As a long standing ASMP member I highly respect their opinions on the matter (see Beware Facebook’s New Terms of Service), but the alarm is really too late. They should have read the tea leaves (that were pretty well spelled out) in the class action lawsuit settlement noted above. The email alert I received from ASMP highlights how even the savviest of photographers and associations missed the boat long ago.
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Let’s see some specific examples where social networking sites have willfully swiped the images of registered users for commercial gain? Most of the legal Ts&Cs are there to protect the service provider from lawsuits more than a plot to steal images from hard working professional photographers. I’m not trying to defend social media sites. They do collect a disturbing amount of personal data that could be shared, or sold, to third parties. The fact that you can’t really delete your images on many sites is also very disturbing. Many sites track every move you make while on their sites. That’s also disturbing. But social media is a fact of life in 2013. Sure you can opt out and not post on social media, but you’re probably hurting yourself more than the social media providers. I think the bottom line here is to always remember that, like so many things, participating in social media has risks and rewards. Don’t post images that have significant commercial value. We all have a massive archive of images. Surely you can find something to post that highlights your talent but wouldn’t be financially devastating if the image were somehow misappropriated. And who is posting full res versions of their work on social media anyway? I think we’ve already reached a point where market anticipation of your next work is probably more valuable than all your previous work. I’m not convinced all the fear mongering over misappropriation of rights is justified. You have to post content to be visible in the marketplace. Using some common sense in what you post is really all that’s necessary.
So all the re-posts of movie posters YouTube videos of music, magazine cover shots and product photos FB now owns? If all of these copyrighted items FB doesn’t own cause they were posted on FB then why are my images, which are copyrighted before I post, owned buy FB????? NO ONE will answer that one.
@ A. Noninoni – I see it every day. “Like” Houzz.com on facebook, and you’ll see them promoting the commercial gain of their website using images posted by their users. The daily posts are a marketing campaign, encouraging interaction with their own website, for commercial gain, without compensating the photographers whose images have been posted (sometimes by themselves, sometimes by their clients).
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