Eshin Direct

Certain individuals keen on pointing out the evils of Facebook have pointed me in the direction of their Terms and Conditions of usage. My friend in the UK apparently got banned for advocating out against the service and only after much grovelling, got back into the service (evidently, there was a value to the service). Bloggers and citizens of the netisphere really ought to be aware of the terms and conditions of the services they use, and understand their rights.

And while Facebook’s terms look detrimental to your rights, it is not alone in this regard. Let’s have a look at what all the fuss is about.

Here is a segment of Facebook’s terms and conditions:

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. 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 essentially this means that while you retain your copyright over your content, your usage of Facebook give them a license to do whatever they want with it. For artists, writers, and content producers, this is quite a worry since they lose exclusive control over their content. So a writer could publish their work on Facebook and as a result, not be able to sell it to a publisher who wants exclusive rights to sell the work since he currently has his content on Facebook, since, in theory, Facebook could legitimately sell that writers work as well.

When you get into the realm of celebrities that use Facebook, this can potentially be even more damaging. Exclusive first picture deals of a wedding or birth fetch millions of dollars for artists like Angelina Jolie and the like. Of course, Facebook probably won’t sell yours and my personal snaps since no one is likely to buy it to make it worth their while but if the company is short of funding, what is there to stop them selling the first few snaps of Brangelina’s newborn if it’s been uploaded to Facebook already?

Okay, that doesn’t sound good.

But then Google and Flickr (Yahoo!) also have the same. This one from Google:

Google
11. Content licence from you

11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive licence to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. This licence is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the Services and may be revoked for certain Services as defined in the Additional Terms of those Services.

11.2 You agree that this licence includes a right for Google to make such Content available to other companies, organizations or individuals with whom Google has relationships for the provision of syndicated services, and to use such Content in connection with the provision of those services.

11.3 You understand that Google, in performing the required technical steps to provide the Services to our users, may (a) transmit or distribute your Content over various public networks and in various media; and (b) make such changes to your Content as are necessary to conform and adapt that Content to the technical requirements of connecting networks, devices, services or media. You agree that this licence shall permit Google to take these actions.

11.4 You confirm and warrant to Google that you have all the rights, power and authority necessary to grant the above licence.

And this one from Yahoo!’s Flickr service:

Yahoo!

CONTENT SUBMITTED OR MADE AVAILABLE FOR INCLUSION ON THE SERVICE

Yahoo! does not claim ownership of Content you submit or make available for inclusion on the Service. However, with respect to Content you submit or make available for inclusion on publicly accessible areas of the Service, you grant Yahoo! the following worldwide, royalty-free and non-exclusive license(s), as applicable:

1. With respect to Content you submit or make available for inclusion on publicly accessible areas of Yahoo! Groups, the license to use, distribute, reproduce, modify, adapt, publicly perform and publicly display such Content on the Service solely for the purposes of providing and promoting the specific Yahoo! Group to 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.

2. 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.

3. With respect to Content other than photos, graphics, audio or video you submit or make available for inclusion on publicly accessible areas of the Service other than Yahoo! Groups, the perpetual, irrevocable and fully sublicensable license to use, distribute, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, publicly perform and publicly display such Content (in whole or in part) and to incorporate such Content into other works in any format or medium now known or later developed.

“Publicly accessible” areas of the Service are those areas of the Yahoo! network of properties that are intended by Yahoo! to be available to the general public. By way of example, publicly accessible areas of the Service would include Yahoo! Message Boards and portions of Yahoo! Groups, Photos and Briefcase that are open to both members and visitors. However, publicly accessible areas of the Service would not include portions of Yahoo! Groups that are limited to members, Yahoo! services intended for private communication such as Yahoo! Mail or Yahoo! Messenger, or areas off of the Yahoo! network of properties such as portions of World Wide Web sites that are accessible via hypertext or other links but are not hosted or served by Yahoo!.

There are a couple of points to take out from all of this is that once you have uploaded your content online anywhere.

1. You should always assume that you waive some rights to your content. As in, any time it is out there in the public sphere you should assume that but online you should assume this even if it is in a “private” space.
2. Read the Terms and Conditions. There is a reason why they ask you to consent to them.
3. Be clever with what you post up. If you aren’t comfortable with the rights you lose over your own work, then the only safe place for that is on your hard drive. That film script you’ve been working on probably doesn’t belong online anywhere. Likewise, those photos you wanted to sell probably shouldn’t be online either.
4. Don’t do an Edison and assume that private photos are safe and secure online, or even on your own computer. In fact, under the rights you’ve signed away, it doesn’t matter that they are secure or not, the service has the right to access and use it as it sees fit.
5. Be clever in what rights you assign to people around you. If you don’t want a damaging photo of yourself online, don’t let them take the photo in the first place (best even to avoid doing the damaging thing in the first place). However, if there are photos you’d rather not have online, best thing to do is to ask the copyright owner to take them down as soon as possible (politely!). If you go all legal, you can always quote their terms and conditions and bemoan the evils of the T&C’s in their face. If they are friends, they will usually comply.

Good luck out there and just be aware of what rights you do and do not have with your content out there in netspace.

Tags: facebook, flickr, google, legal, Random Thoughts