Did you read the terms when you joined Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn? Oliver Smith explains how social networks effectively own your online content.
When joining a social network, you are likely to spend more time considering
which photo you will use on your profile than reading the lengthy terms of
service document. And yet, off-putting though Facebook's 14,000-word terms
of service and data use policy might be, it is a legal contract between you
and the social network. Do you know what you've signed up for?
Last month, users of Instagram reacted with anger at proposed changes to the
company's terms that would give the mobile photo-sharing app the right to
use member's photos in advertising campaigns.
In some ways, the change was a positive step. It eschewed traditional legal
language, instead using clear terminology to precisely explain what the
company would and would not do with its members' content. But that clarity
made obvious the lengths to which the company might go in order to monetise
the free service. Even after Instagram had reversed its decision, removing
the controversial elements from their new terms of service, some users still
closed their accounts in protest.
What rights have users granted to online services such as Facebook, Twitter
and Google? Does posting content on these networks mean forfeiting your
ownership of your photos, for example?
A photo posted on Twitter remains the intellectual property of the user but
Twitter's terms give the company "a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free
license (with the right to sublicense)". In practice, that gives Twitter
almost total control over the image and the ability to do just about
anything with it. The company claims the right to use, modify or transmit it
your photo any way.
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