hackbash

Take the users out of Facebook and what’s left? Book, I’d say.

The site’s the epitome of 2.0; a framework on which to hang user-generated content, and nothing without it. So, in common with other user-populated sites like Flickr, you’d expect them to have a pretty enlightened view of users’ importance, no?

No. Consider this extract from Facebook’s terms:

By posting User Content to any part of the Site, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to the Company an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such User Content for any purpose, commercial, advertising, or otherwise, on or in connection with the Site or the promotion thereof, to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such User Content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing.

I’m not a lawyer, but to paraphrase:

We don’t own your shit, but we can do what we want with it.

Here’s the thing. I don’t want to find photos that I upload to Facebook, which include images of me and my friends, used to advertise anything. While I appreciate that the site provides me with a free service by storing and sharing them, I want it to be on my terms, or at least ones that aren’t loaded quite so heavily in Facebook’s favour.

Now, my reaction is that I’ll just put my pictures on Flickr from now on, and I doubt that anyone else will notice or care.

But what if the site’s 100 million other users came to the same conclusion?

Tags: Facebook, Flickr, licensing, photos, terms and conditions