4 ms·

Would be, if copyright were implemented that way. But it's not - you signed over the right to control the stuff you put on Facebook as soon as you wrote it.

cinquemb 11y ago
Which is true, however facebook is incentivized to go after anyone who is successful at using that content on their on site (linking to profile photos). I learned this the hard way from a project I was working on that mined and crowd sourced personality information, where we shut down after a loss in traffic in response to a C & D from facebook to not link to photos (which disrupted how people engaged with the site). What we realized though, was that n-1 people truly don't care about ones own privacy, and because of this, if any laws people create to try to address this aren't reflective of what is possible in reality, it will be toothless (like when me and my friend got a request from CNIL, and basically ignored them with no consequences).
ZoFreX 11y ago
> you signed over the right to control the stuff you put on Facebook as soon as you wrote it. You still retain copyright on it, though.
- dkuntz2 11y ago
  But you've also given them a non-exclusive and irrevocable right to use it as they want (with limitations, you'd need to read their exact policy to be sure). So while you may retain the copyright, you could very easily have signed over permission to whatever company who's website you used to post it to use it however they want.
  - ZoFreX 11y ago
    > non-exclusive and irrevocable Perhaps you should read the Facebook terms and conditions before making arguments based on them ;)
  - tzs 11y ago
    > But you've also given them a non-exclusive and irrevocable right to use it as they want Such things are not actually irrevocable in the US, although they do last a long time. Starting 35 years after the grant of a transfer or license of copyright, there is a 5 year window during which the author can give written notice of termination, and the transfer or license ends. The author may do this regardless of any agreement to the contrary. This is codified at 17 USC 203 [1] for those who want the gory details. "copyright termination rights" is a good search term to find discussion and articles on this. Probably not much use in getting embarrassing content removed from a website that you unwisely licensed it to because after 35 years people have probably long forgotten about it unless it is really bad, in which case it has probably already harmed you as much as it can. It will be interesting to see if the termination right ever affects free/open source software. [1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/203 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/203
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
    - Flenser 11y ago
      > It will be interesting to see if the termination right ever affects free/open source software. I wonder if this could be tested with code assigned to Oracle? I bet there are contributors to OpenSolaris under CDDL that wouldn't mind testing it out.

cinquemb 11y ago

Which is true, however facebook is incentivized to go after anyone who is successful at using that content on their on site (linking to profile photos). I learned this the hard way from a project I was working on that mined and crowd sourced personality information, where we shut down after a loss in traffic in response to a C & D from facebook to not link to photos (which disrupted how people engaged with the site). What we realized though, was that n-1 people truly don't care about ones own privacy, and because of this, if any laws people create to try to address this aren't reflective of what is possible in reality, it will be toothless (like when me and my friend got a request from CNIL, and basically ignored them with no consequences).

ZoFreX 11y ago

> you signed over the right to control the stuff you put on Facebook as soon as you wrote it. You still retain copyright on it, though.

dkuntz2 11y ago
But you've also given them a non-exclusive and irrevocable right to use it as they want (with limitations, you'd need to read their exact policy to be sure). So while you may retain the copyright, you could very easily have signed over permission to whatever company who's website you used to post it to use it however they want.
- ZoFreX 11y ago
  > non-exclusive and irrevocable Perhaps you should read the Facebook terms and conditions before making arguments based on them ;)
- tzs 11y ago
  > But you've also given them a non-exclusive and irrevocable right to use it as they want Such things are not actually irrevocable in the US, although they do last a long time. Starting 35 years after the grant of a transfer or license of copyright, there is a 5 year window during which the author can give written notice of termination, and the transfer or license ends. The author may do this regardless of any agreement to the contrary. This is codified at 17 USC 203 [1] for those who want the gory details. "copyright termination rights" is a good search term to find discussion and articles on this. Probably not much use in getting embarrassing content removed from a website that you unwisely licensed it to because after 35 years people have probably long forgotten about it unless it is really bad, in which case it has probably already harmed you as much as it can. It will be interesting to see if the termination right ever affects free/open source software. [1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/203 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/203
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - Flenser 11y ago
    > It will be interesting to see if the termination right ever affects free/open source software. I wonder if this could be tested with code assigned to Oracle? I bet there are contributors to OpenSolaris under CDDL that wouldn't mind testing it out.