I won't be happy until they take that "perpetual" license baloney out of the TOS

if this is true why did they remove a couple lines from the terms of use stating that if you remove your content the license expires?

Until I see the change of language in the TOS, I'm not satisfied.

"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"

And iif it is only for functional purposes why do this lines exits?

@Santiago Ruiz: It seems like it is the law version of calling "shotgun" on everything. That doesn't fly.

anyone who thinks their content is safe on the interweb needs to get a clue. you're worried about playlists and other swill you post on facebook? i can pull a report with your last 5 addresses, your credit report and your criminal history in about 5 minutes. jesus.

Right up to the point they are sued and the case is thrown out of court because the terms of service made you agree to arbitration.

So people are going to Click "I Agree" anyways...

If Facebook is clear about its "philosophy" concerning user content, why is it unable to express this philosophy as clearly in its new terms of service. If you read the TOS and then Facebook's claims about the TOS, they simply don't reconcile. And intelligent users will note the condescending statement that the TOS uses "overly formal language" that we, the lay people, are apparently unable to comprehend. Maybe they're playing "chicken" to see how far they can go before people start leaving facebook. But then, even if you leave facebook, they apparently still keep you there.

@SamataNermin:

I think people are less concerned with the legal ramifications of this move and more concerned with how douchey it is to retroactively change a site's TOS to have ownership and complete usage rights to all your personal material.

My estimate is that people feel more slighted than fearful. It's not about safety.

@deliciouscake: Because if you write a message on, record a video directly to, or take a picture to post on someone else's Facebook wall, it stays there after you close your account. RTFA.

@SamataNermin: I think you're misunderstanding people's issue. And as a student I can tell you I know plenty of people who have posted videos and photography that they might down the line want to use in portfolios, reels, or other things to promote themselves. They post it to facebook as a way to share it with other students and get feedback on works in progress.

Having somebody suddenly claim "perpetual use" over something you likely had locked under privacy settings to only share with friends is something that puts up red flags with anybody whose lives are governed by rights and ownership.

This clarification settles most of that for those people, at least it does for me.

I highly doubt anybody was concerned about "playlists and swill."

@exkon: People who have already signed up didn't click "I Agree" to this TOS. They agreed that the TOS they clicked on could be changed.

A subtle but distinct difference.

The fine print states they own everything forever but they claim it's really not the case. Oooooook.

@Meiran: This is why the new terms wouldn't hold up in court in the US. The privacy laws were changed and now they have to inform their users that the policies have changed and they must agree to them again.

@Santiago Ruiz: Don't forget adapt and create derivative works. The "response" from facebook is simply a farce.

I still have some questions for Facebook though.
If they claim the ownership of our content for promotional uses, can someone tell me why they are claiming the rights to that picture in this article:
[www2.canada.com]
This story made the news here in Canada last year and i remember at the time noticing the Facebook copyright on the picture.

The Facebook rep could also claim they're trying to end world hunger, cure cancer and give everyone a pony. That still doesn't change the reality that users are bound to what is written in the TOS.

The TOS does not provide a clear definition for "privacy settings." It does, however, provide a link that redirects to a page asking you to sign in or create a Facebook account. This has the effect of forcing you to agree to the TOS without any prior understanding of what privacy settings are. How Helpful!

Blogging sites have overcome the data persistence problem without the excessive licensing terms that Facebook uses. I've closed my Facebook account and will use services that offer a more reasonable TOS.

Over 350,000 views for the Consumerist article. I think it got so huge because it was also posted on Perez Hilton who gets millions of hits a day. I hope that besides the article Consumerist gets a whole new wave of readers. I'm happy for this site right now, especially because of how we need it with the way the economy is. Thanks for Digg too.

As far as Facebook's claims go, those agreements still made me feel uncomfortable, especially since I have stories/parts of scripts on there. I wouldn't want any of my information shared with those who aren't my friends.

@Ccharles-Antoine Blais Métivier: Because they are citing the source where they got the picture from. That's very common in Publishing, and applies to where ever the photo comes from, Getty Images, Facebook.com, etc.

While reading this post, the following NoScript warning appeared: "NoScript filtered a potential cross-site scripting (XSS) attempt from (spacing mine)
"h t t p ://api.connect.facebook.c o m "

The notification that was posted on the Facebook blog regarding the changes to the Terms of Service agreement were posted after the changes had been made. Facebook made no mention that they would be reversing or removing parts of the TOS, simply that their intent was to consilidate:

"We want to let you know that today we're updating our Terms of Use-the rules you and Facebook agree to when you sign up to use the site. We used to have several different documents that outlined what people could and could not do on Facebook, but now we're consolidating all this information to one central place. We've also simplified and clarified a lot of information that applies to you, including some things you shouldn't do when using the site.

