Facebook has changed back it's copyright policy on user content. This happened because one person (Chris Walters) was willing to speak up. I thank him for making an issue about the change in ownership of Facebook content. I thank Facebook for having the ability to listen and change per all of our request. Thank you to all of you who supported us in having our voice be heard. And for the rest of you who just mocked relentlessly, your welcome from all of us who spoke up.

Face Book Changes: [www.dtechweb-blog.com]

The mockers: [www.webpronews.com]

True that, Zuckerberg is dodging the proverbial bullet here with copyright material that has been uploaded by the creators themselves, you and I.

They have to answer this because it is the heart of the issue here, not notes and things not already having legal copyright ownership to stuff that is uploaded to the facebook server!

I joined facebook years ago and this was "NOT" part of the TOS at that time, they have not informed people of the TOS changes and weather it's without notice or not, they tread in very deep water when it comes to dealing with copyright material art of any kind such as music,paintings, stc..

Thanks for hitting it on the Head Scott, way to go bro! :)

I'm a musician and i have legal rights to my music i have posted on facebook and now they change the TOS, i have "MAJOR" issues with that!

SamataNermin is the one who is calling it"Swill"...

If my copyright music is used for any gain by facebook, i will get the royalties of they will get sued, plain and simple, lawyer and ASCAP!

"BLAMMO"!

You hit the nail on the head SamataNermin, very well stated!

Hey FB, do you have a model release from my models to use their likeness? No you don't, OK then see you in court.

DOUBLE SPEAK!

Perhaps Consumerist should stop throwing stones?

In its TOS (at [www.consumermediallc.org] ) it claims the same perpetual, irrevocable, etc. etc. crep.

If it's rotten fish, it matters not the newspaper its wrapped in.

MySpace.com does not claim any ownership rights in the text, files, images, photos, video, sounds, musical works, works of authorship, or any other materials (collectively, "Content") that you post to the MySpace Services. After posting your Content to the MySpace Services, you continue to retain all ownership rights in such Content, and you continue to have the right to use your Content in any way you choose. By displaying or publishing ("posting") any Content on or through the MySpace Services, you hereby grant to MySpace.com a limited license to use, modify, publicly perform, publicly display, reproduce, and distribute such Content solely on and through the MySpace Services.

LiveJournal claims no ownership or control over any Content posted by its users. The author retains all patent, trademark, and copyright to all Content posted within available fields, and is responsible for protecting those rights, but is not entitled to the help of the LiveJournal staff in protecting such Content. The user posting any Content represents that it has all rights necessary to post such Content (and for LiveJournal to serve such Content) without violation of any intellectual property or other rights of third parties, or any laws or regulations;

The invitation: Parking spaces and bicycle racks are for public use. Enjoy them.
TOS: By using a parking space or bicycle rack, you agree that your vehicle (auto or bicycle) is the property of Parking Lieberstrand, Inc. in all ways and in perpetuity. We can drive it, wreck it, drain the gas, sell the tires, basically anything. It is no longer your real property.
Memo: Of course Parking Lieberstrand has no intention of joyriding in member vehicles. Hmmm. That is a hot looking Ferrari, though.

In reality, it's not the same, actually worse, because Facebook can duplicate and use your material without your ever being aware.

That said, when stuff is uploaded directly to their server, its gets a little more dicey.

As for the fear of FB making money off your information, there are two important factors to note. First, the license of User Content is subject to your privacy settings. Therefore, unless your content is open to everyone (both within and without FB), I think it would be difficult to for FB to make money off of it. Second, the license of User Content as well as your name, likeness and image is limited to using, storing, publishing, etc. the information "on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof." So, if your privacy settings do not allow the entire world to see your User Content, then it can't be used for promotion outside of the FB community. Yes, arguably your name, likeness and image could be used to promote FB outside the FB site, but FB couldn't sublicense an image of you drinking a Pepsi to Pepsi for the purposes of promoting Pepsi.

Sorry for the long post, but there's a lot of misinterpretation in the comments and I wanted to try to clarify the "lawyerspeak" in the TOS. Certainly FB could have rolled this out better, but at the end of the day it is not a significant change in the TOS. I am an attorney, but neither I nor my firm represent FB or any related interests.

So you are still responsible for the image, but you can't stop them from doing whatever they want with it.

Unless they do a 180 on this issue I will never upload another picture to the site.

Facebook is obfuscating their real intent by carefully switching out words. Their terms of service indicates they have "license" to your work...not that they "own" it. There is a legal difference. They claim license to basically do whatever they want with it! You still own it. Big deal. Notice how in their response they say "we never claimed ownership!" Well, no one accused facebook of taking ownership. Facebook takes license, which for practical purposeses, there is little difference. Its like someone accusing them of robbing a bank, and their defese is "We did not steal that car!"

Facebook has a bad habit of being totally condescending. Check out their first response to the News Feed controversy, for instance. Before they officially said "my bad," they said "calm down, it's not that big a deal. This is how it works." They failed to take into account that people KNEW how it works and THEY misunderstood some crucial social paradigms. They admit this two days later.

