16th
WHY WORRY! FACEBOOK LOVES ME!
Right now, everyone’s up in a roar about Facebook’s latest Terms of Use verbiage which essentially gives them rights to anything their users put up on Facebook, indefinitely! For someone like me who takes a lot of photographs that might be a problem, but in truth, it doesn’t effect me much. Let’s analyze my situation for a moment. Let’s say I put up an amazing (and original) photograph of Obama or of OctoMom or of YouTube phenom Fred. And, for the sake of argument, everyone loves it. My question would be “What does Facebook gain by using it somewhere?” Nothing really. They don’t have a high res (i.e. good quality) version of the photograph, and if they try to use it without attribution, people will end up asking where it came from and Facebook will be forced to admit that one of their users took it and they decided to capitalize on it, which, I don’t believe, will make them look very good. In fact, it could end up being a PR nightmare. The point I’m trying to make is, that Facebook, along with a whole host of other sites who have original content put up on their sites by loyal users, would be shooting themselves in the virtual foot by trying to use something they didn’t create to make what is, in the long run, a miniscule amount of money. It just doesn’t make good business sense, and believe me, business is what these sites are all about. So, when you hear all the panic about Facebook ‘owning’ your content for the rest of eternity, don’t worry. It would benefit them more to promote you and your content then it would ever be for them to ‘steal’ your content and try to make money off of it. All this craziness is about headlines. It makes for a great article on a slow business day. In the end, Facebook, like everyone else is only trying to cover their virtual tail by including what amounts to boiler plate to their Terms of Service. And, as the case actually is, I’m more worried about some random person lifting my photographs and claiming they took the shot or even worse, just not attributing it, then I ever will be concerned that Facebook or Google are out to get me. It’s a big bad world out there, but don’t worry, Facebook and Google are NOT out to get you. And, if you care that much about a photo or video, and you’re worried someone may wish to use it without your permission, don’t put it up.
Just my 2ยข world.
All the best,
wms out.
P.S. If I were smarter, I’d put a watermark on my pics or at the very least my name in the lower right corner of the pics I put up. Thanx Facebook for helping me to think this through.