Most of these things are pretty obvious; you probably wouldn't ever do them. For example, you probably don't "provide any false personal information in your profile" or "intimidate or harass other users." But in order to help Facebook remain a safe and trusted environment, we think it's important to specifically mention behaviors like these in the "Prohibited Conduct" section.

As always, protecting your privacy and information is of the utmost importance to us, and these updates provide you with the same level of protection you have come to expect from Facebook.

You can check out the updated terms here.

Suzie White, Facebook's Corporate Counsel for Commercial Transactions, is representing, warranting, and agreeing."

It was a poor choice on their part to not give notification or specifics in advance of what they were doing. Though it was perfectly legal, it was borderline unethical and hopefully a valuable precident for other companies TOS in the future.

It doesn't matter what Facebook PR says, the TOS is the legal document in force. Facebook can afford the lawyers to make their intentions clear. This shows a lack of respect for their user rights? Why should I trust them to do the right thing?

@pmcpa2:
I get your point and you are completly right about it, but seing as the ownership of the picture now goes to Facebook proves how they become owners of all the content...
Surely you know just like me that it is very easy to find the owner of a picture on Facebook, why is there no mention of it.
It also shows how Facebook can't control the amount of data they "own" and what is done with it.

I'm involved in the stock photography industry and no matter what Facebook tells anyone, the current contract is very, very broad and over-reaching. The current contract specifically states that they can do anything they want with your images, video, etc.... And, that includes sub-licensing it to others. They'd make the money and you wouldn't get a dime. Their contract clearly states "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...."

That's been in their TOS and has been SOP for them for quite some time. As it is now, if you "remove" your account, it is deactivated, people can no longer access your content, but if you recreate an account it restores or gives an option to restore it. Non-exclusive rights to reuse in perpetuity are pretty standard for sharing sites. If you want to claim copyright on a picture, don't upload it to a public photo sharing site. The "transferable" part is a bit unnecessary but is likely to cover off-site advertising and similar, created by third parties.

Oh, and the best part: The Consumerist itself uses the sublicensing provided by that clause to allow you to comment by logging in with your facebook account.

I really don't care what they put in their contract. I don't trust ANY of these sites not use my material. What's the 1st thing rule of the internet children? don't post anything you don't want shared.

@Amelie: I got the same warning but have you noticed that when you choose to comment here that you are given the option to do so through your FaceBook account. I assume it has something to do with that ALTHOUGH I have never seen it happen before...

Here is what you should be thinking about if you want to play the social network game.

In exchange for my uploading materials to your site, you will receive a Limited, fully revocable, License to Display my materials on your network in the Original, forms as delivered to you, with full attribution to me as the author/copyright holder, for the duration of our engagement, being the period of time that we are entered into this arrangement, evidenced by my use of the username/password you have provided and the space on your network you have made available to me.

All others rights are Reserved including, but not limited to, reproduction, modification, distribution outside of the aforementioned space, subsidary public display, public performance, and or derivative works in any format, online or offline.

BS - Zuckerberg doesn't address the issue of MEDIA that is uploaded. only the info required for the apps and messaging. Until it is CLEARLY stated, that I retain ownership of any content I upload and that their "license" terminates when I delete my account, I will not upload any media. No photos, videos, audio or writing other than "Notes"

What does an account with Bernie Madoff and Facebook have in common?

No matter what was promised, in the end you will end up being screwe*.

@ArdelleBorus: Welcome to the Hotel California.

@SamataNermin: But that's not the issue at all. The issue is that Facebook's new TOS says they can take any original content I created & posted on their service and use that content for commercial gain. Me personally, I'd be pretty bothered by them taking content I made and putting it in ads, for example, knowing I had no control over that at all.

And now that the deletion clause has been removed, the only veto power available to users - deleting the content from Facebook - has also been revoked.

If Facebook really wants to promote itself as a site that encourages user-submitted content, they also should specifically delineate the rights they recieve for the actual mechanics of the service (e.g. forwarding content through messages, posting on friends' walls, etc.) and the rights they recieve for commercial promotional materials (ads, articles,etc.) Legal agreements don't allow for "taking somebody's word for it."