I remember back on my old NationStates account how they had a similar ownership clause, "All content you upload or create on NationStates.net is ours forever." followed immidiatly by "NationStates.net accepts no responsibility whatsoever for any content uploaded to the site."

Basically it all boils down to ass covering and DURRHURR.

If I did post something that is considered libel, Facebook (as joint owner of that content) is now responsible for that content as well as I am? Therefore a libel lawsuit can be brought against Facebook as an owner of that content?

It's sketchy ground here, and I hope Facebook's lawyers are working through correcting this.

"Date of Last Revision: 39848."

Perhaps cute to the pathetic admins of the network, star-dating revisions adds a hard-to-justify layer of opacity to the average user who wants to monitor when they are secretly changing the terms and their control over information.

Perhaps Facebook could please explain why I have to open Excel in order to figure out when you updated the TOS? Bloody thieves...

I think that an bigger problem than Facebook claiming ownership of everything of yours that you upload is that they can claim ownership of everything of mine that you upload, even if I have no knowledge of your action.

So if someone uploads some Scientology tracts, does Facebook now own them? That would set up some interesting situations.

@Kelly Lincoln: I agree, and that's my beef with the new ToS. Zuckerberg did absolutely nothing to address the main issue, instead deciding to talk about messages and other crap that nobody cares about.

Obviously Facebook can just further modify their TOS or remove certain privacy controls. Thoughts?

Granted, they still "own" what I had previously uploaded, but they won't own anything else.

Up until last year I had my address and phone numbers up on facebook for select friends to see. I decided to take them down just encase my facebook got hacked or they changed the TOS in such a way that they would exploit that info. After reading the earlier post about the TOS change I'm glad I removed that info.

And now that the deletion clause has been removed, the only veto power available to users - deleting the content from Facebook - has also been revoked.

If Facebook really wants to promote itself as a site that encourages user-submitted content, they also should specifically delineate the rights they recieve for the actual mechanics of the service (e.g. forwarding content through messages, posting on friends' walls, etc.) and the rights they recieve for commercial promotional materials (ads, articles,etc.) Legal agreements don't allow for "taking somebody's word for it."

No matter what was promised, in the end you will end up being screwe*.

In exchange for my uploading materials to your site, you will receive a Limited, fully revocable, License to Display my materials on your network in the Original, forms as delivered to you, with full attribution to me as the author/copyright holder, for the duration of our engagement, being the period of time that we are entered into this arrangement, evidenced by my use of the username/password you have provided and the space on your network you have made available to me.

All others rights are Reserved including, but not limited to, reproduction, modification, distribution outside of the aforementioned space, subsidary public display, public performance, and or derivative works in any format, online or offline.

Oh, and the best part: The Consumerist itself uses the sublicensing provided by that clause to allow you to comment by logging in with your facebook account.

"We want to let you know that today we're updating our Terms of Use-the rules you and Facebook agree to when you sign up to use the site. We used to have several different documents that outlined what people could and could not do on Facebook, but now we're consolidating all this information to one central place. We've also simplified and clarified a lot of information that applies to you, including some things you shouldn't do when using the site.

Most of these things are pretty obvious; you probably wouldn't ever do them. For example, you probably don't "provide any false personal information in your profile" or "intimidate or harass other users." But in order to help Facebook remain a safe and trusted environment, we think it's important to specifically mention behaviors like these in the "Prohibited Conduct" section.

As always, protecting your privacy and information is of the utmost importance to us, and these updates provide you with the same level of protection you have come to expect from Facebook.

You can check out the updated terms here.

Suzie White, Facebook's Corporate Counsel for Commercial Transactions, is representing, warranting, and agreeing."

It was a poor choice on their part to not give notification or specifics in advance of what they were doing. Though it was perfectly legal, it was borderline unethical and hopefully a valuable precident for other companies TOS in the future.

As far as Facebook's claims go, those agreements still made me feel uncomfortable, especially since I have stories/parts of scripts on there. I wouldn't want any of my information shared with those who aren't my friends.

The TOS does not provide a clear definition for "privacy settings." It does, however, provide a link that redirects to a page asking you to sign in or create a Facebook account. This has the effect of forcing you to agree to the TOS without any prior understanding of what privacy settings are. How Helpful!

Blogging sites have overcome the data persistence problem without the excessive licensing terms that Facebook uses. I've closed my Facebook account and will use services that offer a more reasonable TOS.

A subtle but distinct difference.

Having somebody suddenly claim "perpetual use" over something you likely had locked under privacy settings to only share with friends is something that puts up red flags with anybody whose lives are governed by rights and ownership.

This clarification settles most of that for those people, at least it does for me.

I highly doubt anybody was concerned about "playlists and swill."

I think people are less concerned with the legal ramifications of this move and more concerned with how douchey it is to retroactively change a site's TOS to have ownership and complete usage rights to all your personal material.

My estimate is that people feel more slighted than fearful. It's not about safety.

And iif it is only for functional purposes why do this lines exits?