This morning, I reported on Facebook's new terms of service, which appears to assert permanent rights to any content that users create or upload, even after they delete it from the site. This afternoon, a Facebook spokesman emailed a response that I'll post in its entirety:
We are not claiming and have never claimed ownership of material that users upload. The new Terms were clarified to be more consistent with the behavior of the site. That is, if you send a message to another user (or post to their wall, etc...), that content might not be removed by Facebook if you delete your account (but can be deleted by your friend). Furthermore, it is important to note that this license is made subject to the user’s privacy settings. So any limitations that a user puts on display of the relevant content (e.g. To specific friends) are respected by Facebook. Also, the license only allows us to use the info "in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof." Users generally expect and understand this behavior as it has been a common practice for web services since the advent of webmail. For example, if you send a message to a friend on a webmail service, that service will not delete that message from your friend's inbox if you delete your account.
One of the most important goals of the new Terms was to be more open to users by being more clear about how their data was handled. We certainly did not — and did not intend — to create any new right or interest for Facebook in users’ data by issuing the new Terms. None of the news or blog reports at the time we announced them on February 4 suggested any confusion or misunderstanding.
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has posted a similar message on the company's blog.
The issue is currently Twitter's top topic. Maybe Facebook should rewrite the statement into 140 characters?
Update 1: Facebook TOS protest spreads, Zuckerberg responds
Update 2: Facebook reverts to old terms, promises to craft new TOS with user input
Comments
So it's ok to use your wedding photos for a new Facebook dating service? Or some of your blog commentary to promote Facebook (like a testimonial)? Need to cancel a few feeds, myself.
Thank you for finally getting an answer out of them!
This is hilarious though: "None of the news or blog reports at the time we announced them on February 4 suggested any confusion or misunderstanding."
I don't care what any spokesperson says the intent of the terms are, I care about what the terms actually say. Fine that you gave a spokesperson a voice in the issue, but it seems almost no one disagrees that the TOS here say that Facebook gets to keep and use a great deal of the data, including uploads, yes, video uploads are included in what Facebook has perpetual rights over, forever. This has been the case for some time, however. Other companies like YT, Flickr and most web 2.0 platforms that host published content, DO NOT have perpetual rights. There is no need for it.
You don't need to bee to sharp to understand how a judge would interpret this:
"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"
Also, I don't think you need to hire a layer or a **Facebook PR Rep** to understand what this means:
"The following sections will survive any termination of your use of the Facebook Service: Prohibited Conduct, User Content, Your Privacy Practices, Gift Credits, Ownership; Proprietary Rights, Licenses, Submissions, User Disputes; Complaints, Indemnity, General Disclaimers, Limitation on Liability, Termination and Changes to the Facebook Service, Arbitration, Governing Law; Venue and Jurisdiction and Other."
Last time I checked, I didn't sign a Terms of Service agreement to use my email. But it seems to function in a similar way to the scenarios they are proposing. Fancy that...
Clearly the "business" of content has gone awry.
Time to focus on proper attribution for all things intellectual property-related: copyright, fair use, patents, trademarks, open source, etc. & determine just what constitutes "privacy" against these interpretations.
With proper attribution & a bit of forensics, when needed, we should expect these venture-funded profit-seekers to share in the upside of user-generated content. Better yet, it demonstrates the hypocrisy with which many of these VCs talk about innovation ("patents"; "patent trolls"; "NPEs") and what they themselves do with regards to intellectual property.
Shameful. Let's measure the bandwidth & use of these "platforms" & see how our details are being used: now that seems fair.
Clearly the "business" of content has gone awry.
Time to focus on proper attribution for all things intellectual property-related: copyright, fair use, patents, trademarks, open source, etc. & determine just what constitutes "privacy" against these interpretations.
With proper attribution & a bit of forensics, when needed, we should expect these venture-funded profit-seekers to share in the upside of user-generated content. Better yet, it demonstrates the hypocrisy with which many of these VCs talk about innovation ("patents"; "patent trolls"; "NPEs") and what they themselves do with regards to intellectual property.
Shameful. Let's measure the bandwidth & use of these "platforms" & see how our details are being used: now that seems fair.
That all sounds "nice", but in a courtroom, lawyers don't sound "nice" - they sound like this:
"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"
To the Facebook spokesperson: please explain specifically how photographs are covered by this policy, and what specifically is meant by "it is important to note that this license is made subject to the user’s privacy settings."
And how do you justify changing the policy with no warning and opportunity for Facebook users to remove content they don't want ensnared in your legalese?
Every website like Myspace, Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, Apple, whatever have these TOS and some backwards people need to cause a stir out of it.
This morning I heard from a Facebook friend that a picture of a recently deceased friend had been used by Facebook to advertise a career builder service. Needless to say, her friends and family are appalled.
This is not the use that the Facebook spokesman describes.
The industry standard in copyright is that all rights not specifically given away are reserved to the creator of the work. If one does not explicitly protest a violation of these rights, however, they are forfeited. Even if Facebook does not mean to do so, de facto it is asserting rights over copyrighted work such as band videos and music, photography, poems, cover art, and novels.
