Facebook image theft

Overread · Feb 16, 2009

Putting this up here in disucssions as this ties in directly with image theft in modern times on the net

If Facebooks original image rights were nothing special - claiming ownership for all uploaded content until you deleted it from their site - at which point rights reverted to you again - they have now changed things for the worst (For the public)

British Journal of Photography - Facebook asserts perpetual rights on uploaded photos

On Facebook, People Own and Control Their Information | Facebook
In short they say that they own your copywrite materail now - and for ever if it arrives on their networking service. They say it will never be used outside of facebook, but they have left that door very open for themselves to change their minds if they choose to (oh and they don't have to tell you they just do it)

for a slightly amusing (though risky) assessment (risky will appear at some point - I just know it will

) read here:
Amateur Photographer & What Digital Camera: Get your snaps off Facebook!
ps - do spread the image around - the more that take it up the more facebook will have to listen

JerryPH · Feb 16, 2009

Almost... if you read their "rules", they own everything... including what is on their backups and archives. If they or you delete it from facebook, the rights don't come back to you, it stays theirs pretty much as long as they have backups of it... in other words, you've lost your rights to your pics forever.

Yes, I have a facebook account (out of necessity, trust me, I loathe the service) but I won't put one single picture there, hell, not even an avatar! I don't deal with thieves and extortionists on any level and I will not give them the chance to abuse me in any manner.

Overread · Feb 16, 2009

yep it was their old rules that returned rights to you upon deletion from the system - the change is to remove that clause.
and yes I keep an account as well (its a handy self updating address book!)

Garbz · Feb 16, 2009

They can have the rights to my drunken out of focus profile picture of me pulling a funny face.

If they can somehow make a profit from it then I could only congratulate them.

Overread · Feb 16, 2009

I wonder - will you say the same when its your drunken face on the next national anti drugs campaign poster?

JerryPH · Feb 16, 2009

I wonder how they can do that... and in all openness get away with it?

Overread · Feb 16, 2009

the TC? well ask yourself how many members of the service actually read the TC fully and clearly (and understand it all). Heck since noticing the Photobucket TC I have met several photographers who have missed it when they signed up for the service.
So with that and the very quiet announcment of the change I think very few people would notice it.
They would only notice when they see their image somewhere and then they have no leg to stand on - they agreed to the TC when they signed up. Legally they can't do anything

jstuedle · Feb 16, 2009

JerryPH said:
I wonder how they can do that... and in all openness get away with it?

There is a movement to liberalize the copyright laws and give the public more and more access to our work. I expect to see more of our Copy-Rights to be eroded along with other rights in the near future. The digital revolution enables access of everything from our images to our medical records. Nothing is sacred. Anything that can be stored on a remote server can be accessed by any determined soul. Be they a hacker, corporation for profit or government bureaucrat.

invisible · Feb 16, 2009

I don't like Facebook at all. That being said, I don't think the clause is there for Facebook to abuse their users freely but likely to protect themselves. Against what? I can't possibly know, but I would assume it has to do with a problem that Facebook (or another monster website) had in the past.

I can't imagine a scenario in which Facebook would profit or otherwise utilize their users' images for anything. As astute as the legal team at Facebook probably is, they are definitely aware that a class action would cost the company millions of dollars, a PR nightmare, and hundreds of thousands of users closing their accounts. It's simply not enough for this clause to just exist, buried somewhere in the terms of use; a clause of this nature (if Facebook really wanted to use the images) needs to be conspicuous for any judge to accept it and rule in favour of the company not the victims of the abuse.

I wouldn't even upload my drunken-face photo to their website, though.

Enough Already · Feb 16, 2009

Because, like all legal T&C's, are written in legal jibberish so that simple minded people like myself cant really understand what they are saying, can someone cut and paste the section of the contract that says they have the rights to all images. I have just removed mine in any case, but I would like to understand what it is that they are actually saying in regards to user content.

