Terms of abuse?

Via some guy on Twitter, it seems as though Burning Man enforces some pretty ridiculous restrictions in the fine print of the ticket:

Last year we noted how the Burning Man Organization (BMO) used online ticket terms to require participants to assign to BMO—in advance—the copyright to any pictures they took on the playa. Tickets for the 2010 event went on sale in mid-January, and we hoped the new terms would acknowledge the concerns we had expressed. Sadly, the new terms are just as onerous as before.

The "assignment in advance" clause is not the only burdensome provision. The BMO ticket terms limit participants' rights to use their own photos online, obliging them to take down any photos to which BMO objects for any reason and forbidding them from allowing anyone else to download or copy the photos. This means participants cannot donate their works to the public domain or to license their works, even through Creative Commons—no matter what is depicted or whether a use is noncommercial.

Even the notoriously protective Olympics allow spectators to take their own pictures or videos under their Ticket License Agreement, requiring only that the images "not be used for broadcast, publication, or any other commercial purpose." It is disappointing that the BMO cannot be at least as flexible.

Burning Man also continues to strip ticket holders of their right to make perfectly legal uses of its trademarks, forbidding participants from even using the (trademarked) term "Burning Man" on any website. In other words, participants who’d like to blog about their experiences at the event can’t use the words ”Burning Man.” Thus Burning Man uses contract law to do what it cannot under either copyright or trademark law—exert extraordinary control over participants' speech.

It's hard to say where I come down on this. The thing is, at Burning Man there are a lot of respectable people doing things that are normally not very respectable, like strutting around in the nude. So there's a big danger to people's reputation if some wise guy decides to snap a bunch of photos and post them online without permission. This gives Burning Man the authority they need to immediately take down any such photos.

However, though it might make sense in this particular case, it does seem to set a troubling precedent. It doesn't seem right that a company can use a contract to arbitrarily limit what a person can say or do with content collected at an event (although some limits I think are pretty reasonable to enforce). But, really, I'm completely unfamiliar with the thinking on this issue.

PS: It's a pet peeve of mine when causes resort to using silly insults to refer to their targets. For example, this organization keeps substituting "terms of use" with "terms of ab(use)". Not only is this grammatically wrong--it should be "terms of (ab)use"--it just makes the organization look petty and impotent, like they're so powerless to stop what's going on and are so infuriated that the only thing they can do is stand on the sidelines and uselessly sputter in rage. It's like when people use "U$", or "Amerika"--or, for that matter, "Stanfurd" (something I've always been against).