Facebook Forever
Tuesday February 17, 2009
Genealogists have taken Facebook by storm this past year - everywhere I go it seems like I'm meeting more of my Facebook "friends," which is wonderful! But as more and more personal content is being posted to Facebook by genealogists, the change this month by Facebook to their Terms of Service (TOS) gives me pause. First picked up by the Consumerist blog, it appears that Facebook made a change on Feb. 4 to remove the clause that allowed the license you granted Facebook to use your posted content to automatically expire when you cancelled your account.
"If you choose to remove your User Content, the license granted above will automatically expire, however (sic) you acknowledge that the Company may retain archived copies of your User Content."Now, apparently, Facebook can do whatever it wants with your uploaded photos, writings, messages and other content, even after you terminate you account. Yes, you still retain the copyright. But they can continue to use the content as they see fit, well forever.
"The following sections will survive any termination of your use of the Facebook Service..."
On the Facebook blog yesterday, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg defended the language "tweaking" as necessary in order to resolve a conflict over ownership of messages posted by one Facebook owner to another among other things. Read more in this New York Times article.
So how does this apply to genealogists? Social networking site a wonderful medium for networking and collaboration, but it can be a bit scary to sign over blanket rights to use what you post online (although this is actually a fairly standard user agreement for many such sites). Will this change how and/or if you use Facebook?
Comments
I saw a news flash on Fox News and immediatly went on Facebook and cancelled my account. To me any company that keeps my information after I have cancelled is in violation of my rights and will never get me back as a subscriber.
The New York Times link takes me to Facebook.
Oops! Fixed the broken NYT link. Thanks!
Much ado over nothing! We live in so much fear that I am surprised we can ever get anything done.
Facebook’s new TOS is wrong. Take Youtube for example, Youtube’s TOS doesn’t say it owns the rights to your videos forever.
Much ado over nothing? Only if what you’ve put on facebook has all been a charade with no actual facts about yourself or others. I’m amazed at the number of people of all ages who think that any and all private information about themselves is ‘OK’ for public display.
I think any one who has no problem with this is just not informed on the subject. I work in the film industry and feel it in my pocket when someone steals our work. Facebook has images I put there from when I am working on set and I barely own those because I’m in the image or I have written consent and releases for every single one that I’m not in. I have to live by the rules of copyright infringement because it is the law. I am not the only person that has to follow the law, am I? Every image you see in a magazine or on tv has been licensed or they have the releases for the unlicensed images, otherwise you may be sued and I mean SUed BIG! Using an image for monetary gain without explicit permission is flatly illegal and unconstitutional. I cancelled my facebook account yesterday. Hope others will do the same.
J.