content in these third party packages is covered by BirdsEye’s general Terms and Conditions as described here, except as agreed in writing by BirdsEye and those Third Parties.  As BirdsEye includes a large amount of Content from many sources, it is the obligation of the third party to make it clear to BirdsEye which Content is covered by any such written agreement.  BirdsEye will make a good faith effort to protect such third-party package Content   In the event that third-party package Content is inadvertently made available by BirdsEye in a way that is inconsistent with the written agreement between BirdsEye and the third party, the third party shall notify BirdsEye and BirdsEye shall have the obligation to promptly correct any such inadvertent use of third-party content.  However, BirdsEye and the third party agree that under no circumstance shall BirdsEye be liable either to the third-party, or to the copyright owners of the third-party package Content, for monetary damages associated with the inadvertent release of such content.

 

Guidelines for registering and using this site:

• Please use your real name when registering. You may use a business, blog or organization name in addition to your name.
• Do not submit photos that do not belong to you or otherwise infringe other people's intellectual property rights.
• You may use your submissions to this site as a way to promote your nature-related business, blog or organization. Examples of businesses you may promote are nature-related photography, guides, authors, lodges, etc so long as we believe that they are compatible with our mission and the norms of our community. Email us if you have questions about what is appropriate.
• You will not use automated methods (scripts, bots, scrapers, etc) to collect information or content from this site.
• You will not bully, intimidate, or harass any other user. You will not post photos or comments that are hateful or degrading.
• You will not use this site to do anything unlawful, misleading, malicious, or discriminatory.
• This site is not available for users under 13.
• If you violate the letter or spirit of these Guidelines, or otherwise create risk or possible legal exposure for us, we may stop providing access to this site to you. We will notify you by email or at the next time you attempt to access your account. We reserve the right to take various steps including de-activating accounts or removing content.

Other

Our rights and obligations under this Statement are freely assignable by us. Nothing in this Statement shall be construed to prevent us from complying with the law. You will comply with all applicable laws when using or accessing BirdsEye. If you live outside of the United States, by using this site you consent to having your personal data transferred to and possessed in the United States.

Date of Last Revision: March 5, 2015.