By Tanya Blake – Follow on Twitter @EOTMOnline and Facebook @EOTM.Media
You have NO rights when it comes to social media. Now repeat that 3 times! Yep, its true. Instagram said today that it has the perpetual right to sell users’ photographs without payment or notification.
The new intellectual property policy, which takes effect on January 16, comes three months after Facebook completed its acquisition of the popular photo-sharing site. Unless Instagram users delete their accounts before the January deadline, they cannot opt out.
Under this new policy, Facebook claims the perpetual right to license all public Instagram photos to companies or any other organization, including for advertising purposes, which would effectively transform the Web site into the world’s largest stock photo agency.
“It’s asking people to agree to unspecified future commercial use of their photos,” says Kurt Opsahl, a senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. “That makes it challenging for someone to give informed consent to that deal.”
This means any company can write a check to Facebook to license photos taken at its place of business and use them on its Web site, in TV ads, in glossy brochures, and so on — without paying any money to the Instagram user who took the photo. The language would include not only photos of business, resorts, but also images of young children, couples, pets….you get the picture.
Instagrammers react:
“The end of my Instagram account,” said Tumblr user Lee Djinn. “Deleting IG on 31 December 2012.”
“They [Instagram] inserted language giving them the rights to sell your photos for use in advertisements without notifying or paying you, or getting your permission,” complained Tumblr user Kenny Vee. “And there’s no opt out other than to delete your account by January 16th.”
“Alright, Instagram, nice to have known you! Bye, bye! Not angry, because you’re about to sell the pictures of users, but angry about that you don’t even ask,” said Peter Burger.
“What does Instagram now having the right to sell OUR photos have to do with safety or with avoiding spam? Absolutely nothing,” said another Tumblr user, reacting to the changes.
Ironically, Instagram’s controversial new policies are a direct result of Facebook’s recently revised terms that removed user voting on site policies.
What are your thoughts on this new policy? Leave in comments below.
CNET contributed to this report.
