Oh facebook, it's so delicously beautiful and so richly addictive. You can post pictures & artwork, music, videos, email your friends and get updates on what everyone else is posting quicker than you could ever have dreamed possible (i mean, how else are you going to keep up with your ex-boyfriends sister-in-laws holiday in Spain?). And who actually reads a websites terms of use before posting artwork or music they spent hours creating? I mean, isn't it all the same anyway?
Well, after a concerned friend passed along this note "I'm not sure exactly what the deal is with facebook and imagery.. but I've heard that they own the images once you post them... eeek! You, especially, might want to check that out if you already haven't."
This, of course, must be a rumor. Why would such a reputable company put something so ridiculous in their terms of use policy (you know, that thing you have to check off every time you upload a photo on facebook, or import a blog, or link your flickr photo's to your facebook profile...)?
But then... I did some digging. I found exactly what I was looking for, plain as day, in the top of a large section of text called "Proprietary Rights in Site Content; Limited License" And it didn't look good...(Facebooks Terms of Use)
"All content on the Site and available through the Service, including designs, text, graphics, pictures, video, information, applications, software, music, sound and other files, and their selection and arrangement (the "Site Content"), are the proprietary property of the Company, its users or its licensors with all rights reserved."
But the more shocking news comes a little farther down the list of terms:
"By posting User Content to any part of the Site, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to the Company an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such User Content for any purpose, commercial, advertising, or otherwise, on or in connection with the Site or the promotion thereof, to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such User Content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing. You may remove your User Content from the Site at any time. If you choose to remove your User Content, the license granted above will automatically expire, however you acknowledge that the Company may retain archived copies of your User Content. Facebook does not assert any ownership over your User Content; rather, as between us and you, subject to the rights granted to us in these Terms, you retain full ownership of all of your User Content and any intellectual property rights or other proprietary rights associated with your User Content."
So, what does this all mean to us anyway?
According to LegalAndrew.com:
"In plain English, this means you’re giving up copyright control of your material. If you upload a photo to Facebook, they can sell copies of it without paying you a cent. If you write lengthy notes (or import your blog posts!), Facebook can turn them into a book, sell a million copies, and pay you nothing."
Just because I'm uploading an image to a website should not mean I'm granting them a license (with right to sublicense!) my work. Not to mention that this rule can also apply to people who post your work under a creative commons license to their facebook profile. Also, be aware that using the flickr application in your facebook will put you in the exact same place as if you'd posted your images there directly from your computer. Same goes for all blog posts (imported or otherwise)...
So, can you trust any site to upload your photos?
Here's what flickrs terms of service are:
"With respect to photos, graphics, audio or video you submit or make available for inclusion on publicly accessible areas of the Service other than Yahoo! Groups, the license to use, distribute, reproduce, modify, adapt, publicly perform and publicly display such Content on the Service solely for the purpose for which such Content was submitted or made available. This license exists only for as long as you elect to continue to include such Content on the Service and will terminate at the time you remove or Yahoo! removes such Content from the Service."
Sigh, these are terms I can live with (and i will! Yahoo for flickr!... ha ha, yes this pun was intened, much to your dismay!).
I know how hard all of you work to create your art, music, writing and crafts. I will advise any of you who respect intellectual property rights to stop posting your images to facebook and to avoid posting "from flickr to facebook", especially if the images are not your own. As far as creative commons licensing goes the only way this would be appropriate is if the photo is in the public domain.
So as far as lessons in trust go, this one is a big one for me. I find that it's easy to trust the sleek and polished face of a company that has attracted 62 million users and has become lovingly known as "crackbook" by it's biggest fans. I'll also admit that yesterday I was happily posting pictures of each and every illustration I'd created since I went freelance (well, the "good ones" anyway), imported each and every blog post I'd written (which included images of my work and some that I'd asked others if I could post of theirs), my flickr account, a live feed from my etsy store and of course pictures of myself with friends. And while it all may seem very unlikely that facebook would ever post an image from my collection I was in Chapters (Canada's largest bookstore chain) before Christmas and saw a magazine, created by facebook, full of users photos. So then... who knows?
As the saying goes:
"I guess nothing is ever free".