Thanks

sxesweets · Feb 17, 2009

Licenses

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.
If you own or control a website, you may place Facebook's

jstuedle · Feb 17, 2009

invisible said:
I can't imagine a scenario in which Facebook would profit or otherwise utilize their users' images for anything. As astute as the legal team at Facebook probably is, they are definitely aware that a class action would cost the company millions of dollars, a PR nightmare, and hundreds of thousands of users closing their accounts. It's simply not enough for this clause to just exist, buried somewhere in the terms of use; a clause of this nature (if Facebook really wanted to use the images) needs to be conspicuous for any judge to accept it and rule in favour of the company not the victims of the abuse.
I wouldn't even upload my drunken-face photo to their website, though.

To me it's not a matter of FaceBook covering there butt, but they now have digital copies of my property and could sell them to a stock agency. Share them with another online service, the government, or create there own stock photo service. For me it's a matter of principal. (That pic of you smooching someone of the same gender in a bar could be searched and found by a perspective employer. Costing you a valuable job sometime in the future, maybe 20 years down the road.)

Let's examine a recent event that was in the news. A-Rod lied to Katie Coric and took steroids. How did the media find out? Some years ago the league tested/polled the players in what was supposed to be a blind study/poll. It was at a time when steroids were not banned, but the league was concerned and wanted to know if the use of steroids was by more than 5% of the players tested. As mentioned, the study was supposed to be blind and the tests destroyed after the findings tallied. The results were entered into a database WITH names and all other associated data. Someone in the media searched and found the data and could prove that A.R. lied to a member of guess who, the media. Yes, he lied and did something that was at the time looked down on but not a violation of league rules or law. So someone has now violated the law to play gottcha and won't be prosecuted for it. The real legal issue has been diverted away from.

Facebook could be considered part of the media, if you want to stretch it a little. I believe facebook is privately owned. But who is to say what their intentions are with your data in the long term. Or what would happen to that data if and when they are sold.

Another example. (please don't take this as a political argument for one side or the other, this is just the way I observed the facts) A private citizen is out playing catch with his son and a politician stumping for votes walks up to him with media cameras rolling. The citizen asks a question and the politician stumbles a bit and gives an answer that some find telling as to his hidden intensions. Half a country away a sympathetic state worker of the same party does a search usng government computers and data. It turns up the private guy owes a few thousand dollars on a tax lean. The media uses that information that was illegally obtained and released to them to destroy the citizen instead of probing the public official as to his true intentions.This data was used to redirect the argument and coverage to fit an agenda.

In both of these cases data was stored and supposed to be kept private. In the latter case a proven felony was committed. In days gone by these records would be on paper locked in a file cabinet somewhere. Now the data can be copied and distributed world-wide in seconds. Once it's done, legal or not the damage is done. We used to keep our negatives safe, one copy and knew where they were at all times.

My point is no matter it be images, medical data, tax records, whatever. If it is stored on a computer somewhere it can be sold, stolen, or "shared" with someone violating your privacy and/or copyrights.

I know many of my images are "out there" and profitted from. It's impossible to know how many of what and where. That is the nature of the beast we have created and indulge every day. I fear soon it will be an ever increasing problem in all aspects of our lives. I for one am fortunate that I have lived most of my life already, I have much less to be fearfull of than the younger generation.

Battou · Feb 17, 2009

It's wrong, We have to have a similar clause in our Terms of Use, I'll break it down and explain it as best I can. It won't be perfect since elements differ from site to site.

