

Facebook TOS Change: All Your Stuff is Ours, Even if You Quit - brentb
http://mashable.com/2009/02/16/facebook-tos-privacy/

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Alex3917
Are people really worried about this? The only reason this is in the TOS is so
they have the right to keep running their data mining algorithms even after
you delete your account, in case they find a new way to leverage your data.
It's not like they're going to start selling a poetry anthology of your stuff
or something.

~~~
Tuna-Fish
The problem isn't that facebook is gonna use your stuff - it would be too much
of a pr shitstorm for them.

The problem is that facebook is still bleeding money. Once they go belly-up,
all their assets will be sold to the highest bidder, and the world largest
collection of stock photos will likely be among the most valuable of them.

I have serious problems with "irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive,
transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense)".

~~~
gaius
Uhh, dude, have a browse around the Corbis website. Then have a look around
Facebook. The idea that Facebook has any value as a library of stock photos is
frankly _laughable_.

~~~
Retric
The danger in using Facebook for stock photo's is an uploadeder who did not
own copyright on the photo.

Facebook can't really sell the content unless they can prove the person who
uploaded it had the writes to distribute it. Which you can't do in an
automated fashion.

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markup
Mark Zuckerberg's blog post on the TOS change:
<http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=54434097130>

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twopoint718
Yuck. I had heard previously about how difficult it is to _completely_ remove
yourself from FB, but this getting unreasonable.

Also I have an issue with the article:

> Someone can still take your photo, slap it on Facebook, and now neither you
> nor the author of the photo can stop Facebook from using the photo in
> whichever way they please.

I doubt that that's the case. If someone takes something to which I have a
copyright and then places it on Facebook without my approval, I would think I
have legal recourse. Isn't this what a DMCA takedown notice is for? Unless I'm
misreading that quote.

~~~
electromagnetic
No you're absolutely correct. If someone takes your photo (I read about this
for a childrens entertainer and someone duped her account) facebook will
disable the persons account and likely depending on the situation may take
extra steps (I believe in the case I'm thinking of, Facebook gave a list of
the IP's and times the user had accessed the duplicate account from to the
police in case they believed it was potentially criminal due to the nature of
the womans job and the likely hood of the dupe being made by a pedophile).

Facebooks ToS explicitly state that they respect the IP rights of others and
that they will remove any infringing content, or for repeat offenders their
account will permanently be suspended (presumably their email will be banned
too). It also says they do everything in accordance with the DMCA. The one
thing people don't understand about the DMCA is that whilst it might be evil,
it also protects individuals as much as companies because every single photo,
sentence or anything you or I make or write are immediately copy protected in
all western countries.

~~~
gdee
>> It also says they do everything in accordance with the DMCA. The one thing
people don't understand about the DMCA is that whilst it might be evil, it
also protects individuals as much as companies because every single photo,
sentence or anything you or I make or write are immediately copy protected in
all western countries.

1\. Warning: Wrong conflation detected. DMCA != copyright

2\. Warning: Wrong conflation detected. copyright != "copy protected"
(copyleft = copyright, copyleft = "copy invited")

3\. DMCA is neither universal nor universal to western countries. It's
actually no universal to anything. Just an internal USA law.

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tokenadult
Upon reviewing the Facebook ToS as posted today,

<http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/terms.php>

I see it continues to include the phrase "subject only to your privacy
settings" as Facebook asserts what it can do with your content. Now I wonder
if that is as much of a problem as Facebook asserting it will not respect your
privacy settings at all (which would be very worrisome indeed).

I see my reply below asking about this was read for the literal meaning of the
too-brief words, rather than for my intended implication. My bad, for not
being more clear. What I was trying to introduce to the learned discussion
here is the idea that Facebook says, even after its revision to its ToS, that
it will respect your privacy settings. So, if you have used the Facebook
features to set your privacy setting so that only friends, or only a subset of
friends, see most of your submitted content (as I did immediately upon signing
up for Facebook), is this ToS change really that much of a worry? If you know
how to set your Facebook privacy settings, and like the effect of those
settings, the only people who have access to your submitted content are the
same people to whom you have already shown it, right?

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dustineichler
Is this what happens when you have no business model?

