Photography
Related: About this forumAttn Instagram users: Instagram says it now has the right to sell your photos
Instagram said today that it has the perpetual right to sell users' photographs without payment or notification, a dramatic policy shift that quickly sparked a public outcry.
The new intellectual property policy, which takes effect on January 16, comes three months after Facebook completed its acquisition of the popular photo-sharing site. Unless Instagram users delete their accounts before the January deadline, they cannot opt out.
Under the new policy, Facebook claims the perpetual right to license all public Instagram photos to companies or any other organization, including for advertising purposes, which would effectively transform the Web site into the world's largest stock photo agency. One irked Twitter user quipped that "Instagram is now the new iStockPhoto, except they won't have to pay you anything to use your images."
"It's asking people to agree to unspecified future commercial use of their photos," says Kurt Opsahl, a senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "That makes it challenging for someone to give informed consent to that deal."
That means that a hotel in Hawaii, for instance, could write a check to Facebook to license photos taken at its resort and use them on its Web site, in TV ads, in glossy brochures, and so on -- without paying any money to the Instagram user who took the photo. The language would include not only photos of picturesque sunsets on Waikiki, but also images of young children frolicking on the beach, a result that parents might not expect, and which could trigger state privacy laws.
Facebook did not respond to repeated queries from CNET this afternoon. We'll update the article if we receive a response.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57559710-38/instagram-says-it-now-has-the-right-to-sell-your-photos/
justiceischeap
(14,040 posts)It makes me wonder how long before this is Facebook policy as well.
Celebration
(15,812 posts)Definitely posting this article to my Facebook page. Can you imagine seeing your kids in a brochure???
Stevenmarc
(4,483 posts)All chicken little'ish about this.
The Verge spells it out.
http://www.theverge.com/2012/12/18/3780158/instagrams-new-terms-of-service-what-they-really-mean
Stevenmarc
(4,483 posts)Heywood J
(2,515 posts)instead of some CEO's wishy-washy, non-binding statement after being caught trying to turn his customers into a new business.
Stevenmarc
(4,483 posts)Certainly your choice but the post from The Verge pretty much said the same thing and did so before the IG statement.
There's a couple problems here, first, no one actually reads their TOS and honestly who can blame anyone for not doing so, so when there are changes unless they are put in context with the current TOS you can't really get an accurate inturpitation.
The second problem is the kneejerkiness of social media that created the Instapanic, just as no one reads their TOS, no one seems to do the slightest bit of research or apparently takes a breath before they hit the share button and crap goes viral. This issue wasn't so time critical that anyone needed to go all chicken little over it, it's going to be an evolving story and quite frankly IG doesn't raise itself to the importance of let's say oxygen, there are other places where people can post their shots of duckface, latte designes and their last meal.
Celebration
(15,812 posts)to better reflect what they mean (supposedly). So they acknowledge there was at least some sort of issue, if only in the wording.
We'll see. I agree it isn't time critical. I think most people were waiting to see what happened.
The lesson in this is that Facebook needs to be careful. At the core, we don't really trust them.
I'm actually glad to see that "panic" because i hope it signals that the consuming public sometimes does have power, even in the face of monopolies.
I don't use Instagram, though. Like you said, there are other places to share photos.
Celebration
(15,812 posts)And they were the #1 user I read. Also Anonymous.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2012/12/19/instagram-boycott-now-includes-national-geographic-and-anonymous/