Facebook says it owns your content forever…
18 Feb
For those of you who haven’t been following this, I figured I’d give you a small heads up.
Over the last few days there has been uproar over Facebook’s new terms of service. The new TOS basically stated that they owned everything you put on their site, forever, even if you closed your account.
The section that particularly caused concern was:
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.
This was in the old terms of service as well, but what caused the uproar was the following section, which was in the old terms of service but was noticeably absent from the new terms of service:
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
I borrowed some narrative from The Consumerist, so visit the site for an article extended details. The article gives an update by update breakdown of the announcement and Facebook’s reaction. The reader’s comments also give an interesting view. A later post mentions Facebook’s clarification.
Following the public backlash, Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, blogged an official response on the matter, stating “On Facebook, people own and control their content.”
Today, I logged into Facebook and was greeted by an amusing apology, that demonstrated the power of public outrage:
Over the past few days, we have received a lot of feedback about the new terms we posted two weeks ago. Because of this response, we have decided to return to our previous Terms of Use while we resolve the issues that people have raised. For more information, visit the Facebook Blog.
If you want to share your thoughts on what should be in the new terms, check out our group Facebook Bill of Rights and Responsibilities.
Now, I joined and began using Facebook fully knowing I was giving up a huge portion of my privacy in certain areas, and I fully expected that the information I was posting to be public domain the moment I hit “submit”. But for those of you who still post everything about you, private or unprivate, you may want to consider keeping close tabs on this.
Seriously.
For a legal perspective on the Facebook’s Privacy issues, especially regarding content, check out this article.
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Rogue FM: Craig David feat. Sting – Rise And Fall
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Offtopic:
What is drama but life with the dull bits cut out?
- Alfred Hitchcock
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I have socks, Solo. I have more to say, but I am running late for proggie. Let me come back tomorrow and tell you the story after these secondsies chaps have had their say.
LOL. We shall await your return.
WTF. No wonder they call it the Anti Christ
Chanel! Good to see you here. How you doing?
They call it the Anti Christ? Who does?
Baz, what’s the F for?
Lol, SK. I love the way you dramatise in the beginning. I’ve been thinking of removing my pictures anyway.
The F is for Fenekanso, Teti.
LOL, I know someone who quit facebook for all of two days.
This is for the Baz’s of this world
Tell them.
And tell them I said stupid
Hahaha. I shall pass on your kind regards.
Power to the people!
What did you fellas expect? If you don’t like, don’t use or buy the product.
Having a good privacy setting and internet security suite on the computer you face book with can save you from their griping ads.
It’s a long process fully getting off face book but what the heck are you a senator?
Okay… what are you on about? This has nothing to do with ads or internet security. We’re talking about content ownership on Facebook.
You might want to read the post properly.
Just sayin.
Chanel, some beef.
Rogue, check out kitten01.wordpress.com and take it from there.
Seen it. Seems like a pretty fresh blog. Let’s give it some time.
Ko, Erique. The person has barely began to write! Is this person a friend of yours?
Yes, my ex.
Is this our cue [read my cue] to go tear her apart?
Banange, Facebook enzise.
ever since i read your earlier post about facebook i decided to do some research about these social networking websites and what i discovered was very shocking. You can check in but you can never check out. Even if you delete your profile/posts and pictures, they will not be deleted from their computers. they are backed up and you can never access the backed up data to delete it yourself.
I tried to experiment by closing my account at hi5 but when I tried to sign up again, i found that all the info that i had previously uploaded was still intact.
I think this has made a whole lot of more people aware of the power they hand over so easily.
Aya oba i should just delete my profile??? Anyway i am sending all yo friend requests..
I just don’t feel facebook
a blog itself is even more interesting than buying me sSuper Drinks on the Super Wall..
crap!!
Reminds me of Beatles(?) song…Hotel California, you can check in but you cannot check out…scary this…I need to put it to thought and if I can delete my stuff before they revert to their new terms!
This Shit is depressing, I saw facebook’s “Clarification/apology” wen I first logged in a couple of days ago and wondered what was up.
No more personal stuff on my page…they wanna own info and my stuff!? Why don’t they just say they wanna own me?!!
F!@K That!!
woah…. oba l log out completelty