It’s going around again.
Those chain-mail Facebook posts about how you lose rights to your content unless you post some alleged disclosure warning to the government, citing a random UCC section (btw, those crappy Facebook privacy notices are a total myth).
But it raises an important point.
Who owns your content when you post it to a social media website (or any online software system)?
The general rule, is that as soon as you write a post, take a photo, or record a video, under U.S. law you have a copyright on it, and in most cases no one can use it without your permission.
For those of us who make a living off of our work – either by directly selling those creative works or by using our content to drive traffic to websites where we sell products and services – we especially can’t afford someone using our creative works without compensating us.
So how much control are we giving away when we post a video to Facebook, share a picture on Instagram, or upload a file to Dropbox?
To find that answer, you have to get into the Terms & Conditions of each service – which is for the most part, written in legalese.
Let’s use Facebook’s Terms as an example.
“You own all of the content and information you post on Facebook, and you can control how it is shared through your privacy and application settings.”
Unlike what many people say, you still own your content. You still have a copyright on it. Facebook doesn’t “own” it. However, that’s not the whole story.
“For content that is covered by intellectual property rights, like photos and videos (IP content), you specifically give us the following permission, subject to your privacy and application settings: you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any IP content that you post on or in connection with Facebook (IP License).”
When you post content on Facebook, you are giving Facebook a license to use your content. They have to have this license to post it on your Profile or Page, and to share it with your friends or fans.
This license is:
“non-exclusive” – you could license that content to other people. You probably do, when you post that same picture on Instagram or upload that same video to YouTube.
“transferable” – this means that if Facebook got bought by someone or decided to sell their license on your content to some other company, the new company would have the license without needing additional permission from you. This could be especially weird if/when Facebook goes under and goes into bankruptcy … but what could happen to your content when a company goes bankrupt is an entire other blog post.
“sub-licensable” – Facebook can give another company permission to use your content, without needing additional permission from you. They need this so they can share your content with Apps you approve and other such services.
“royalty-free” – Facebook doesn’t have to pay you money for each use.
“worldwide” – applies everywhere, even outside of the country in which you are located. Logistically, Facebook needs this to function, since it’s all over.
“This IP License ends when you delete your IP content or your account unless your content has been shared with others, and they have not deleted it. When you delete IP content, it is deleted in a manner similar to emptying the recycle bin on a computer. However, you understand that removed content may persist in backup copies for a reasonable period of time (but will not be available to others).”
There was a huge broohaha about this a while ago. If you don’t want Facebook to have this license anymore, you can either delete the content or delete your account. However, if someone shared your content on their own Profile/Page, for example, it might not be deleted from that person’s account. Also, nothing is immediately deleted, since it takes a while to propagate through all the servers of Facebook, and to be overwritten on all the hard drives.
Twitter’s Terms are very similar.
“You retain your rights to any Content you submit, post or display on or through the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying Content on or through the Services, you grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, reproduce, process, adapt, modify, publish, transmit, display and distribute such Content in any and all media or distribution methods (now known or later developed).”
Plus Twitter includes a bunch more language about how they can change your content so they can distribute it over other networks or services. Since 140 characters probably doesn’t require much change, this language may be more about the photos you post.
Twitter has no deletion policy that I’m aware of – probably due to a combination of logistical issues and the fact that people aren’t posting as much non-public content, like they do on Facebook. It’s interesting though that I haven’t heard much complaints about this issue.
LinkedIn seemed to feel the need to use even more commas.
“You own the information you provide LinkedIn under this Agreement, and may request its deletion at any time, unless you have shared information or content with others and they have not deleted it, or it was copied or stored by other users. Additionally, you grant LinkedIn a nonexclusive, irrevocable, worldwide, perpetual, unlimited, assignable, sublicenseable, fully paid up and royalty-free right to us to copy, prepare derivative works of, improve, distribute, publish, remove, retain, add, process, analyze, use and commercialize, in any way now known or in the future discovered, any information you provide, directly or indirectly to LinkedIn, including, but not limited to, any user generated content, ideas, concepts, techniques or data to the services, you submit to LinkedIn, without any further consent, notice and/or compensation to you or to any third parties.”
Like Facebook, LinkedIn includes deletion rights, and the typical license clauses.
However, LinkedIn has a bunch of language about how they can use your content including your “ideas, concepts, techniques or data” which is interesting – as if they are going to use your business ideas to create their own products and services? Unlike Twitter’s language which seems to limit derivative works (derivative works are somewhat-new creative works that are based on your work) to the natural working of Twitter and its’ partners, LinkedIn seems to go further.
Instagram (now owned by Facebook) has a similar clause.
“Instagram does NOT claim ANY ownership rights in the text, files, images, photos, video, sounds, musical works, works of authorship, applications, or any other materials (collectively, “Content”) that you post on or through the Instagram Services. By displaying or publishing (“posting”) any Content on or through the Instagram Services, you hereby grant to Instagram a non-exclusive, fully paid and royalty-free, worldwide, limited license to use, modify, delete from, add to, publicly perform, publicly display, reproduce and translate such Content, including without limitation distributing part or all of the Site in any media formats through any media channels, except Content not shared publicly (“private”) will not be distributed outside the Instagram Services.”
