If you create a "fan" page on Facebook for photography, what rights does Facebook have over images posted?

Answer 1

Favorite Answer

According to the TOS you retain ownership rights but you grant Facebook unlimited use rights.

'For content that is covered by intellectual property rights, like photos and videos ("IP content"), you specifically give us the following permission, subject to your privacy and application settings: you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any IP content that you post on or in connection with Facebook ("IP License"). '

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Source(s): . http://www.facebook.com/#!/terms.php

Answer 2

Deep Blue

I suggest you read flickr's tos again.

They are part of yahoo and if you read the tos posted on the flickr site then you will see that you are "granting" them a license", as is the case with the majority (if not all) such sites for any stuff posted in publicly accessible parts of their sites.

This is on the UK tos - I have no doubt the US are very similar.

They could not operate if they did not have such a clause.

The thing to make sure of is that the wording is such that it can only be used in relation to the alteration, display or advertising of that specific site and will not be passed on to 3rd parties.

Answer 3

There is a good article about it here: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-10165190-36.html

You can also read all the legalese in the Facebook Terms of Service Agreement here: http://www.facebook.com/policy.php.

The bottom line is that you basically grant them unlimited rights to your content with some restrictions. So you have to weigh the possibility that they might use your photos without permission against the free marketing and exposure you get from sharing content.

Answer 4

as quickly as you place any image on the cyber web, the assumption of rights is going down the drain. every person else on the cyber web can now replica that image, and re-publish it on their facebook or everywhere else on the cyber web. YouTube. Random boards. Blogs. You call it.

Answer 5

Yes I think Mere Mortal's right on this. I read the T&C's carefully for FB and it does state they own the rights. This is unlike sites such as Flickr, where there is no such term.

It's one of the reasons why, although I have a FB account, I never post images to the site.