There’s been a lot of talk today about the alteration made to Facebook’s terms of service. Many had been weary of using the popular social networking site before this due to language that stated that Facebook owned all of your content - well, the change today made many worry (understandably) that the “content ownership” was PERMANENT:
You hereby grant Facebook an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to (a) use, copy, publish, stream, store, retain, publicly perform or display, transmit, scan, reformat, modify, edit, frame, translate, excerpt, adapt, create derivative works and distribute (through multiple tiers), any User Content you (i) Post on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof subject only to your privacy settings or (ii) enable a user to Post, including by offering a Share Link on your website and (b) to use your name, likeness and image for any purpose, including commercial or advertising, each of (a) and (b) on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof.
The key sentence that was removed was this one:
You may remove your User Content from the Site at any time. If you choose to remove your User Content, the license granted above will automatically expire, however you acknowledge that the Company may retain archived copies of your User Content.
Fortunately for me, NBC 4’s Managing Editor Ryan Squire e-mailed Facebook to find out WTF this all meant, and there response was, in my words:
No, dumbasses, we’re not going to steal all your content. It means if you delete your account, your wall posts, etc, to others aren’t going to disappear. Also, the only thing we can use your content for anyway is promotions, as it clearly states, i.e. we can’t publish your pulitzer-winning note “25 things about me” for $$$. Got it? Good. Now STFU.
In their words:
We are not claiming and have never claimed ownership of material that users upload. The new Terms were clarified to be more consistent with the behavior of the site. That is, if you send a message to another user (or post to their wall, etc…), that content might not be removed by Facebook if you delete your account (but can be deleted by your friend). Furthermore, it is important to note that this license is made subject to the user’s privacy settings. So any limitations that a user puts on display of the relevant content (e.g. To specific friends) are respected by Facebook. Also, the license only allows us to use the info “in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof.” Users generally expect and understand this behavior as it has been a common practice for web services since the advent of webmail. For example, if you send a message to a friend on a webmail service, that service will not delete that message from your friend’s inbox if you delete your account.
One of the most important goals of the new Terms was to be more open to users by being more clear about how their data was handled. We certainly did not — and did not intend — to create any new right or interest for Facebook in users’ data by issuing the new Terms. None of the news or blog reports at the time we announced them on February 4 suggested any confusion or misunderstanding.
But in my boss Karin Oliver-Kreft’s words:
Should we believe them? Facebook: ‘We don’t own your content.’ Facebook license: ‘All your content are belong to us.’
EDIT: Facebook RETRACTED this recent TOS change and, until they can fix the language to appease everyone, they have posted the “Facebook Bill of Rights” to clear up the confusion:
1. You own your information. Facebook does not. This includes your photos and all other content.
2. Facebook doesn’t claim rights to any of your photos or other content. We need a license in order to help you share information with your friends, but we don’t claim to own your information.
3. We won’t use the information you share on Facebook for anything you haven’t asked us to. We realize our current terms are too broad here and they make it seem like we might share information in ways you don’t want, but this isn’t what we’re doing.
4. We will not share your information with anyone if you deactivate your account. If you’ve already sent a friend a message, they’ll still have that message. However, when you deactivate your account, all of your photos and other content are removed.
5. We apologize for the confusion around these issues. We never intended to claim ownership over people’s content even though that’s what it seems like to many people. This was a mistake and we apologize for the confusion.
Mark Freeman says:
I think that this is pretty straightforward: You grant Facebook the right to use whatever you post on Facebook to promote Facebook. So if you want to post original photography or writing or other content that you ever intend to sell, just know that Facebook will be able to use it without paying you. The simple way around this is to post such material elsewhere (Flickr, a blog or personal web site, etc.) and just post a link to it on Facebook instead of the content itself.
Of course, I am not a lawyer and this is just my own opinion.:
Feb 16, 2009, 10:24 pmCheryl says:
Mark, I agree. I think. Like you, I am not a lawyer or legal expert by any means, but I think you’ve hit it spot on - and the best way around whatever way they may use the content is to post it elsewhere and just link to it - though you might want to check the TOS of OTHER places, too!
Feb 16, 2009, 10:28 pmDemetrius says:
Umm, facebook doesnt have Cheryl-cake to buy you. They should have taken that google money a long time ago if they harbored those plans.
Feb 16, 2009, 12:02 amMothershaffer says:
Does Facebook do any consumer testing? Seems like there’s been more than one “retraction” of some half-thought out idea on their end.
Feb 16, 2009, 1:57 amCheryl says:
It appear not. They seem to like pushing things out there and monitoring the chatter to decide whether or not to stick with it. Though a change in the TOS isn’t typically something they would test anyway. But do you remember when they first launched the mini-feed… BEFORE they explained to people that they could control what posted to it? Oh people FLIPPED!
Feb 16, 2009, 2:19 amFacebook feedback « The Red Lines Page says:
[...] There’s a whole section where Facebook seems to say “All your content are belong to us“. Or to use their words: “you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, [...]
Feb 16, 2009, 11:19 pm