Facebook's ownership of YOUR photographs

[dakwegmo]

To those of you that are truly worried about this, what exactly do you think Facebook is going to do with your photos?

[MattG]

To put this in another slant, without the licence, Facebook cannot show your images to another Facebook user without getting your consent each and every time a user wants to view the picture, irrespective of the privacy settings.

I understand that Facebook is the largest single photo sharing site in the world. Sure, be aware of the rights you agree to but to panic due to out of context phrases and ignorance of the full licence agreement is only going to lead to unnecessary hysteria.

Far better to state that uploading to Facebook grants rights to Facebook that might lead them to be able to use your picture without reimbursing you. If you don't like this, you can alter the privacy settings or remove the images to cancel the licenced rights.
.

[Sime]

Can I throw something out there.... we tend to overlook this...

They NEED usage rights - else how the hell are they going to display them for YOU on your profile without you suing them??

The section relating to use by third parties relates to you approving apps / sites to connect (via oAuth) to your FB account to display content, and the upcoming (rumour) photo app that will change the way you can display / view your images.

Honestly think this is worry for nothing.

S

[dakwegmo]

Originally Posted by MattG

To put this in another slant, without the licence, Facebook cannot show your images to another Facebook user without getting your consent each and every time a user wants to view the picture, irrespective of the privacy settings.

Originally Posted by Sime

Can I throw something out there.... we tend to overlook this...

They NEED usage rights - else how the hell are they going to display them for YOU on your profile without you suing them??

Both points are exactly right. Without a license Facebook can't even store a copy of the image on their server to display back to you, let alone create thumbnails or otherwise re-size them to display to your friends in Australia, Japan, or the USA. Read the Terms of Service for any photo sharing site and you'll find similar language, even Flickr, which is widely regarded as having the most favorable ToS for photographers has a very similar license. Facebook's is a lot more inclusive, but I suspect that has to do with how much more complex a platform Facebook is over Flickr.

The only reasonable objection I've heard to posting images in Facebook has to do with photographers that are using a rights managed licensing model with stock agencies. The FB license apparently conflicts with most RM agreements, so you could void your contract by uploading to FB. That's probably true of most photo sharing sites though, so not really a good reason to single out Facebook.

[SusanH1970]

Originally Posted by Sime

Honestly think this is worry for nothing.

Which is why I continue to post pictures on my business page. Besides that, everything is watermarked, so if Facebook really wants to use my photo for something (which I doubt), hey, go for it, I don't mind a little free advertising.

[Sime]

I remember the first time I didn't change my 'don't use my pics to advertise to my friends' setting and I was suddenly advertising Metallica concerts to people in America... I was a cross between 'man, that's cool' and... whoa there a minute! haha

[ScottDesantis]

There are alternatives to facebook available to us. If privacy and protecting your photos from being used by social networking sites is a problem for you then Fotobounce may be a viable option for you.

Check out both these articles:

Privacy | Fotobounce - Photo organizing with face recognition
Sharing Tips | Fotobounce - Photo organizing with face recognition