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Meercat

Facebook, photographs and copyright laws

Anyone know the deal with photos posted on facebook?

A photo taken by my girlfriend has been taken from facebook and printed by a national tabloid (with a totally ficticious story).

It is now copyrighted by Cavendish Press as well.

I'm guessing that she gave up all rights when she put it on facebook?
George

Interesting this one, a quick read of the terms indicates that no, facebook does not gain rights to photos you upload:

Quote:
We respect the intellectual property rights of others and we prohibit users from uploading, posting or otherwise transmitting on the Facebook website or service any materials that violate another party's intellectual property rights.


And they say to do this: click.
JAW

Wow, seems pretty interesting. Does this happen with flickr too?

Let us know if she takes em to court or something!
Meercat

Yeah, I'll let you know the outcome.

We've emailed Cavendish Press, the Daily Star and the journalist who wrote the article so far. Also looking into legal advice.
George

I think stuff like Flickr it remains your copyright, which is why they put the terms when you enter the Flickr 4 thing.
JAW

Meercat wrote:
We've emailed Cavendish Press, the Daily Star and the journalist who wrote the article so far.

The daily star eh? What sort of picture was it!!??  Laughing  (just kidding)
George

JAW wrote:
Meercat wrote:
We've emailed Cavendish Press, the Daily Star and the journalist who wrote the article so far.

The daily star eh? What sort of picture was it!!??  Laughing  (just kidding)


Don't say that it was his off his girlfriends' facebook ha!
mikedeere

Re: Facebook, photographs and copyright laws

Meercat wrote:
It is now copyrighted by Cavendish Press as well.


Err, no it's not. The photo remains the copyright of whoever took the photo, unless they take that photo as part of a contract for someone... Or it's of a copyrighted building.

Definitely look into that, journalists are becoming bigger and bigger c*nts for image theft these days.

Facebook Terms of Use wrote:
You are solely responsible for the photos, profiles (including your name, image, and likeness), messages, notes, text, information, music, video, advertisements, listings, and other content that you upload, publish or display (hereinafter, "post") on or through the Service or the Site, or transmit to or share with other users (collectively the "User Content"). You may not post, transmit, or share User Content on the Site or Service that you did not create or that you do not have permission to post. You understand and agree that the Company may, but is not obligated to, review the Site and may delete or remove (without notice) any Site Content or User Content in its sole discretion, for any reason or no reason, including User Content that in the sole judgment of the Company violates this Agreement or the Facebook Code of Conduct, or which might be offensive, illegal, or that might violate the rights, harm, or threaten the safety of users or others. You are solely responsible at your sole cost and expense for creating backup copies and replacing any User Content you post or store on the Site or provide to the Company.

When you post User Content to the Site, you authorize and direct us to make such copies thereof as we deem necessary in order to facilitate the posting and storage of the User Content on the Site. By posting User Content to any part of the Site, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to the Company an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such User Content for any purpose, commercial, advertising, or otherwise, on or in connection with the Site or the promotion thereof, to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such User Content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing. You may remove your User Content from the Site at any time. If you choose to remove your User Content, the license granted above will automatically expire, however you acknowledge that the Company may retain archived copies of your User Content. Facebook does not assert any ownership over your User Content; rather, as between us and you, subject to the rights granted to us in these Terms, you retain full ownership of all of your User Content and any intellectual property rights or other proprietary rights associated with your User Content.


Facebook basically says it can use your content how it wants, but doesn't own it.

As for third-parties (such as Press) using images from Facebook, just because a photo (or other content) is published to a website in public domain it doesn't mean that that photo is not subject to copyright and other terms of usage.

Hence third parties have no right to be using your images from Facebook or any other website for that matter, unless it explicitly states alongside that image that it is either free to use, or subject to a creative commons license. Which on Facebook, it isn't.

Good luck with suing their asses, they can't be allowed to get away with this kind of thing, it's disgusting and they need to be shown that they can't get away with it.
Meercat

Thanks for the info Mike, that's very helpful.

And to put JAW & George's filthy little minds at rest Wink , the photo is neither of my girlfriend in the buff, nor is it of my knob (although it is technically of a knob). A friend of ours is on The Apprentice and it was a very poorly constructed story about him, using a picture that my girlfriend had of him.
JAW

No, i was only kidding - it was just funny that it happened to be the daily star that nicked it! A paper like the telegraph probably wouldn't do that sort of thing any way, though you never know.

Keep us posted on what happens!!
George

Good way to save money, I doubt many people (even if they realise) can be bothered to sue or even contact a lawyer about it!
Meercat

Mmm, Cavendish Press phoned my girlfriend today and said that she didn't really have a leg to stand on - the parents of a girl killed by a rottweiller apparently tried to sue the Mail for the same thing and lost. He said that scouts scan facebook and take images. He said he'd write her a cheque for £150 (what he claims the Daily Star paid him for the image) right then and there because he didn't want any bad feelings. She asked him to put the offer in writing but he refused, saying that would be an acceptance of guilt.

If she doesn't have a leg to stand on, why the offer of money?

Kind of confused. We haven't taken legal advice, just really wanted to complain and see what happened. We're going to turn the money down and see what happens next.

Pretty easy business, scanning facebook. stealing images and flogging them to nationals.
JAW

Hmm... i could see my self getting rich off that!

I wonder if he was scared so just tried to put you off by saying you wouldn't stand a chance. I probably would have accepted the £150 cheque though, but that's because i'm lazy. You might get a whole lot more by pursuing it, though it's a bit of a gamble.
Meercat

That's the trouble. We are also very lazy!
Hamish

Meercat wrote:
Mmm, Cavendish Press phoned my girlfriend today and said that she didn't really have a leg to stand on - the parents of a girl killed by a rottweiller apparently tried to sue the Mail for the same thing and lost. He said that scouts scan facebook and take images.


Bollox. Surely that's illegal under copyright law according to the terms on facebook. Stop being lazy and sue the fuckers.
George

Should've taken it then kept going, as it wasn't in writing he wouldn't have a leg to stand on if he tried to get that cheque to stop you taking them to court.
Meercat

George wrote:
Should've taken it then kept going, as it wasn't in writing he wouldn't have a leg to stand on if he tried to get that cheque to stop you taking them to court.


Realised that afetr we sent the email!

Daily Star just offered to double the fee that they were going to pay Cavendish Press in full and final settlement. We'll probably accept that and still continue with Cavendish press.

Its all quite interesting (not to mention profitable)!
JAW

Sounds good to me! Just convince the girlfriend that if it wasn't for you there'd be no cheque from the Star & she might give you half the cash...
Meercat

Joint account Very Happy

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