Facebook and image rights?

[John Brady]

I have been promoting my Everglades Gallery with a page on facebook.
A friend of mine called me today and told me he has been reading articles that claim facebook owns the rights to any images you post on their service.

Do any of you have any information on this? I am curious if they believe they own the image in any and all forms once posted or just the actual version (size) that is posted.

I never post anything larger than 72dpi at about 12inch width, so I figure it doesn't matter if it gets downloaded and used by others because the size makes it useless.

I will try to do some more research on this, if any of you have information on this please share.

Thanks, John
www.evergladesgallery.com

[Eric James]

Here's a Facebook discussion from the lounge from mid-FEB of 2009:

http://www.largeformatphotography.in...light=facebook

And, FWIW, a FlickR discussion from a bit earlier in 2009 - notice, the FlickR discussion does and about-face toward the end:

http://www.largeformatphotography.in...ad.php?t=44465

[Bill L.]

This is from their TOS page:

# Sharing Your Content and Information

You own all of the content and information you post on Facebook, and you can control how we share your content through your privacy and application settings. In order for us to use certain types of content and provide you with Facebook, you agree to the following:

1. 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"). This IP License ends when you delete your IP content or your account (except to the extent your content has been shared with others, and they have not deleted it).
2. When you delete IP content, it is deleted in a manner similar to emptying the recycle bin on a computer. However, you understand that removed content may persist in backup copies for a reasonable period of time (but will not be available to others).
3. We always appreciate your feedback or other suggestions about Facebook, but you understand that we may use them without any obligation to compensate you for them (just as you have no obligation to offer them).

This is from their terms page at: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/terms.php?ref=pf

Given the statement on their ability to use what I post there, I keep all my photos limited to 600 pixels in the long dimension, and watermark them (not to obnoxiously, but. . . ). I'll have larger images on my site, currently under construction.

My wife had someone use her photos (either from her blog or from Flickr), remove all identifying information from the meta-data, and post it in their own account in the creative commons. It's a challenging tradeoff between posting in sufficient size to do justice to your work, and keeping them from being ripped off.

Cheers!
Bill