Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Facebook verses Blogger - copyright claims

Mat. Donna alerted me to this change through her blog:

Facebook's license says that they now own ANYTHING/EVERYTHING you put on Facebook and can use your stuff without your permission or knowedge:

"Licenses
You are solely responsible for the User Content that you Post on or through the Facebook Service. 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. You represent and warrant that you have all rights and permissions to grant the foregoing licenses.
If you own or control a website, you may place Facebook's share link button, logo and/or text (a "Share Link"), including all trademarks therein, on your website for the sole purpose of enabling users to Post links or content from your website on the Facebook Service. By offering a Share Link on your website, you agree, represent and warrant that you will not place a Share Link on any page containing content that would violate these Terms if Posted on the Facebook Service. The rights granted in this paragraph may be revoked by us at any time in our sole discretion, and upon such termination, you will immediately remove all Share Links from your website.
Submissions
You acknowledge and agree that any questions, comments, suggestions, ideas, feedback or other information that you provide to Facebook ("Submissions"), are non-confidential and non-proprietary. Facebook will be entitled to the unrestricted use of any such Submission for any purpose, commercial or otherwise, without acknowledgment or compensation to you."

http://www.facebook.com/inbox/readmessage.php?t=1104495614858&f=1&e=0#/terms.php?ref=pf as seen on February 17, 2009.

Blogger says you own your stuff:

Your Intellectual Property Rights. Google claims no ownership or control over any Content submitted, posted or displayed by you on or through Google services. You or a third party licensor, as appropriate, retain all patent, trademark and copyright to any Content you submit, post or display on or through Google services and you are responsible for protecting those rights, as appropriate. By submitting, posting or displaying Content on or through Google services which are intended to be available to the members of the public, you grant Google a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to reproduce, publish and distribute such Content on Google services for the purpose of displaying and distributing Google services. Google furthermore reserves the right to refuse to accept, post, display or transmit any Content in its sole discretion.
You represent and warrant that you have all the rights, power and authority necessary to grant the rights granted herein to any Content submitted.


http://www.blogger.com/terms.g as seen today February 17, 2009

This is serious. Licenses are legally binding and most people are not aware of them at all. I am aware of them as I did licencing for a library. Every database you use in a library is licensed for certain users only, with various restrictions.

I do NOT have online/Internet banking because my Bank's license says I will indemnify them. This means that if I had a complaint that had to come to court, I will pay for their costs and they will not be financially responsible towards me, but I am responsible towards them.

Read licenses - they are important!

6 comments:

RW said...

This is distressing - more disturbing is how Facebook just changed the terms of use quietly.

Athanasia said...

I am REALLY glad you posted this. Thanks!!

I will spread the news.

elizabeth said...

yeah. facebook has done a lot of changes that are quite invasive and disturbing.

I pretty much use it on a very limited basis (under 40 'friends') and i only post one line updates, no pictures, no nothing and i keep it totally private, as well.

still, these changes question if we should 1. trust facebook / the people behind it 2. if we should keep using it

Anonymous said...

whoa, I did not know about this. Guilty. I am mildly terrified to know that I/my work/my photos/my communications are owned by some internet companies. Ah, the modern age.

elizabeth said...

yes. it is crazy. facebook is now backpedaling since there has been an uproar about it!!!

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