Watch out!! Facebook changed their TOS!! Your pictures might appear on some merchandise somewhere!
As of February 2009 Facebook changed their TOS (Terms of Service), and by uploading anything to Facebook you are granting them FULL copyright over all your images, works, content, etc. According to their new TOS your images could end up on some t-shirts. I don't wanna see the images of my kids or my works for that matter printed somewhere, so as of TODAY I'm removing my images from my Facebook account until Facebook changes their policy back to acknowledge and respect our copyrights.Scroll down to see section titled "Licenses" here, or read the text reproduced below:
You are solely responsible for the User Content that you Post on or through the Facebook Service. You hereby grant Facebook an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to (a) use, copy, publish, stream, store, retain, publicly perform or display, transmit, scan, reformat, modify, edit, frame, translate, excerpt, adapt, create derivative works and distribute (through multiple tiers), any User Content you (i) Post on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof subject only to your privacy settings or (ii) enable a user to Post, including by offering a Share Link on your website and (b) to use your name, likeness and image for any purpose, including commercial or advertising, each of (a) and (b) on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof. You represent and warrant that you have all rights and permissions to grant the foregoing licenses."
The full TOS is found here http://www.facebook.com/terms.php?ref=pf
So what does this mean?
Handing over an exclusive license allows Facebook to protect themselves from lawsuits if, for example, a shot of my Facebook page and artwork or art photos ends up in a magazine ad. However, granting them an exclusive license -- which, according to the TOS, I am doing by signing up for Facebook -- means they can literally profit from my images directly, as if they are theirs, because in fact I am saying they are theirs.
Whether or not they are motivated to put my images on mugs or t-shirts for sale and Facebook profit is a separate issue, but the wording there in the TOS says that I am agreeing that it's okay for them to do so, and I will not be compensated nor will I have a case against them.
Essentially, they don't have to ask me, because I already gave them permission by posting images.
What can I do?
To me, the idea of NOT posting my images and videos makes Facebook nothing more than a fancy chat-room. I believe my images confirm my business as a serious and dedicated artist, and attract others in the same business as well as others interested in my business.
I will likely re-post images with a very obnoxious ©David R. Darrow - www.DarrowArt.com across the image at 50% transparency, so viewers can still get the gist of my art, but not use it anywhere without advertising for me. :-)
Downside: I will lose earlier comments friends have posted when I delete the un-marked images.
According to this article,
Facebook's terms of service (TOS) used to say that when you closed an account on their network, any rights they claimed to the original content you uploaded would expire. Not anymore.
By them adding the word "forever" and you agreeing to it you have already unprotected yourself. It's too late, because they changed the agreement after you agreed.
6 comments:
"they changed the agreement after you agreed" so wouldn't that invalidate the agreement? I agree, it sucks. Perhaps if you saved your transparency thingy of your images to the same file name? or just cut n paste the comments back in. We'd understand. hugs
I removed all of my stuff from Facebook last night when I read another article on the subject.
It sure is a sleazy move by Facebook though no matter how you look at it.
Thank you David, I was looking into adding an obnoxious watermark all over my images as well, but still I'll be facing the same issue, I would loose all those beautiful comments! which I already did after deleting all my images today.
The fact that they didn't even bother to tell us of the change in their TOS is what discussed me the most.
I wonder now if they still keep the images on their servers?
I wish I could host the images on my server but that's not the situation with facebook, they don't allow that.
I use facebook for both promotion and to connect with family and friends from all over.
What a bummer!
By the way, now that I'm thinking about it, watermarking the images won't do a thing either, we are still giving away our rights, as per their TOS we are allowing them to modify the images in any way they want including creating derivative works and the removal of the watermark if they so want to do it, without asking any permission. I guess I'm not uploading any more of my images on facebook =/
If you've uploaded any images after Feb. 4th, when the TOS was modified, FB already owns all the rights, forever, everywhere, if I'm reading the TOS correctly.
Taking images down is a visible sign of protest; however, FB already has your images in their backups (which i'm sure they do several times a day).
That's how someone described it to me.
It would be helpful to have an intellectual property lawyer translate this for us. The language makes me wonder if FB could be simply making sure they can post photos and videos on FB member's pages?
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