hero-of-time-winds-and-legend:

I know I’ve talked about this a lot the past few days. Every time there’s an update I usually end up making a billion posts about the large amount of over-reacting that happens along with the update.

But this is just… it’s just too good to be true.

So, like, nearly a year ago now, Tumblr decided to update their Terms of Service/Terms and Conditions. This was because the old one was messy and outdated, so they updated it to match the more present trends that go on on this site. However, a lot of it remained the same, it was just re-worded to be more appropriate. The whole “granting a sublicense to create derivative works” thing was always in there (I know this because I actually read the ToS before the update) because that’s what enables people to reblog images. Ya see, without that, it means any time someone reblogs art onto their blog, both that person and Tumblr are creating a derivative work of art they have no right to do that with. Which means EVERY single reblog of art is a potential lawsuit for Tumblr. This site would be purely text-based without that. It likely wouldn’t exist.

However, some people on Tumblr, as always happens, read the ToS, decided Tumblr was trying to steal artwork (despite it VERY clearly saying it wasn’t) and made a petition to demand answers and re-write the ToS.

Fast forward to a week or 2 ago, news broke that Yahoo was pushing for an updated video player (which 90% of Tumblr have wanted since the first video player came out) to help promote video uploads to the site.

A week later, Tumblr decided to update the layout of the page. I imagine this was to try and keep in line with current web design trends, but I’m not a web designer so that’s purely conjecture. However, I do know that web design trends do change and people need to keep up with them. However, this update was KINDA (and by kinda I mean really) badly implemented, in that the resizing images twice thing screwed over a lot of people.

Then this post broke. It provided absolutely no proof, but threw out a bunch of conjecture basically saying that Yahoo was trying to drive away Graphic Designers from the site. The post says that Yahoo made a corporate decision to get rid of a vast majority of it’s established user base in order to bring in a potential new user base. I know, it makes no business sense, is a ridiculous idea, and should’ve just been laughed away. However, it wasn’t, and people started to believe it. So now there’s this recurring idea that the layout change is part of some big conspiracy to drive away graphic designers, even though there’s literally no proof of that.

The layout change and this ridiculous conspiracy have led to a “strike” happening tomorrow to protest Yahoo trying to drive people away.

THEN the petition from nearly a year ago seems to be resurfacing and gaining traction again. So, now Tumblr users are, once again, demanding that the Terms of Service be changed to get rid of the whole “granting a sub-licence for derivative works” thing that allows people to reblog art work.

I mean, it’s just beautiful. It’s like a piece of artwork itself. A conflux of events that have created this… this… moment where Tumblr users are literally attempting to destroy the site whilst thinking they’re saving it.

If that doesn’t make sense, let me put it another way.

Some Tumblr users believe Yahoo are trying to drive them from the site, so in protest, are striking from the site, effectively not using it for a day. They are going away from the site in protest of Yahoo wanting them to go away from the site.

And whilst this is going on, some other Tumblr users, and I imagine some of the same Tumblr users, are bringing back and signing a petition which, if successful, would remove Tumblr’s ability to allow people to reblog artwork, effectively destroying the graphic design community on this site.

Some people on Tumblr think that Yahoo wants to get rid of Graphic Designers from the site, are protesting by going on strike and leaving the site, whilst at the same time signing a petition to try and stop Graphic Designers from being able to upload to the site in the first place, all whilst thinking they’re helping Graphic Designers stay on the site.

And people wonder why Tumblr never listens to it’s users.