Even more of a violation, it is asserting rights over material posted for personal use only, or for use by family and friends only.
Many members of the creative community have been posting materials for which copyright is an issue. Over the last 24 hours, these have been quietly melting away from Facebook.
Facebookers who have posted pictures or other material for friends and family only--for example, pictures of their children--are removing them.
And this morning Facebook is a much less interesting place.
I will say for Facebook that it probably had no idea of the implications of the change in its TOS, or the depths and speed of the reaction against it. (The Facebook group "People Against the New Terms of Service" had a little over 10,000 members last night; at the moment I'm writing it has 22, 433. Various suits are being contemplated, asking Facebook to identify and remove ALL copyrighted work from its archive--which, as the spokesman points out, would be a difficult and expensive job--or guarantee that it will not exploit such work.)
In previous iterations of the same question, the company involved has realized its mistake, apologized, and backed away quickly.
I look forward to Facebook doing the right thing soon.
"Every website like Myspace, Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, Apple, whatever have these TOS and some backwards people need to cause a stir out of it."
Try not to be a moron, Rob J. I've read several of them and they do not claim what facebook is claiming.
I still feel creeped out about what they are claiming. My Flickr account feeds into FB via their RSS tool for updates. Do they claim rights to those photos? The TOS seems to claim they do, beyond what is necessary for displaying them on the site or on other friends' pages. MySpace, Flickr, YouTube, and a whole host of other Web 2.0 companies are doing just fine as far as content licensing goes without this much of a far-reaching statement. (Look at MySpace's TOS for a really good legal and English explanation of what rights they are claiming, and *WHY*.)
That's what bugs me. FB won't tell you why they need to claim such broad rights. They have not disclosed how their situation is so much different from MySpace's that they need to claim more rights.
(Mind you, I don't use MySpace anymore because of the 'atmosphere' I get from the site.) Is it any wonder that MySpace is the preferred spot for musicians, given this rights difference?
sneaky, little, greedy, money-grubbing--"our lawyers wrote that verbage, not us! we are victims of a misunderstanding. we didn't mean for it to say that! (but we still have not retracted it, even though all we would have to do is revert to the previous tos.)"--bean-counting, fast-one pulling, megalomaniacal, ruling class, dirty-dealing, 'just-following-orders,' buck-passing, back-pedaling, slippery, tricky-dicky, spin-putting-on, lying, bottom-feeding, caviar-eating, cold-blooded, low-living, crass, dreck-spewing, sewage filled, halitosis-breathed, own-mother-selling, purveyors of ass-jackery!
While Facebook doesn't "own" your content, they "take away" your ownership of your content.
Explained more succintly here.
Quick summary: Ownership = Exclusive rights. Post things to Facebook, you lose exclusivity. You lose ownership.
I am a Photographer,i own the copyrights to most of my photo's and video's.Some i share with bands and models.I took everything down off Facebook because they cannot steal my years of work and use it for their profit or any other purpose whatsoever without my legal consent.As to the changing the wording of the Terms of Service after the fact is also a breech of the Terms we signed up for originally.Regardless of their response,that is how it is worded,they own your media rights.Their actions have scared off alot of their users(as it should),for legal reasons.I am also a musician with a bunch of my music on Facebook as well,do they claim to own that too,yes because "info" can mean alot of things,same as "Media".There are alot of other sites that are starting to look much better now to switch to.Hopefully they can get their %^&* together before they lose thousands of Facebook users.Because word of mouth spreads faster than cancer on Facebook.
The spin FB is putting on this is telling--they keep talking about how they are not claiming ownership. Okay, fine...but that doesn't make it any better! What FB is claiming is unlimited usage rights to content and while that is not ownership, it is the ability to use images and other content in ads, etc., without paying the creators of those images a dime. It's IP theft.
They have lawyers and they know that what they say to the press and what will hold up in court are two very different things. They can claim in the press not to want to use anyone's work all they want--the words in the TOS are contrary to that.
Btw, I've worked with commercial artists (photographers, etc.) for 15 years and am now a law student, so I'm not talking out of my hat.
FB must change the terms. Other social media sites must as well (MySpace is also terrible). If they don't we have to stop using the "service" and, to protect the work, sue.
Can you say, "Class Action Lawsuit?"
Leslie, Why don't you start one?
Count me in!
Does AT& T claim to have the rights to your phone conversations? No.
Does the US postal service reserve the rights to read your mail to strangers for money?
FB has been found out for what it is and they don't like it. It was fun to be a member before I realized it was a front to steal content.
I'm out. I hope you all quit too -- by tomorrow -- if they don't retract this theft clause.
I personally do not see any issue here and I don't know why people are making such a fuss.
There is nothing in the TOS inconsistent with the spokespersons statement.
Facebook is not claiming any ownership of your content.
They are simply saying that by posting it to THEIR FREE SITE (you are using this service for free don't forget so they need to get some value from you somewhere), You are assigning a license to FaceBook which gives them permission to re use the content (images, videos, written poems etc etc.)
ALL Internet social newtwork sites follow basically the same idea.
