I have decided that instead of posting my photos to various social media outlets and subsequently (also consequently) losing track of what has been posted where I am going to post everything here and share the link.
One
February 8, 2017
|In Daily Post
Great plan, Dev. This way all roads lead to Rome (Rome being your own tract of “land” in cyberspace).
This also means Facebook, Google, and all the others don’t get permanent, non-revocable publishing rights to “use” your pictures and other content. The way Flickr did when it started selling prints of users’ uploaded photos without paying anything to the users. (Okay, granted, Flickr stopped after massive outcry from those users. But the site’s licensing and terms of service did grant Flickr permission to do that; they weren’t doing anything illegal. It was just a PR problem.
Flickr’s mistake was doing this while the users most directly affected were still active users. Facebook, Google, Instagram, and all the others — they probably will wait till we’re dead. Then they’ll be able to find new and creative ways to monetize the stuff we’ve placed in their custody, and there will be no one with standing to complain. It’s all there in their terms of service.
So far as I can ascertain, shared links don’t endow social networks with any future publishing rights to text or images contained within the linked pages. These remain exclusively yours, unless and until you choose to license them otherwise. Far better in the long run!
Hi Gary! Yes, I have been meaning to do this for a while, as you know. And you have been pushing me to it too. But I was ambivalent about whether to keep using WordPress or migrate to Squarespace so didn’t want to create a big website and then get stuck with it. Finally, decided to stick with WP for a while and so it’s time to actually post everything here and then link it everywhere.
I didn’t know Flickr was doing that. Flickr is awful service. I used it for a few weeks and gave up. I still have a lot of content on G+ and elsewhere which I have to remove over time. The one site that doesn’t work well with linked content is Instagram. You just have to post the photos there and I don’t know how to circumvent that. It being a photo based network, I don’t want to ignore it. But I also don’t want to put everything there. I have deleted most of my photos from there but that kind of defeats the purpose of the site… Any ideas?
The Flickr row happened in late 2014. Here’s an article about it from The Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/dec/19/flickr-creative-commons-wall-art-licensing-row
Flickr is a service that facilitates and encourages use of the Creative Commons licensing service. Users uploading a photo can protect them with an “All Rights Reserved” copyright — but not all photographers want that. Many want their work used (even though for free) as widely as possible, to gain exposure. Or just for the satisfaction of knowing someone appreciates their talent. So there are differing levels of Creative Commons licenses.
You, Dev, know all about Creative Commons licenses — in fact, I think a lot of what I know I learned from you! But for anyone just tuning in, here’s an oversimplified summary: Most CC licenses require attribution; some also prohibit commercial use, or the creation of derivative images; and some involve a “share-alike” provision. (That is, anyone using it must license their product under the same terms as the original.) The versions that don’t explicitly *prohibit* commercial use explicitly allow it. And some photographers like the idea of seeing their work on a billboard, or a book cover, or whatnot — even if their aren’t getting paid.
But no one wanted to see Flickr take advantage of this loophole by selling the photos they were hosting. Especially without paying the providers. Although that’s technically within the terms one agrees to when uploading a photo that lacks the “non-commercial use” clause. So people were justifiably outraged.
Now Flickr, in its defense, does allow donors to restrict commercial use, or even to reserve all rights. And it respected that. Flickr was selling *only* those photos for which commercial use was specifically permitted. It backed down only because of the outcry, admitting its policy hadn’t been “within the spirit” of CC. It was certainly within the letter.
What troubles me is that photos we share via Facebook, Google Plus, Instagram, and the like give us no options. We can’t choose licenses comparable to the various Creative Commons levels. We simply grant Facebook (or whatever) a perpetual, non-revocable, unrestricted license to “use” our work. And to sub-license it to other parties as-yet-unknown! Many people defending those platforms say “use” simply means displaying the image in one’s newsfeed, backing it up as needed on the platform’s servers, and other necessary housekeeping. Perhaps that’s indeed the intent? But the Terms of Service don’t specify such uses or restrict them to housekeeping. They’re stated so broadly they could mean anything.
I don’t think Facebook will start blatantly selling photos uploaded by active users. FB is a lot more savvy and strategic than Flickr/Yahoo. But fast-forward a few years: Soon FB will be in custody of trillions of high-quality, historically priceless photos that have been *abandoned* by their donors. Because those donors will be dead. There will be nothing, and no one, to inhibit FB from selling those. Or monetizing them in myriad other ways. They’re in this for the long haul — and it’s a big haul indeed.