@DoyleElymus: me too, because its in the TOS it makes me uneasy...

Up until last year I had my address and phone numbers up on facebook for select friends to see. I decided to take them down just encase my facebook got hacked or they changed the TOS in such a way that they would exploit that info. After reading the earlier post about the TOS change I'm glad I removed that info.

Obviously the Consumerist article made them lose members. I deleted my Faceboo todayk SPECIFICALLY because of the change in TOS that the Consumerist alerted meto.

Granted, they still "own" what I had previously uploaded, but they won't own anything else.

If their license is subject to the privacy settings, then can't one just make all one's content visible to no one if you don't want Facebook to be able to exercise the license?

Obviously Facebook can just further modify their TOS or remove certain privacy controls. Thoughts?

@Plates: Thanks, I needed a good laugh.

@Kelly Lincoln: I agree, and that's my beef with the new ToS. Zuckerberg did absolutely nothing to address the main issue, instead deciding to talk about messages and other crap that nobody cares about.

I think that an bigger problem than Facebook claiming ownership of everything of yours that you upload is that they can claim ownership of everything of mine that you upload, even if I have no knowledge of your action.

So if someone uploads some Scientology tracts, does Facebook now own them? That would set up some interesting situations.

Not only have they surreptitiously changed the TOS, but in a flagrant act of deliberate obfuscation and public misinformation, the Facebook TOS page (http://en-gb.facebook.com/terms.php) is using the following:

"Date of Last Revision: 39848."

Perhaps cute to the pathetic admins of the network, star-dating revisions adds a hard-to-justify layer of opacity to the average user who wants to monitor when they are secretly changing the terms and their control over information.

Perhaps Facebook could please explain why I have to open Excel in order to figure out when you updated the TOS? Bloody thieves...

Here's my thoughts: if ownership of the content automatically goes to Facebook when I upload it, doesn't that make Facebook automatically liable for anything I upload?

If I did post something that is considered libel, Facebook (as joint owner of that content) is now responsible for that content as well as I am? Therefore a libel lawsuit can be brought against Facebook as an owner of that content?

It's sketchy ground here, and I hope Facebook's lawyers are working through correcting this.

@tblain:
There's probably a "We accept no responsibility for anything, anywhere, ever." clause in there as well.

I remember back on my old NationStates account how they had a similar ownership clause, "All content you upload or create on NationStates.net is ours forever." followed immidiatly by "NationStates.net accepts no responsibility whatsoever for any content uploaded to the site."

Basically it all boils down to ass covering and DURRHURR.

@ArdelleBorus:

Facebook has a bad habit of being totally condescending. Check out their first response to the News Feed controversy, for instance. Before they officially said "my bad," they said "calm down, it's not that big a deal. This is how it works." They failed to take into account that people KNEW how it works and THEY misunderstood some crucial social paradigms. They admit this two days later.

Facebook is obfuscating their real intent by carefully switching out words. Their terms of service indicates they have "license" to your work...not that they "own" it. There is a legal difference. They claim license to basically do whatever they want with it! You still own it. Big deal. Notice how in their response they say "we never claimed ownership!" Well, no one accused facebook of taking ownership. Facebook takes license, which for practical purposeses, there is little difference. Its like someone accusing them of robbing a bank, and their defese is "We did not steal that car!"

There are huge legal issues here, most notably privacy and copyright. With respect to copyright, Facebook's new TOS is tantamount the New York Public Library announcing that they now own the copyright to every book that is in their library simply because they created the space for that book to be viewed. There is no legal way they can do this, and there will be voluminous lawsuits if they try to do anything with the content. In my mind the ONLY legal right they should have to disclose anything in someone's account is if it is indicative of a crime that has been or is about to be committed.

@Dean Siracusa: Yep, most people miss the real meat of the issue which is creative works uploaded to the site for sharing.

Unless they do a 180 on this issue I will never upload another picture to the site.

@Cynicor: They don't claim to own anything, they have the rights to everything. Big difference. So they get all the benefits with none of the repercussions.

@tblain: They don't claim ownership, just an unlimited perpetual license/right to do whatever they want.

So you are still responsible for the image, but you can't stop them from doing whatever they want with it.

@snowmoon: The language isn't really clear, so maybe somebody can set me straight: Does this apply even to creative works that are merely linked through Facebook? I release music for free using a Creative Commons license, and if they claim "irrevocable, perpetual" license to my works just because I put up a link to my website, then they can kiss my fat honky ass.