In a sudden pursuit to protect their privacy, it appears that several of my Facebook friends and their friends, even those whom are neither lawyers, nor enrolled in law school, have become experts in copyright law. It seems that they have miraculously received their J.D.’s overnight and have started posting notices such as the one below:
“Better safe than sorry is right. Channel 13 News was just talking about this change in Facebook’s privacy policy. As of September 26th, 2015 at 01:16 a.m. Eastern standard time, I do not give Facebook or any entities associated with Facebook permission to use my pictures, information, or posts, both past and future. By this statement, I give notice to Facebook it is strictly forbidden to disclose, copy, distribute, or take any other action against me based on this profile and/or its contents. The content of this profile is private and confidential information. The violation of privacy can be punished by law (UCC 1-308- 1 1 308-103 and the Rome Statute). NOTE: Facebook is now a public entity. All members must post a note like this. If you prefer, you can copy and paste this version. If you do not publish a statement at least once it will be tactically allowing the use of your photos, as well as the information contained in the profile status updates. DO NOT SHARE. You MUST copy and paste!”[1]
Amazing! I wish I knew about this overnight J.D. program. It would have helped me avoid thousands of dollars in student loans and countless hours of studying for the LSAT, law school applications and attending classes at GW Law. I should probably consider changing my career path, as I can forget about any future job prospects when I graduate with all these overnight lawyers! All kidding aside, what’s the deal with these notices? Are they valid? Let’s see.
It appears that someone started the Facebook copyright notice as a hoax. By reading the post on their News Feed, some Facebook users appear to have shared it themselves and added the post to their profiles, claiming that their “pictures, information or posts, both past and future,” may not be used by Facebook or any other entity associated with Facebook.
Facebook commented on the hoax when it previously made it’s rounds, in a 2012 post, stating that “There is a rumor circulating that Facebook is making a change related to ownership of users’ information or the content they post to the site. This is false. Anyone who uses Facebook owns and controls the content and information they post, as stated in our terms.”[2]
Section 2 of Facebook’s Statement of Rights and Responsibility about “Sharing Your Content and Information,”[3] states the following:
You own all of the content and information you post on Facebook, and you can control how it is shared through your privacy and application settings. In addition:
- 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 unless your content has been shared with others, and they have not deleted it.[4]
- 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).[5]
- When you use an application, the application may ask for your permission to access your content and information as well as content and information that others have shared with you. We require applications to respect your privacy, and your agreement with that application will control how the application can use, store, and transfer that content and information. (To learn more about Platform, including how you can control what information other people may share with applications, read our Data Policy and Platform Page.)[6]
- When you publish content or information using the Public setting, it means that you are allowing everyone, including people off of Facebook, to access and use that information, and to associate it with you (i.e., your name and profile picture).[7]
We always appreciate your feedback or other suggestions about Facebook, but you understand that we may use your feedback or suggestions without any obligation to compensate you for them (just as you have no obligation to offer them).[8]
Paragraph (1) of Facebook’s guidelines (above) makes it pretty clear that the user by posting content on Facebook, is granting Facebook “the non-exclusive, transferable, sub licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any IP content that that you post or in connection with Facebook (IP License),” unless the user has limited their post or content by changing their privacy settings.[9]
Provided that you are the rightful owner of the content being posted on Facebook, according to Facebook’s policy, you retain ownership when you post it on Facebook. However, you are granting Facebook the license to use any content that is shared and has not been limited under your privacy settings as visible to “Friends” or “Only Me.” Additionally, any content you have shared with friends, if they re-share, and have their privacy setting set to “Public,” then your “Friends” privacy setting is irrelevant and the information will be available to the public, anyone on or off Facebook as referenced in Paragraph 4 above, in Facebook’s guidelines.[10] While you may retain ownership, the content will likely be copied and shared by others, all because you posted on your profile, even if your intent was to share it with a limited audience.
When a user deletes their protected content from Facebook, according to Paragraph 2 of Facebook’s guidelines, the information, while not visible to the public may still exist in Facebook’s servers for a period of time.[11] If the deleted information has previously been re-shared by a friend on Facebook when the user originally posted the content, it will continue to exist on Facebook without being deleted.
If users utilize third party applications through Facebook and provided data, including photos and videos or any other information within the application, a new user agreement formed when the user initially signs up for the application. The new agreement will control how the application can use, store, and transfer that content and information as highlighted in Paragraph 3 of Facebook’s guidelines.[12]
To conclude, users of Facebook voluntarily decided to use Facebook and therefore agreed to grant them a license if they share content on their site in accordance with their guidelines, which they have stated how they intend to utilize the information users share. If users of Facebook don’t want their intellectual property shared on Facebook, it is likely best not to share it. For additional information on how to protect your data on Facebook, please see Facebook’s Data Policy here.