Curious how their clause includes reference to video and musical works – perhaps those are future projects of Instagram? Instagram also includes language about how they can “publicly display” your work – so they could put your picture up on a billboard in Times Square, without additional compensation to you, or your permission.
Also interesting is some language in Instagram’s advertising clause:
“Some of the Instagram Services are supported by advertising revenue and may display advertisements and promotions, and you hereby agree that Instagram may place such advertising and promotions on the Instagram Services or on, about, or in conjunction with your Content. The manner, mode and extent of such advertising and promotions are subject to change without specific notice to you.”
Here, Instagram could put advertising *on* your picture, without your permission. Ick. Hope they don’t implement that idea.
But I didn’t want to just look at some social media sites – most of us also upload our copyrighted content to other sites – for backup, collaboration, and cloud data purposes.
Google Services Terms
“When you upload or otherwise submit content to our Services, you give Google (and those we work with) a worldwide license to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works (such as those resulting from translations, adaptations or other changes we make so that your content works better with our Services), communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content. The rights you grant in this license are for the limited purpose of operating, promoting, and improving our Services, and to develop new ones. This license continues even if you stop using our Services (for example, for a business listing you have added to Google Maps). Some Services may offer you ways to access and remove content that has been provided to that Service. Also, in some of our Services, there are terms or settings that narrow the scope of our use of the content submitted in those Services.”
Oy. I say oy because except for Google+ and a few other social media type services, content you’ve uploaded to Google isn’t for public display. It’s for private and collaborative use, such as Gmail, Google documents/drive, and Google apps. So while I do want Google to be able to display my content in ways I have specified, these “publicly perform, publicly display” terms make me nervous.
Also, apparently deleting means nothing to Google. They retain your information and retain the license. I looked in Gmail and Google drive and couldn’t find any additional terms specifically for those applications. So be aware – once your content is uploaded to Google Drive, for example, it may be there forever. Even if you delete the content and your account.
Basecamp Terms of Service
“We claim no intellectual property rights over the material you provide to the Service. Your profile and materials uploaded remain yours.”
Love. Btw, I use Basecamp for the project management of my legal client accounts.
Dropbox Terms of Service
“By using our Services you provide us with information, files, and folders that you submit to Dropbox (together, “your stuff”). You retain full ownership to your stuff. We don’t claim any ownership to any of it. These Terms do not grant us any rights to your stuff or intellectual property except for the limited rights that are needed to run the Services, as explained below.”
“We may need your permission to do things you ask us to do with your stuff, for example, hosting your files, or sharing them at your direction. This includes product features visible to you, for example, image thumbnails or document previews. It also includes design choices we make to technically administer our Services, for example, how we redundantly backup data to keep it safe. You give us the permissions we need to do those things solely to provide the Services. This permission also extends to trusted third parties we work with to provide the Services, for example Amazon, which provides our storage space (again, only to provide the Services).”
Love. I especially enjoy how they use the word “stuff” in their legal writing. Btw, I use Dropbox as offsite electronic storage of my documents.
iCloud Terms and Conditions
“Except for material we may license to you, Apple does not claim ownership of the materials and/or Content you submit or make available on the Service. However, by submitting or posting such Content on areas of the Service that are accessible by the public or other users with whom you consent to share such Content, you grant Apple a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive license to use, distribute, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, publicly perform and publicly display such Content on the Service solely for the purpose for which such Content was submitted or made available, without any compensation or obligation to you. You agree that any Content submitted or posted by you shall be your sole responsibility, shall not infringe or violate the rights of any other party or violate any laws, contribute to or encourage infringing or otherwise unlawful conduct, or otherwise be obscene, objectionable, or in poor taste. By submitting or posting such Content on areas of the Service that are accessible by the public or other users, you are representing that you are the owner of such material and/or have all necessary rights, licenses, and authorization to distribute it.”
At first this comma-happy license scared me, but that license section only applies to content that you post to services that are “accessible by the public or other users with whom you consent to share such Content” – so it should not apply to your iCloud private documents/backups. Still kind of weirds me out, though.
What’s the bottom line?
You own your content.
You still have a copyright on your creative works that have been memorialized in a writing, audio, photograph, or video.
But be aware, when you upload your content to a social media, cloud-data, or other service, you are typically giving them a license to use it in some way.
Be aware of what they can do with it, if you can delete the content (or get back the license), and who you are trusting to fulfill their part of the bargain.
And my last tip: if you’ve uploaded content to a site that’s going under, get your stuff the frak off of that site as soon as possible, before the bankruptcy court gets jurisdiction over it.
Any questions? 
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The post Who Owns Your Content? What You Give Away When You Post Your Stuff Online. appeared first on Elizabeth Potts Weinstein.