Early this morning, Facebook decided to reverse a change it made in its Terms of Service Agreement that caused outrage among thousands of it’s users. The change involved Facebook deleting a provision that stated that users could remove their content at any time, at which time the license Facebook had on the content would expire. It also added a provision that said that Facebook would keep the content of it’s users and licenses even after a Facebook account was terminated.
What did this change mean for Facebook users? According to some consumer advocates, you could easily interpret this change to mean that Facebook would own the right to do what they wished with whatever you post on Facebook (photos, video, comments, etc) even after you’ve decided to delete your Facebook account. According to Facebook, they’ve made this change in the Terms of Service so that they can help keep certain aspects of a person’s content active even after that person has terminated their account. For example, if you’ve made a comment on another person’s Wall or participated in a discussion on in a Facebook Group, the provision would allow them to keep the comment active even if you’ve deleted your account.
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, stated both yesterday and this morning after the decision to go back to the original Terms of Service that the change in no way meant that Facebook wanted to “own” the content of it’s users, but rather it was trying solve the sticky issue of what to do with content that’s shared among a lot of people.
As an artist, this a very real issue that you should be aware of. Terms of Use provisions that allow a third party website like Facebook, Myspace, Flickr rights to use the content of its users is not uncommon. And while the chance that any of these companies will do anything with your photos or videos is fairly small, in some cases the language to do more than that is already there. So should a company decide to do more with your content than they’re doing now somewhere further down the road, if you’ve agreed to the Terms of Service that gives them that right there may be very little you can do. If you’re a painter, a photographer, a videographer, a cartoonist, a printmaker, or anyone who’s art “is” the image, this can be a serious issue.
My advice? Be careful. You should be very aware of what you’re signing up for before you start uploading your images on a social networking site. Before you start sharing your images on places like Facebook or Myspace, be sure to read the Terms of Service contract (you know those long pages of legal stuff that no one ever reads) and pay close attention on how they handle your content. And then weigh the risks and benefits for yourself. Social networking is still a great way to promote yourself, just don’t give away your rights to do so.
For more information on this issue, check out the following links:
- Facebook’s Users Ask Who Owns Information
- On Facebook, People Own and Control Their Information
- Facebook’s New Terms Of Service: “We Can Do Anything We Want With Your Content. Forever.”
- Facebook terms of service compared with MySpace, Flickr, Picasa, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Twitter
- Update on Terms
- Technical rebuttal of Mark Zuckerberg’s rebuttal to Facebook TOS change