4 - Summary of Submission Agreement and User Obligations

Under penalty of administrative action by PL staff, by submitting content to Photo Lucidity, you hereby swear:

1. That, as previously explained in Section 1, you are the copyright holder to the work being submitted, and that your work does not violate any copyrights of other artists;
[*]2. That you are licensing your work for:

Exhibition and display in your Photo Lucidity gallery, and other gallery sections throughout PL;

Exhibition and display for other purposes relating to Photo Lucidity, for example the promotion and advertisement of PL itself;

3. That your artwork satisfies our Quality Guidelines as previously described in section 2;

4. That your work satisfies the conditions of our separate Ratings Policy, i.e.:

That your submission does not depict any patently "adult" or sexually explicit content;

That you have applied accurate warning labels to your submission for other potentially offensive content.
For further information, review the Ratings Policy page.

5. That you acknowledge the rights we must reserve of you and the submission (as described next).

With out this we simply can not display it, period. As for use in advertisement, that is where it gets trickey and becomes more about the people running the site and varies from site to site. I can not describe facebooks intent in this department as I do not use/nor work for facebook. I can however explain and demonstrate how Photo Lucidity does it. Basically this is licencing the site to advertise it self with the works you have uploaded to the site to attract a userbase. This licence simply allows us to do things like this and a few others including (but not limmited to) use in off site banner ads and the like. (We do not employ any ads of that sort though, we'd prefer to keep it simple and use the same drab banner seen in my signature below.) This use is limited to advertising for the site it is on that it's copyright holder is a member of. It does not however give us the right to sell it to Virgin Moble or who ever wants it to advertise their crap. Our Site does not have any subscription fees or any ot that crap, we are not going to making any money from any new users that came as a result of any advertising methoed used. Additionally, For the images in the account linked above, with the exception of three (two are mine, one a verbal agreement with my sister) Despite the clause in the TOS, I personally made contact on site and requested and recieved written permission to display them in that manor, in other words we choose to ask anyway.

Now where facebook fucked up is the irrevocable, perpetual nonsence. I don't care what anyone says, the copyright holder has the right to revoke any licence they grant, that is plan and simple. They then go on to pile perpetual onto it implying that it is unending. Now to clarify the only reason I can concieve for this is on the database. On Photo Lucidity when an image is deleted, it is not removed from the database and technically still on the site, however it is hidden from view of non staff members (Main Site moderators and administrators can still view the image provided they know the PID, Deviant Art does the same thing). Now since we are broke we have to periodically recycle space and do mass purges to free up some space, at this point all traces of any deleted imagery and/or accounts is gone completely, So unless Facebook is made of money and has server space growing out of their ass, that is a bold faced lie. The rest of it is standard issue ass coverage made extra wordy found everywhere else on the internet and with the exception to the irrevocable, perpetual nonsence, is in fact no different than the ones Photo Lucidity, PhotoBuket, flicker and the like use. They drop the the irrevocable part and it's all legal.

@ Enough Already, Above I have broken down some of the legal jibberish, below is the unaltered copypaste of the TOS

Facebook TOS said:
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.

If you own or control a website, you may place Facebook's share link button, logo and/or text (a "Share Link"), including all trademarks therein, on your website for the sole purpose of enabling users to Post links or content from your website on the Facebook Service. By offering a Share Link on your website, you agree, represent and warrant that you will not place a Share Link on any page containing content that would violate these Terms if Posted on the Facebook Service. The rights granted in this paragraph may be revoked by us at any time in our sole discretion, and upon such termination, you will immediately remove all Share Links from your website.

Arch · Feb 17, 2009

I have a facebook account... and i have some decent images on there.

The thing im not getting about this whole arguement is that, ok facebook have the right to use my low rez image (on what?.. i doubt they ever will) but isn't this the same as putting your images up on any forum just as this?
People can still right click 'save as' my image and do as they please but they cannot contact me and demand a high rez version.
This is how im reading the facebook rules... if they have the right to contact me and demand a full rez image for printing use, then damn straight im taking them down, but i don't read anything that says that.
So from my point of view its like 'so what' they have a low rez copy of one of my images *shrug*. So does anyone else who liked one of my images and saved it.

If some one can find something that says they have the right to demand a 'proper' copy of the image then please do tell me as i am interested to know if this is the case.