~~~
jyu
They certainly have a business model. Advertising. Problem is, they haven't
accepted who their paying customers really are: Advertisers.

~~~
redrobot5050
Monetizing Facebook's Feed is tricky business.

"Your best friend just got dumped by his cheating finance...brought to you by
Carl's Jr." will not go over as well as Carl's Jr. intended.

But it is pretty interesting how they microtarget ads. I've seen my staunch
republican friend login to facebook. She gets ads like "Do you feel the
election was stolen? Voice your thoughts here."

Where as I get ads indie rock music sites and student loan "bail outs".

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derwiki
The timing of this article is ironic for me, since I just had a big argument
with a friend about why I like Facebook less and less...

There's one thing about this that confuses me: with a change like this to the
ToS, why didn't they alert me and make me confirm that I agree with the new
terms?

~~~
josefresco
Simple, because the old TOS said they didn't have to. And why would they? "Hey
we just changed our TOS to take even more control over your stuff, are you
still okay with that? Yes/No"

And if you're using Facebook now, you should be okay with the change because
it's not like much has actually changed with regard to how FB is going to
use/sell your data.

~~~
naveensundar
One TOS to rule them all : "We can change this TOS anytime and your agreement
to this TOS implies agreement to _any_ changes made to it"

No need to have anything more in it.

~~~
Tuna-Fish
Not legal in Europe.

~~~
gdee
Care to cite some european law about that? If true, I thing the GPL would also
be illegal. I don't think that's the case.

------
justindz
I recently set up Facebook Connect on my poetry editor web app. When a user
writes or updates a poem, they can have a link published in their news feed.
Being very far from a lawyer, can anyone tell me whether the fact that the
link is published to the feed now means that Facebook owns that the content on
the other end under these same terms?

I noticed something about using the "Share" link, but I don't know if that's
considered the same thing.

Appreciate the insight!

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d0mine
I see no reason to worry more than before.

Has anyone read MS Windows EULA?

EDIT:

* Facebook has millions of users, its TOS allows it to do anything with your data. If you don't accept the TOS you can't use the service.

* MS Windows has millions of users, its EULA allows it to do anything with your data. If you don't accept the EULA you can't use the OS.

~~~
kragen
I am fairly sure that you are just mistaken. For example, Microsoft Windows's
EULA does not, as far as I know, grant Microsoft any copyright license in your
data. Maybe you can show me where I'm wrong?

~~~
d0mine
For example, Windows can just one day destroy all your data without any
consequences. Is it enough?

~~~
eggnet
What would you consider a fair action on MS's part? In this scenario I'll
consider it a given that you have traced the loss of all of your data to a bug
that Microsoft agrees exists and did in fact destroy all of your data.

~~~
d0mine
I don't expect anything (and should not actually). If I lose my data due to a
bad backup/updates policy it is my fault.

The question is not about MS. I've picked Windows because it has a huge user
base.

My initial statement is equivalent to: if you take any software product that
has many users then its legal docs effectively leave no rights to the end
users. So it is not a big deal when Facebook changes its docs accordingly.

I understand that software companies are forced to adopt such policies to
survive.

Therefore I rely on MS' good will that it tests updates before it releases
them to the general public (even if it breaks all Windows boxes one day,
people will be using it anyway).

~~~
eggnet
kragen's comment below sums up my thoughts.

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tokenadult
What does the "subject only to your privacy settings" phrase in the new ToS

<http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/terms.php>

do for users? How do you set your privacy settings on Facebook?

~~~
gaius
You click on the word "settings" on your homepage.

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trickjarrett
Dupe of another frontpage story.

~~~
tokenadult
The other HN submission

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=482772>

links to a different Web source, so not exactly a duplicate. Just a hot new
story.

~~~
ja2ke
Except that the other HN story linked to the source on Consumerist, while this
one links to "Mashable" which is an article regurgitating the Consumerist
story.

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known
FB is waste of time.

