Facebook Terms of Use – MEMBER BEWARE!
Ok I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not always the most diligent about reading those long Terms of Service Agreements that pop up when you sign up for a website. I mean it’s a lot of legalese and who’s got time for all that, gulp!
After spending the last few days posting some of my photography to my Facebook account for everyone to enjoy, it was brought to my attention that I might want to take a look at the Terms of Use agreement for the site as it sates the following:
By posting User Content to any part of the Site, you automatically 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.
This immediately sent up a red flag in my head, so i thought it best to run this by ProPhotoResource.com Legal Expert Carolyn E. Wright to get further clarification on the matter. Carolyn has since posted an answer to this issue on her blog www.photoattorney.com (I highly recommend you bookmarking Carolyns site).
It is true, but putting any of your work up on Facebook you are giving them carte blanche to use your photos, artwork or writings for anything they want including, advertising, promotion etc…
So the next time you sign up for a website and are about to upload your prize winning photos to it, please be very careful and make darn certain to read the terms of use beforehand.
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21 Comments
jan sonnenmair
01.12.2009
One question is tho. Will facebook be liable if they use an image for “commercial, advertising, or otherwise” if they don’t have model releases for the people in the images? Especially children.
There is no way to comment or ask questions on Carolyns’ blog..so I thought I would ask here.
Paulo Rodrigues
01.12.2009
I sent you an email about this back in June
I’m surprised there hasn’t been more pressure on facebook to change their terms.
There is a facebook group you can join to put pressure on them.
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=5841663547
42000 members and growing
Paulo Rodrigues
01.12.2009
Whoops! I thought I was commenting on Photo Attourney
Jim
01.15.2009
dude, it’s “legalese”, like “chinese” (the language, not the people), not “legal ease”.
peace.
Cris Mitchell
01.15.2009
Hey Jim,
Gotta thank MS Word Spell Check for that one.
Thanks for pointing that out
Cris…
Josh
01.18.2009
That’s partially in contradiction of this section from their Copyright help. If I own copyright, am I able to revoke granted rights at any time? If not, how do I retain copyright?
Do I retain the copyright and other legal rights to material I upload to Facebook?
Yes. You retain the copyright to your content. When you upload your content you grant us a license to use and display your content. For more information please visit our Terms of Use, which contain a link to our Copyright Policy and other important information about your privileges and responsibilities as a Facebook user.
Jerry
01.21.2009
Good thing Facebook automatically reformats images to be:
a) small
and
b) low quality
…thus making this not really a big deal?
Correct me if I’m wrong.
Cris Mitchell
01.21.2009
Hey Jerry,
The images I’ve uploaded were not resized to the best of my recollection and were certainly big enough to be used by Facebook for web and other online marketing purposes.
So for me this is still a big deal.
Cris…
James Hakim
01.21.2009
This is especially important if you do a lot of writing. My solution has been to link from facebook with a blurb, thus keeping my actual content in a protected space.
Cris Mitchell
01.21.2009
James, not only is this the best solution for protecting it always help drive traffic back to your site creating more awareness of your work. It’s a win all the way around.
lewsta
01.22.2009
Same deal for many photo contests, as well. Read the small letters at the bottom, and you’ll find most times the contest entity will OWN the right to use your work submitted, whether winning or not, for any purpose. I’ve known cases where great images have turned up in calendars, note cards, etc, the submitter protested, and was referred to the rules of the contest… which were theoretically read and agreed to whether read or not. Thus the maker lost the ensuing revenue….. great advice….. READ THE LITTLE WORDS AT THE BOTTOM before putting your own work anywhere.
Memorie
01.23.2009
I heard this before, It is quite unfortunate.. But honestly, when we post anything on the web we have to know that someone out there may be trying to figure out a way to steal, whether it is a copyrite or not… It is just one of those unfortuante, unavoidable things that happen when we share our works…
I was thinking though, maybe using a watermark to cover the image…? That would certainly repel theives…
Rich
01.27.2009
Anyone know if the same terms apply to music posted on Facebook?
Cris Mitchell
01.27.2009
Hey Rich,
Yes it applies to any content that you place on the site. Written or otherwise. I hope this helps.
Cris…
Manbou
01.29.2009
It seems to me that using a Facebook app like Smugfoto to display Smugmug-hosted photos on Facebook is not the same thing as “posting” the photos to Facebook itself because the photos stay on Smugmug’s servers.
In such a situation, I don’t see how Facebook would even have a copy of the photos to use even if it wanted to, and even if it did, it would arguably have no legal right to do so. So Smugfoto may be a good way to display your photos on Facebook without handing over the rights to use them.
Mark Christensen
01.29.2009
Cris,
I havnen’t been around OSP much lately. Have you already posted this info over there?
Cris Mitchell
01.29.2009
Hi Rich,
Sorry no i have not. I don’t actively participate over in the forums at OSP you are more than welcome to post this over there or link to the article. That is totally fine with me.
Manbou
I agree and thought the same thing but when consulting with legal expert Carolyn Wright further about this very topic she confirmed that even though the images are being hosted elsewhere you are still at risk from Facebook. Just the way it is, don’t shoot the messenger
Again who is to say they’ll ever do anything with your images, my point is just to be careful and add your photos with caution and the understanding that they cold be used.
I hope this helps.
Cris…
Manbou
01.30.2009
I am very interested to know how Ms. Wright thought this one through.
Putting the legal issues aside for a moment, just look at the logistics of the situation: Since I am not uploading my photos to Facebook’s servers, if Facebook wants to use my photos for some other purpose in the future, it would have to copy them to its own servers from the Smugmug servers at some point. Does Ms. Wright really believe that Facebook has the right to take data from someone else’s servers that NO facebook user EVER placed on Facebook’s own servers? I would be very surprised if that were true.
I would really like to see Ms. Wright do a thorough analysis of this matter on her blog…
Manbou
01.30.2009
I just found your later post on this issue, with the quotation from Ms. Wright, and I responded over there.
Cris Mitchell
01.30.2009
Carolyn E. Wright just sent me the following email, which i thought i’d share.
Cris –
Facebook would still need to get a model release if it commercially used a photo posted on Facebook of a person.
The terms of use state: “When you post User Content to the Site, you authorize and direct us to make such copies thereof as we deem necessary in order to facilitate the posting and storage of the User Content on the Site.” It comes down to how a court would interpret the word “posting” for this particular contract. It doesn’t specifically limit the posting on the site if it is hosted on our servers . . . ”
Best,
Carolyn
coffee
02.23.2009
looks like Facebook made the same mistake that Google made with their Chrome browser’s fine print
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