Does Facebook actually own the rights for my pictures
Yesterday I made a random comment on Twitter stating that: “…facebook owns the rights to use your pictures.”
It got a huge level of community attention with X likes, Y retweets, and Z replies. Very unusual stats for my small (but steadily growing) Tweeter account. I remember reading about Facebook contradictory policy regarding picture rights, and I was under the impression that they own the IR (intellectual rights) for the pictures I post on their platform. However, in my comment, I decided to avoid being specific and phrased it as “the rights to use your pictures”. Many replies disagreed with my comment:
Cambridge Analytics is not the problem
The topic of Facebook data is hot, but CA (Cambridge Analytics) is not the main problem. Lack of education among Facebook community about (1) how the platform works, (2) what are its business models allowing the “free” interactions of “friends”, (3) and what’s in the user agreement is THE PROBLEM. And I am part of the problem, too. I am ignorant to most of the user agreements. Let’s learn together, shall we?
Reading the small print
I started to research what rights Facebook has for my pictures and it turns out that you actually own the IR for your photos. At the same time, Facebook has:
“non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license”
Sounds like an army of lawyers worked on that one, right? Let’s break it down:
Non-exclusive means that Facebook is just one of my licensors and I can still sell licenses for my photos to other parties. Even if they got famous on Facebook? I’d say yes according to the definition but would need to consult my lawyers first.
Transferable and sub-licensable mean that Facebook can transfer the license for my pics or sub-license it without my conscent. That does sound like a potential business model isn’t it? Surely not the only one but still.
Royalty-free worldwide means that my photos and art posted on Facebook can be used by Facebook in any format they want it (ads, movies, collages, banners, presentations, anyhow…) in every country on the Earth. No extra permissions needed and I don’t get a single penny from Facebook’s profit from those operations.
So, here we go. Facebook doesn’t actually own the IR on your pics but unless you delete them (and all of the people who shared them do the same) or close your account Facebook will have a pretty bold “non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide” license on them for a dirt cheap (0$) price.
But wait, then this comment struck my attention:
I digged the topic and it seems like the licenses are the same in both cases. So here we go. Mystery solved and we can all go back to posting our pics to Steemit 😁✌🏼.
The problem is that if facebook didn't have the right to use your pictures then they couldn't display them, technically speaking. As far as "transferable", I'm not sure what the reason is though license to do that may be needed if Facebook changed ownership or for pictures to be shared between Instagram and Facebook for instance. In other words, I don't think that Facebook plans on selling your pictures but they are just covering their ass, legally speaking.
Yeah, I see the legal reasoning to cover their asses. Yet, at the same time, I understand that power changes people and the law is the law. So, the next day when they want to use this agreement 1% differently from the original tactic, they totally can. Than 1% more different, again and again, and eventually what we never expected to happen will happen. Jone's act makes sense and it was meant to protect the integrity of the states. But from the Puerto Rican perspective it damages the economy pretty badly. Laws are always tricky 😆
I guess I just don't use facebook in a way that it concerns me all that much. I do share family photos and stuff like that occasionally but not the sort of stuff that I would sell commercially or expect facebook to be able to sell commercially at any great profit. Since the internet began I've always been aware that someone else is ultimately going to have control over what you put on their servers (legally or not) and I act accordingly.
I think any images you post on facebook or even the such you write on your wall they own it as you agreed to it when you made your facebook account.
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