I assume there will be several other posts on this topic but I have to put my 2 cent in.
On February 4th Facebook made a unilateral change to its Privacy Policy and Terms of Service agreement. The social networking site changed the legalese on their site to essentially claim right to all user posted content on their site forever. The gist was that even after deactivating your Facebook account your content, information, and pictures would still be at their full disposal to do what they please. For further reference I have found off of Fox News' site Facebook's exact words on the subject.
"You hereby grant Facebook an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to (a) use, copy, publish, stream, store, retain, publicly perform or display, transmit, scan, reformat, modify, edit, frame, translate, excerpt, adapt, create derivative works and distribute (through multiple tiers), any User Content you (i) Post on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof subject only to your privacy settings or (ii) enable a user to Post, including by offering a Share Link on your website and (b) to use your name, likeness and image for any purpose, including commercial or advertising, each of (a) and (b) on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof."
The founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg says this change was only made to "enhance the user experience" but that isn't the whole story, it never is. Zuckerberg stated in his blog post that the changes were made in response to some issues about who controlled content on and linking to their site. If a way for them to clarify what they control on their site is to claim ownership to everything posted then they went a bit far.
There are numerious issues related to copyrighted material on the internet. This is just one of the many early privacy disputes that will end up occuring. Companies like Facebook are just trying to gather as much information up as possible before someone notices. Unfortunately for Facebook people did notice and thanks to public outcry they were force to revert to their old TOS agreement for time being. The ony reason a public outcry worked was because Facebook has not been bought yet. If Google had come in and changed things around I don't know if they ever would have reverted. Facebook's change in agreements said that they had an international fully paid licence to users content. This goes well beyond protecting themselves, they tried to issue themselves a proprietary licence for all content on their site. They wanted unconditional ability to do anything with your picture or what you said to your friend, is this the kind of world were living in?
Yes it is. In todays world information is power and access to the number of consumers Facebook has is considered gold. Companies want increasing amounts of data from all sources on everything from sales to consumer psycho-graphics. Sites like Facebook will be primed sources in the future if they can spin the appropriate amount of legalese in their Terms of Service agreement. What is next are they going to change privacy policy and start tracking peoples every move on their site, on the internet?
The new frontier for legal issues is the internet with its file sharing capability and everyone depositing their personal information on at least one internet site. Ownership of content, privacy rights, copyrights and licensing issues have become the main points of contention for companies on the internet.
The illegal downloading of music is a major issue on the internet but privacy policy is right up there. People's right to keep their information to themselves is at odds with the very companies they patronize. These companies want to know anything and everything about you so they can better sell you their products. Today databases are a valued commodity and your information could be in one of many for sale to the highest bidder or for whoever can afford to pay.
There is even a crack down on illegal downloading in Sweden. An expert testified on behalf of the major music publishers in the United States. He blamed pirating and sharing for the nine billion dollar drop in sales over 7 years for the major record companies. The site "Pirate Bay" is being sued for breaking Swedish copyright law. Illegal downloading is at the forefront of this conflict over ownership on the internet. The music companies are seeking around thirteen million in damages from the people that run Pirate Bay.
Who owns what is a big deal on the internet today with all of the sharing and collaboration going on there can be doubt as to who has the rights to certain material. These issues have started the legal battle over the internet and its effect on copyrights, trademarks, and patents. When referring to something found on the internet it could have travel through many people before reaching the user. These gray areas have allowed file sharing sites to get away with limited amounts of illegal downloading before getting suit or shut down. The future will hold some interesting challenges to a persons right to privacy on the most public medium yet.