In reality, they almost never use any of the users materials but they would like to have the freedom to utilise an image or a video for promotional purposes in connection only with FaceBook services without having to go through the headache of contacting the user for additional permission each time they find something cool.
To qualify this: Why don't you join 'American Idol". of course, before anything happens in that contest, contestants have to sign a waiver saying that 'Freemantle' can use any images recordings etc. etc. made in connection with the show to promote the show without any kind of payment to the contestant.
IF YOU WANT TO PROTECT YOUR CONTENT - Don't place it on a public website for anyone and everyone to see :)
if you want to get paid for the display of your content, put up your own site and charge a fee to enter :)))
Otherwise, as a certain comedian would say "What the problem is???"
I don't care what any spokesperson says the intent of the terms are, I care about what the terms actually say.
Exactly. What the spokesperson is saying is not what the ToS says.
There is nothing in the TOS inconsistent with the spokespersons statement.
Facebook is not claiming any ownership of your content.
Entirely wrong. What they are saying is that they have total and absolute right to use whatever you post however they see fit, up to and including increasing their own profits or even TRANSFERRING it to another medium or business. In the world of intellectual property, that constitutes as ownership. Also, your appeal to the fact that the site is 'free' is inane and bogus since facebook is not a freaking charity, it is a for profit business which based itself upon the concept of being able to share intellectual content without a person having to worry about some other corporation being able to steal it from them 'legally' without any recognition or compensation whatsoever. So in short, facebook created an environment to build a profit base, and are now betraying that.
Matthew, as for your comments about how people should treat their content, its almost as if you're entirely oblivious to the development of media in the last century. What do you think broadcast television or radio is? Its putting content out for free. And yet I wouldn't be able, as a viewer, to simply take that and reuse it however I see fit. Further, putting out content for free is one of the best and quickest ways to gain recognition. I don't know where you come up with this lunatic idea that using that model should somehow take away your right to control your own intellectual property. Seriously, where does "I allowed people to view my creative works for free" equate "I give up all rights to them" in your mind? That's entirely ridiculous. I wish there were some way to sound less offensive, but you quite clearly spent absolutely zero time thinking about this issue or any aspect of the real world of media and IP before you decided to weigh in.
AGREED.
I do not see facebook as having the legal right to assume the copyright(s) of contents of messages or images, any more than that of the United States Postal Service, simply by being the “means of providing transportation” or, storage. Facebook did not create my works. Furthermore, the information between two people is, in my view, between those people, the “sender”, and “recipient”.
My email provider has not adjusted its terms of service to include any rights of ownership of sent contents based on making available content to a recipient whether or not the sender’s account is current or been closed, so, other than providing storage, (a weak argument in my view) why have you (FB)? My works are my property. My photos are my property. My email and messages are private, and I believe if any member chooses to close their account, their information should not be made available to others.
“What if”, being purely hypothetical, a facebook member faces domestic harassment (or otherwise), fearing safety for himself, herself or, children (outside of facebook) and desires to close his or her account to keep safe and private personal information but facebook TOS’s enforces keeping availability of this information to other users – friends or family members whose accounts might be visible on a logged-on or stolen computer? I don’t find this to be of good practice, and should be revamped.
I believe ALL facebook users should have the option to remove permanently any and all content and/or disallow facebook from continuing storage or transmittal of content(s) created by a user, opting with “with whom” this information will be shared, as is implied at the initial creation of a user’s account, by the originating TOS’s.
FB needs to revamp this. Otherwise, I will drop this site and request each friend to remove all content(s) shared on FB opting, at his or her request, to receive from me any shared works off-site. Oh wait, does that place me in violation of FB’s newly acquired copy-written materials? My material?
Let's stop with the speculation and do something about it. Clearly some facebook member (not myself) needs to simply take the matter to court to have their content removed from facebook, preferrably someone that has their pictures used in facebook marketing. Lets pay the end user for their time and see how the people vs Facebook scenario plays out. Period.
I sent this to Mark Zuckerberg earlier tonight:
The Facebook blog said:
A couple of weeks ago, we updated our terms of use to clarify a few points for our users. A number of people have raised questions about our changes, so I'd like to address those here. I'll also take the opportunity to explain how we think about people's information.
Our philosophy is that people own their information and control who they share it with. When a person shares information on Facebook, they first need to grant Facebook a license to use that information so that we can show it to the other people they've asked us to share it with. Without this license, we couldn't help people share that information.
You say your 'philosophy' is that people own their information.
You also say "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."
These two statements conflict. Yes, I see is says 'subject only to your privacy settings' but the rest of the verbiage ('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 ') casts grave doubt on your assertion.
Here is _my_ 'philosophy' on these matters:
Every word I write belongs to me alone. If I choose to pass messages or links to selected recipients I may or may not grant them the right to pass them further. Your site has no proprietary rights to anything I write, post or link to unless you specifically ask me for permission to make use of my material -- permission which I will grant on a case-by-case basis.
If you would scrap your legal-weasel garbage and incorporate a version of the above paragraph into your terms of service I believe your clients would be reassured.
There's a very interesting debate going on among the comments to this and other similar posts. My question is has anyone been adversely affected by Facebook or a similar website using their content? If so, how? Just curious...