Photo-sharing website Instagram caused outrage when it changed its terms and conditions to grant itself extensive rights to use uploaded photos without taking ownership of them.
That has now been changed to having ''non-exclusive, fully paid and royalty-free, worldwide, limited licence to use ... publicly display, reproduce and translate'' subscribers' photos, the website states.
Put simply, the new terms and conditions, which take effect on Saturday, could grant Instagram a licence to do whatever it wanted with uploaded photos, Mrs Wilde said.
Facebook has similar conditions to Instagram while other websites such as Flickr state that copyright is protected.
The above is why I have never posted any of my photographs to any social media website and why I decline to permit others to post my photos to any of these websites.
Beyond the
"we will do whatever we want with your images and you'll like it" corporate arrogance of these social media giants, there is no justification for the arbitrary and exploitative policies of these billion dollar plus corporate entities. There is absolutely no possible way that thier policies can be justified from a moral or ethical standpoint.
I can see how high school and college age people would want to post images of them and their friends living the party lifestyle - after all, being popular trumps all else in their minds. If those are their values, they are welcome to them.
Anyone who is passionate about photography, works hard and makes sacrifices to make the best images they possibly can and places any kind of value - personal, artistic, historical or economic - on their photographic undertakings is a person who will undoubtedly have a vastly different outlook than the
"but I want to be popular" worldview of the high school/college demographic.
A passionate, committed photographer will come to the conclusion that the abusive user agreements of social media websites as no less exploitative than work for hire agreements.
The irony is that with social media, you are in essence agreeing to a work for hire arrangement -
but with no payment. You are agreeing to give away your images and your rights as a photographer. Why any thinking person would volunteer for such abuse is beyond me.
There is a way to avoid having your work used and abused by the social media giants. It is:
Don't volunteer to be exploited by these arrogant billion dollar corporations.
