Why I Don’t Post Photographs on Facebook

I am a professional photographer. As such, I depend on license fees I collect from people who wish to use my copyrighted work. The more ways in which they desire to use my work, the higher the license fee. Such is the way for all intellectual property licensing.

The reason I don’t post my copyrighted photographs on Facebook is because the Terms for Facebook include the following text:

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. You may remove your User Content from the Site at any time. If you choose to remove your User Content, the license granted above will automatically expire, however you acknowledge that the Company may retain archived copies of your User Content.

This says that any content you post on Facebook, including your photographs, can be used by Facebook for any purpose they choose. It goes further by saying they can sublicense your content to any third party they choose for any purpose and you will never receive a penny for it.

Imagine while on vacation with your family you capture this exquisite photograph of the Golden Gate Bridge, and that you are so proud of it that you post it on Facebook so all your friends can see it. If someone on the Facebook staff sees your photograph and really likes it, Facebook can use it to advertise Facebook. They can license a postcard company to use it on a postcard they sell. They can even license the image for the cover of Time magazine, use by a travel agency or anyone else. You will never know about it and you will never receive any compensation for it.

Because I depend on revenue from licensing my copyrighted material, I refuse to post any of my photographs here and let Facebook use them for free and make money off of my work.


Author: Walter Rowe | Category: Business, Legal, Social Networks | July 2008

2 Responses to “Why I Don’t Post Photographs on Facebook”

  1. littlebigone Says:
    September 8th, 2008 at 11:19 pm

    HEy there. I see your point, but I dont think Facebook is in the business of making greeting cards out of photos the folks post. I also understand that you wouldnt want to be screwed out of revenue from a terrific photo, but I wouldnt thnk pro photographers normally post photos on any site without covering the bases. The example you use is of a family on vacation for friends, not a pro on the job. Maybe I missed something. Good blog, btw.

    Cheers!

  2. Walter Rowe Says:
    September 9th, 2008 at 4:44 pm

    Thanks for the response. I agree they do not exercise this business practice today. It does not preclude them from doing so in the future. They grab all the rights to our images that they need to do anything they want with them.

    Let’s consider MySpace as a comparison. MySpace is owned by News Corporation (Rupert Murdock). If MySpace had such rights grabbing language in their user agreement, News Corporation would be able to use photographs posted on MySpace in all of their publications around the world without paying a cent and without telling us.

    Now consider if Microsoft purchased FaceBook. Microsoft would have all the rights to the images we posted on FaceBook. They could use them as a wallpaper or screensaver or on product packaging for the next release of Windows without notifying a sole or paying a dime.

    Is it fair for multi-billion dollar international companies to make such a rights grab? I am not saying any of these things will happen. I am saying all of these things are legally permitted with their user agreement. Why should we subject ourselves to that?

    Many people make a living by licensing rights to photographs and other intellectual property. I personally refuse to give such broad rights to anyone for free. Others will make their own choice.

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