Contributor and Photograph Rights Agreement

You retain any copyright, ownership, and other rights you already hold in submitted photographs and materials. Still Mill does not claim ownership merely because material is uploaded. Owning a physical photograph, scan, or copy does not necessarily mean you own the copyright.

For each submission, you represent that:

• you created it, own the necessary rights, have permission from the rights holder, or may lawfully use and share it under the public domain, fair use, or another legal basis;
• you have authority to grant the license in this Agreement;
• the submission and its intended visibility do not knowingly violate another person’s copyright, privacy, publicity, contractual, confidentiality, or other rights;
• descriptions of ownership, source, restrictions, attribution, and permissions are accurate to the best of your knowledge; and
• you will tell Still Mill if you later learn that a material statement was incorrect or that a rights dispute exists.

If your authority is uncertain, label the uncertainty and consult the rights holder or a qualified professional before making the photograph public.

You grant The Synergy Experience LLC a worldwide, nonexclusive, royalty-free license to host, store, back up, reproduce, transmit, display, format, resize, crop for interface display, create thumbnails and technical derivatives of, and associate metadata and research activity with the submitted material. This license is limited to operating, securing, moderating, improving, demonstrating, and promoting Still Mill and its archive.

We may allow contractors and service providers to exercise this license only as needed to provide services to Still Mill. We may display public submissions on public photograph pages, search results, collections, educational explanations, and Still Mill promotional materials. We will not sell ownership of a contributed photograph or license it as a stand-alone stock image without separate permission from the applicable rights holder.

Research notes, citations, evidence descriptions, proposed identities, comments, status changes, and case history may become part of a collaborative record. You grant Still Mill the same operational license to use those contributions. To the extent permitted by law, you allow Still Mill to edit, standardize, excerpt, label, correct, or reformat them for clarity, moderation, accessibility, provenance, and research integrity.

No user owns an identity conclusion or prevents other users from independently researching the same photograph. Still Mill may preserve attribution and audit history even if a display name changes or an account closes.

Visibility controls, when offered, determine how submitted material appears within the Service. Public material may be viewed, indexed, quoted, copied, or shared by others outside Still Mill’s control. Restricted or private features reduce intended visibility but cannot guarantee confidentiality or prevent screenshots, lawful disclosure, security incidents, or access by authorized administrators and service providers.

Do not upload material requiring archival-grade custody, guaranteed preservation, or legally privileged confidentiality unless Still Mill has entered a separate written agreement expressly covering those obligations.

Provide known photographer, family, repository, collection, donor, publication, accession, and rights information. Still Mill may display that information and reasonable rights labels. Attribution does not resolve copyright ownership, and a rights label may be corrected if evidence changes.

Still Mill may create thumbnails, compress files, convert formats, adjust orientation, crop for responsive display, apply visible labels, and make accessibility or moderation changes. We will not intentionally alter a submitted photograph to create a false historical impression. Restoration, colorization, or generative alteration must be clearly labeled if offered in the future.

You may request removal or restriction by emailing sce@thesynergyexperience.co with the photograph URL, your account information, the basis for the request, and any supporting rights documentation. We may verify identity and authority.

We will evaluate the request in light of ownership, permissions, other contributors, public-domain or fair-use considerations, legal obligations, research integrity, and technical limitations. We may remove or restrict the image while retaining a case number, source citation, non-image research history, moderation record, backup copy for a limited period, or legally required record. Removal from Still Mill cannot retrieve copies previously made by third parties.

Still Mill may temporarily hide material, request documentation, add a dispute notice, restrict downloads, or remove material while evaluating a claim. Copyright notices submitted under U.S. law must follow the Copyright and DMCA Policy. Still Mill does not adjudicate private ownership disputes and may require the parties to resolve them independently.

Still Mill helps organize and document historical photographs, but it is not a substitute for a professional archival repository, preservation plan, or personal backup. Keep original files and independent backups. We do not guarantee permanent retention, uninterrupted access, restoration, or recovery.

By submitting material, you agree to this Agreement and the Terms of Service. Material changes will be posted with a new effective date and, where legally required, additional notice or consent. Questions may be sent to sce@thesynergyexperience.co.