I'm sure almost everyone is familiar with the Facebook. It started 5 years ago as a networking tool between university students, using 13 pilot universities. Since then it has grown. It is now the globe's premier social networking site. It has garnered attention from reputable businesses and celebrities as well as the average end-user looking to communicate and network. It is used for a multitude of things. Playing games, chatting with friends, posting photo albums (especially of group trips), and networking, are among the common things for an average end-user.
Other users, such as businesses, bloggers, and celebrities, create fan pages along with their personal profiles. They upload their proprietary content as an additional menas of distribution and use Facebook to reach their fans with their new content.
There is another, perhaps overlooked, set of users in this group as well. These people are emerging artists, photographers, performers, and writers. They use Facebook to get their name out, to forge connections, to post their songs to an audience who will take advantage fo free music, and to get a sort of focus group or prescreening of their content to see if it will go over well in the mainstream.
Facebook has recently announced new Terms of Service (TOS). Under their former TOS, you allowed them to have rights to your content for the time that your content was on their site. Here's the exerpt.
"When you post User Content to the Site, you authorize and direct us to make such copies thereof as we deem necessary in order to facilitate the posting and storage of the User Content on the Site. By posting User Content to any part of the Site, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to the Company an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such User Content for any purpose on or in connection with the Site or the promotion thereof, to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such User Content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing. 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."
This might sound like a lot of legal, wordy mumbo jumbo to some of you, so let me explain. The long sentence that tells you what youg rant them boils down to this: Facebook has a right to use your content for their site promotion. They can take any part of it to use in other areas of the site, in commercials and marketing, etc. The end of the paragraph says that this right ends as soon as you remove that content form their website. They're allowed to keep an archive of your work, but they no longer posess the rights to use or distribute this.
The new TOS reads exactly the same, but it removes this sentence:
"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."
Essentially, this grants them the rights to your content indefinitely. When did this happen? February 4th. This is causing a huge uproar because, based on the way it was written, you are helpless to stop this. They indefinitely own any content you have posted. Sure, you can close your account and never post anything more to Facebook..... but they've already claimed the right to all the things that you posted under the prior TOS because today's version says they posess everything.
What can you do about this? It depends on your situation.
If you don't have content you feel like you want protected, then carry on as usual but beware of what you post in the future. Chances are, the majority of Facebook users will not be affected by the new TOS. Afterall, they can't distribute or use your personal information based on thier own privacy clause, which has not been changed..... YET.
If you haven't posted anything between February 3rd and now, you're more than likely fine as well. Do NOT post anything more, and if a dispute arrises, you can say, "This content was posted before the TOS were changed. It was posted under the acceptance of the prior TOS, and therefore cannot be used." You will have the fact that you did not post anything once the TOS was changed to your advantage in this case, and Facebook will have a very hard time explaining how they can legally justify using that content when you never opted in to the new TOS and clearly did not approve of it, as nothing was posted since.
Oh no! But I didn't know until it was too late!! I posted things after the 4th!! What do I do??
I am currently working on finding a remedy or loophole somewhere. I am consulting with lawyers regarding the legality of this silent TOS change and the ramifications of logging in unknowingly after it was changes. I have a couple sources who work at Facebook, and I plan on askign them about the new TOS, what it means to users, how they plan on using this content, etc. A followup blog will be posted when I have the information.
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