http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57560370-93/instagram-rolls-back-terms-of-service-after-ownership-dustup/

Instagram has backpedaled on changes to its terms of service that appeared to let the maker of the photo-sharing app sell users' images, with founder and CEO Kevin Systrom announcing today that the terms will revert to the version in place since the service launched in 2010.

Facebook-owned Instagram ignited a storm of protest with the announcement earlier this week that it was claiming perpetual rights to sell users' photographs without notifying or compensating the photographer. Under that new policy, Facebook claimed the right to license all public Instagram photos to companies or any other organization, including for advertising purposes, effectively transforming the Web site into the world's largest stock photo agency.

http://blog.instagram.com/post/38421250999/updated-terms-of-service-based-on-your-feedback




I read some people here saying that Instagram sucked - and partially for this very reason so when I saw this I thought I'd post it up. I guess responsiveness like this is a good thing. Although I can't figure out WTH they were thinking in the first place. That's like digital slavery slash extortion slash home invasion or something - weird! Maybe next we can expect Apple to claim partial ownership of the info on our Apple computing devices?

Well, I've come to the conclusion that is there's something "free" on the interwebz, it's certainly not "free".

Others surely figured this out way before me, but we all have to realize things at our own pace.

Including Facebook.

I don't see how Facebook's policy is much different than what they were trying to do with Instagram-- the only difference being the illusion of your ability to "control" how FB uses your images through (hard-to-find legal terms regarding your) Privacy Settings!!!!!! Public privacy settings on FB = permission to use your posted photos, sell them, use them in an ad, for free forever !

FB Legal Terms state, if your PRIVACY SETTINGS are set to PUBLIC (as most photographer's are!) anything you post to FB grants FB
" a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any IP content that you post on or in connection with Facebook (IP License). This IP License ends when you delete your IP content or your account unless your content has been shared with others, and they have not deleted it.' http://www.facebook.com/legal/terms

Changing your settings to Private, deleting your images from FB, or closing your FB account isn't enough though. If someone else has posted your images on their FB page, and their Privacy settings are "Public", FB still has this "license" to your images. Isn't that special.

This is different from having your images on your website for the public to see. You aren't legally granting the public a free, non-exclusive license to your work; so, if it's used without your permission you have the legal right to go after them (as a photographer did with this blogger: http://tinyurl.com/72j7kph). Or, you can authorize a DMCA takedown yourself (dmca.com), and often get the person's web host to remove the images.

IF FB did not want to USE your images now or later on, they would not have that language in their legal terms. FB owns Instagram and FB made it clear they wanted to use everyone's posted images and videos for free! As cnet said, " effectively transforming the web site into the world's largest stock photo agency."

If enough people get irate at FB maybe they'll backpedal their own legal terms the way they've done with Instagram? Instead, I see tons of pro photographers posting their images to FB with Public settings.

Yeah, I'm one of them. I dunno about the "pro" part though. My self-imagined policy terms are that if I post it on-line then it's free to use for non-commercial purposes - I don't care. But using it in any kind of money making scheme just isn't right. And regardless of any community join agreement I think it can be proven illegal if the time and funds are in place to do so. A policy that violates standing laws isn't actually binding after-all.

You're right tho, I think most people aren't aware of what FB is claiming rights to.

I think enough people ARE aware of what FB is up to. The deal with Instagram is that it was a favourite with users, and was supposed to be better than this. The thing about FB is that they were always slimy, and the thing about Instagram is that they were good, and tried to switch to slimy after all the content was already posted using the good agreement.

That is double-slimy, IMO, and unforgivable. If I had an account with Instagram, I would have closed it by now and removed all content.

I'm part of the minority I guess. I never read policy terms like that. I just don't care enough I guess. My "post it publicly at your own risk" thinking works for me.

Look at the double-copyright on these images:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2253585/Instagram-2012-photo-documentary-captures-year-pictures.html

I have a question maybe some of you will be able to answer: I sometimes post links (or heads-up) of my pictures in 500px or Flickr into Facebook through the "share" utility in this services. it basically posts a little thumbnail warning my contacts that I have uploaded new content to one of my accounts so they can see them. Does all the mentioned above in the previous messages still apply to those photos? Does FB still own rights over my content even when it was "shared" from a different service?

Thanks!!

I can add that uploading and linking are different things from a legal stand point. Others will more about the finer details of just how different I'm sure.

I guess the thumbnail itself comes under the FB agreement.