
Zuck's Official Comment: On Facebook, People Own and Control Their Information - jasonlbaptiste
http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=54434097130
======
jonmc12
"When a person shares something like a message with a friend, two copies of
that information are created—one in the person's sent messages box and the
other in their friend's inbox. Even if the person deactivates their account,
their friend still has a copy of that message."

Ok, but that does not mean that Facebook actually has to retain ownership of
your information if you leave the site, right? The friend you sent this
message to could have ownership of this piece of information - if Facebook
wanted to structure it this way. That is actually how email works. It seems
like a pretty weakly structured argument.

Maybe the most meaningful and straightforward part of the article: "we're
going to make some missteps"

~~~
mechanical_fish
_The friend you sent this message to could have ownership of this piece of
information - if Facebook wanted to structure it this way. That is actually
how email works._

This is untrue. An email written by you is your copyrighted work, from the
moment you type it. Just because it's in my inbox doesn't mean you've
relinquished your copyright. Technically, if I republish your email to me, you
can sue me. [1]

The other day someone was polite enough to ask for _permission_ to republish
one of my comments here on HN on their blog. That surprised me for a second,
but it shouldn't have. They were doing the correct, legal thing -- my comment
was (and is) copyrighted by me; unless they were reproducing it for a fair use
-- as I just did, when I quoted your post for the purpose of commenting on it
-- they needed my permission to reuse it.

Now imagine how useful Facebook would be if every user had to seek a copyright
release from every other user anytime they forwarded a message, or cropped a
fellow user's photo, or reposted something, lest Facebook later be sued for
contributory or vicarious infringement. [2] That's why Facebook has now
decided to just have users agree to a waiver in advance.

\---

[1] Not that you would necessarily _win_ such a lawsuit. There are such things
as "implied licenses": If you send email to a public mailing list there's an
implication that you mean for it to be public:

[http://www.piercelaw.edu/thomasfield/ipbasics/copyright-
on-t...](http://www.piercelaw.edu/thomasfield/ipbasics/copyright-on-the-
internet.php)

There are also many fair uses. But, especially if I use your writing for some
sort of commercial purpose -- as Facebook does, constantly -- you can take me
to court and hassle me, because the copyright is still yours. As the Creative
Commons website will tell you at great length, under current US copyright law
it's actually really hard to _throw away_ the inherent copyright that you hold
in your own work, even if you _want_ to throw it away.

[2] <http://digital-law-online.info/lpdi1.0/treatise14.html>

~~~
anewaccountname
So when I click reply to an email, and preserves your entire text at the
bottom of my reply, I'm guilty of copyright infringement? How about when I
forward the school newsletter to the person the school _meant_ to send it to?

~~~
mechanical_fish
Not _infringement_ \-- I'm pretty sure that both these use cases fall under
the "implied license" case mentioned in the link I provided, above. And it's
important to note that there's a big difference between _using someone else's
copyrighted material_ and _copyright infringement_. Don't be fooled by (e.g.)
the music industry's attempt to confuse these two concepts.

There's also a difference between _copyright infringement_ and _an infringing
act for which you will be prosecuted, convicted, and fined_. There is
necessarily a lot of leeway in copyright law, precisely _because_ everything
written today now falls under someone's nigh-permanent copyright.

(It used to be that, in the USA, you had to affix a copyright notice to a work
to secure the copyright. That changed in 1989 when the US ratified the Berne
Convention. See <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyrights>)

------
Harkins
"Our philosophy is that people own their information and control who they
share it with."

A philosophy is warm fuzzies, but the contract that is the TOS is what
matters.

~~~
ryan-allen
If you've never worked with lawyers on crafting a new TOS for a new kind of
service, it can be easy to misconstrue the legal jargon to imply evil
intentions. But likely it's just that they've identified where they need to be
clear about what they can and can't do with the information you upload and
share.

I haven't read the TOS thoroughly, and IANAL, but what Zuck says sounds
perfectly reasonable as far as I can tell. They identified a particular nuance
of their service (i.e. the fact that once you share something with people,
they need to be able to display it for ever to whom you've shared it with) and
need realised they need to cover themselves legally against it.

It strikes me as proactive and sensible arse covering in what is a hyper-
litigious society.

If you've a problem with the TOS I believe it to be a problem with the
unfortunate legal wrangling, that large companies face to protect themselves,
not with some evil intention of FaceBook.

~~~
Harkins
I'm not trying to impute evil motives to Facebook and I understand why they're
doing this. I'm just pointing out that blog posts about philosophies are
trumped by contracts and it's ridiculous for Zuckerberg to expect anyone to
take his words seriously.

~~~
CalmQuiet
I take his _words_ seriously: that their _philosophy_ is to preserve
contributor ownership.

But Zuck may not always be in charge (isn't completely now, for that matter).
So his words ought not to be taken _legally_ : i.e., they offer no protection
to Facebookers from corporate decisions.

------
tokenadult
"One of the questions about our new terms of use is whether Facebook can use
this information forever. When a person shares something like a message with a
friend, two copies of that information are created--one in the person's sent
messages box and the other in their friend's inbox. Even if the person
deactivates their account, their friend still has a copy of that message. We
think this is the right way for Facebook to work, and it is consistent with
how other services like email work. One of the reasons we updated our terms
was to make this more clear."

So Zuckerberg's claim is that the change in the ToS just reflects the reality
that information is stored with you and with your friends when you share
information with your friends. Backing up his statement is that the new ToS

<http://www.facebook.com/terms.php?ref=pf>

still refers to "(i) Post on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the
promotion thereof SUBJECT ONLY TO YOUR PRIVACY SETTINGS" (emphasis added).
Maybe this isn't such a big worry after all, although I was alarmed at first
by the blog posts announcing this ToS change.

~~~
unalone
Blogs like sensationalism - it's how they make money. They're not different
from any other site.

First there was the whole newsfeed=evil deal, then there was the Facebook CIA
thing, now it's the TOS. Anything that'll get a lot of paranoid people riled
up.

------
iamdave
If there were ever a time when we needed Lawrence Lessig to step up to the
plate and go "Chill the fuck out, I got this", it's right now.

~~~
neilk
_If there were ever a time when we needed Lawrence Lessig to step up to the
plate_

Are your legs broken or something? The man does a lot, and as he sometimes
points out, very few people are also stepping up to that plate with him.

------
natmaster
If they just need this for inbox messages, why don't they just expressly list
_that_ as the exception. I would be fine with that.

------
TheNational22
All i want to say really is slippery slope. I never hoped on the Facebook
thing, even though I get that email spam from people I know who are on it
every now and then. My main gripe was you could never actually delete your
account, and now the business reports on the founders sister showing data
mining, and now the change of the TOS. They are bleeding money they don't have
just to keep the lights on. People may enjoy it, but even in a digital world,
I prefer a modicum of privacy.

------
Dauntless
We are all pink and fluffy here so you have nothing to worry about, just relax
and forget about it...

------
vaksel
well why should another person get to keep your information when you are no
longer using the site? Its just an excuse for FB to keep the data, because not
having the missing comments etc won't be noticed anyways.

~~~
ivey
Say you post a picture of me, and I like it and use it for my profile picture.
Then you leave Facebook. Now I have no profile picture.

Just the first example that popped into my head.

~~~
pclark
it isn't your photo to use, though.

~~~
redrobot5050
You're right. Its Facebook's picture.

