Facebook image theft

[jstuedle]

I see it as being very simple. When you buy a software program and open the disk wrapper, you have just agreed to the EULA. When you cash one of those little checks that come in the mail to reimburse you for the first month of account protection on your credit card balance, you just agreed to sign up for the service. And when you open a facebook account you have just surrendered all rights to anything you post there. When the terms of service say something like "by clicking you agree" you will abide by all terms of that agreement. And if it advised the terms can be adjusted without prior notice, so be it. And if the terms are changed to say all © to all material posted is theirs alone and forever, your screwed.

 

[Garbz]

The question is who does this really affect? The answer is the stupid IF and only IF they are very unlucky.

Looking at the luck aspect first. Facebook has millions of subscribers around the world. If they had any interest in using any of the materials on there for profit other than selling huge amounts of customer data to subscribers they would have to sort through literally billions of **** photos to find the handful of good ones. They would need to dedicate entire departments to this. And even then while their EULA is a nasty bit of lawyering work, it was written by lawyers and not by business men. What do you think would happen if they used my ugly face on an ad campaign? Their customers would be scared, and quite a few may even leave facebook. Not a good business decision for a social networking site.

More than likely they would use high quality images posted by photographers, not happy snaps taken of drunk tarts with camera phones. These people would be in the "stupid" category. Facebook is a social networking site not an image sharing site. And on top of that it's a very interoperable site. So if you want to post photos on facebook, just post them on flickr. My facebook is set up to auto import my flickr updates to display any changes to my flickr account in my news. On top of that the myflickr app imports flickr photos how you set it up so if people click "my flickr" on my page, they are greeted with my most recent photo (large), my 4 most recent photos (thumbnail) and then 5 random photos (thumbnail) and facebook has zero rights at all to the images since they are neither uploaded there nor hosted there.

So the end result is that this change in EULA is really really nasty from a user rights perspective, but I really doubt that it will even remotely affect any of the facebook users.

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

I probably still would but that's just me. Kind of like when KKR and RJR Nabisco were in a huge bidding war the CEO Ross Johnson ended up on TIME magazine cover with the title "Is this the face of corporate greed." When asked if he thought the cover was bad by the media he replied "Are you kidding? I got my face on the cover of TIME!"

Bit of pride would say yeah that's me on that billboard.

 

[hankejp]

I see that Facebook has just went back to their previous terms of use:

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.

 

[manaheim]

I see that Facebook has just went back to their previous terms of use:

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.

Damn, you scooped me. I came rushing back here to post that as soon as I saw it.

Power to the people!

Amazing when companies actually listen. Now we just need to get Verizon, Apple, Sony and Adobe to open their ears.

 

[sarallyn]

I see that Facebook has just went back to their previous terms of use:

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.

here's a link;

Facebook backs down, reverses on user information policy - CNN.com

 

[Neuner]

Man, do you guys like to squabble over petty details.

Reading more news about this, it was an effort by FB to cover their butts in the future. They are concerned with information left behind on their system after someone deletes their account. If someone left the site and later, because of the way FB operates, information or data about you saved to others accounts caused you harm or was used against you could sue FB for retaining that data since you opted to have your information deleted.

Now, this latest move has caused officials and the general public to raise eyebrows about how FB operates and stores data. Instead of changing the Terms, they may now have the added expense of changing the way the FB system operates to cover themselves.


I thought it was interesting how some of you don't post your photos on FB because of someone possibly stealing it or having copyright over it? I like the idea of watermarking which I've done. I recently posted my photos and now through the networking of friends, word is spreading and I'm getting questions about my services. One of my friends asked if I would sell a higher resolution of one of my photos. If you post and link to another site like Flickr, then when someone comments about how wonderful your photo is, no one else on FB is notified of it.

 

[ANDS!]

You are going to have to provide me indisputable proof that this one was infact written by an outside legle team. In Facebooks Official statement they say "We", Unless otherwise noted, all first-person pronouns ("we", "us") used in website Policy refer to applicable site staff members, and all second-person pronouns ("you") refer to the registered member of the applicable site and/or the unregistered visitor to the applicable site. They also go on to say "We're at an interesting point in the development of the open online world where these issues are being worked out. It's difficult terrain to navigate and we're going to make some missteps" I think that only makes my case of poor choice of words on the part of facebooks administration staff more plauseable, I mean thay come right out and say We are not exactly sure how to go about this so we might screw up somewhere along the lines.

On Facebook, People Own and Control Their Information | Facebook




I have posted the same thing in this thread.

Good luck getting anyone to not succumb to their own hysteria and hype. Its scary actually, how possessed of critical thinking skills we like to think of ourselves, yet how easy it is to fall victim to the old Tin-Can Telephone game: OMG! Did you hear! Pass it on!

If only the truth was able to spread as quickly.

 

[manaheim]

Man, do you guys like to squabble over petty details.

I don't consider petty details to be actually petty.

Particularly in the US, people are not aware enough about a variety of things including protection of ownership and privacy.

It's GOOD that people are watching this carefully. I think that occasionally people either:

a> Don't realize that even the agreement they are "ok" with, is massively full of holes and subject to interpretation.
b> Over-react to some details that won't really affect them.
c> Don't realize that companies can change stuff mid-stream and frequently can declare "oh that agreement we had in the past is now null and void and this new one is retroactive to when you first signed on!" (If memory serves, Amazon did this very thing)

But even with that, at least they're trying to be alert to it, and that's a start.

I do think that sometimes companies (possible even most times) are really just trying to protect themselves, and the underlying spirit of the agreements they issue on these premises tend to be reasonable... the problem is that they necessarily must leave open some nasty gaping areas where, if they wanted to, they could basically opt to sieze all your rights later on if they decided they wanted to. That's just not good.

By and large, if you want to protect your stuff, the best thing to do is to treat it as if it was a tangible valuable and assume posting it somewhere is essentially like putting it outside on your front doorstep. If you wouldn't be comfortable doing that, then don't post it online.

 

[Neuner]

I don't consider petty details to be actually petty.

Particularly in the US, people are not aware enough about a variety of things including protection of ownership and privacy.

Not what I was referring to. Petty things are stupid debates over who wrote the damn Terms, lawyers or staff. Who cares? It's not the issue at hand.

Now your statement about people in the US not being aware is very true, I mean look at who they stuck in the Oval Office...

 

[Garbz]

Now your statement about people in the US not being aware is very true, I mean look at who they stuck in the Oval Office...

Current or past? That really needs to be specified starting this year

 

[rubbertree]

The FB peeps said over and over again on the news yesterday that this revised wording was updated legal mumbo jumbo that most website hosts such as FB are now using and that they were not actually going to retain anyone's image ever.
Regardless, this am, because of the freak out, they agreed to go back to their old wording until they can get this sorted out.
As if any of it matters anyway.

 

[Neuner]

Current or past? That really needs to be specified starting this year

Obviously both.. :er:

 

[Overread]

Obviously both.. :er:

*starts threadlock countdown*

lets see if we can keep on track and keep this thread open

 

[abraxas]

*starts threadlock countdown*

lets see if we can keep on track and keep this thread open

Summarizing;

The sky is falling!!!!

****!!! What do we do???

Run out into the street and scream!!!

Okay!!! Why?

Because we can!!!

But isn't the sky falling?

Read my lips.

Which lip?

Won't the sky hit us in the head if it is falling and I am out there?

Unresolved,...

What does this have to do with politics?

The ****ing sky is falling.

Here's a picture of my dog. C&C ?

...

 

[Mike_E]

LOL, whatever.. they've moved them back to the originals.