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It's Me, In an Ad, On Facebook. Is This Legal? Allowed? Who Knows?
- Dramatize 15y agoI'd be interested in Noah's response.
- wacheena 15y agoNoah's pretty active on HN (at least reading), so I expect he'll chime in soon.
- plasma 15y agoI'm not a lawyer, but I don't think you can make money off someone's "likeness" (eg, a photo!) without their content? Especially a portrait shot.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- jdp23 15y agoDisappointing to see AppSumo using people's photos without permission.
- thinkcomp 15y agoThis is pretty clear copyright infringement. Whoever took the picture owns the copyright. Being a public figure would matter if this were a first amendment free speech issue, but it's not. It's just a plain violation of the Lanham Act, both due to the copyright infringement (17 U.S.C. §§ 101 et seq) and because of the false advertising claim (15 U.S.C. § 1125(a)(1)(B)) you could make because of the impression that the person endorses the ad (but I'm not a lawyer, for the record). So no, it's not legal, and illegal acts should not be allowed by any company's terms of service. It's also ironic given how Facebook got its start (i.e. Facemash), which was by misusing photos copyrighted by Harvard.
- w1ntermute 15y agoBut doesn't Facebook claim ownership of the copyright if you upload a photo to its site?
- thinkcomp 15y agoI don't know. But it doesn't matter. It's an AppSumo ad.
- kmavm 15y agoNo. https://www.facebook.com/help/?faq=12008 https://www.facebook.com/help/?faq=12008 http://www.quora.com/Who-owns-the-photos-I-put-on-Facebook http://www.quora.com/Who-owns-the-photos-I-put-on-Facebook
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- troels 15y agoHow could they? He says clearly that the copyright is held by a photographer - not him self.
- darklajid 15y agoIgnoring the other answers about the legal aspect: He _didn't_ upload that picture to Facebook anyway. The article states, that this was the cover picture of one of his books.
- edanm 15y agoHe doesn't say that it wasn't uploaded to Facebook, he says it wasn't a profile picture. I would think this was a nitpick, except he specifically said "not a profile picture" so my guess is he did upload it to Facebook.
- stevenp 15y agoThis is not the first time that AppSumo has run an ad with a person's likeness. When a public figure has a fan page, I think it's safe to say that it's fair game (per Facebook's TOS) for Facebook advertisers to target fans of that person. I get targeted ads for authors and bands all the time that use a similar tactic. It's actually not that different from someone buying a Google ad using your name. I think what was jarring to Battelle was that he thought that AppSumo was targeting his friends, and not his "fans".
- forgotAgain 15y agoI think what was jarring was that AppSumo was trying to make people believe that Battelle was associated with and/or endorsed their product.
- siculars 15y agoI'm sure we'll hear from Noah soon enough...
- WordSkill 15y agoThis doesn't surprise me in the least, Appsumo is a pretty scummy operation, regardless of how much PR effort they put into cultivating the HN audience.
- techiferous 15y agoWhat have they done that is scummy?
- diolpah 15y agoTry signing up for their spamletter. Then try reading halfway through their incredibly annoying spam when you get it. It reads like the transcription of a carnival barker. I don't know if their practices are actually scummy. But their communication definitely has the same feel as most scummy MLM materials.
- alanfalcon 15y agoThey're trying to mimic the supposed charm of the Groupon deals, but don't seem to have the skill to do so in a way that's widely appealing. YMMV as to whether Groupon has or ever had said skill themselves.
- desigooner 15y agoNot too long ago they advertised a deal that used Tim Ferriss' name to the material/product being advertised but then sent out an email next day or so that apologized for "mistakenly" associating Tim Ferriss with the deal when in fact he wasn't.
- nhebb 15y agoEarlier this year I unsubscribed from their newsletter. The unsubscribe page had a feedback survey stating that a reason was required. That really put me off. You can't require someone to give you feedback in order to unsubscribe from a newsletter (it may a violation of canspam, as well). I tweeted about it. They tweeted back an apology, saying it would be changed, but by that time the damage was done re my image of the company.
- fascinated 15y agoIs declaring "Facebook bankruptcy" cool? I thought JB knew about this stuff?
- johnbattelle 15y agoWell...I do "know" about it. It's just that I have not found the time to fix it. I hope to.
- johnbattelle 15y agoGuys, I think, no matter how "nice" AppSumo is in deflecting this stuff, the fact is, they've done it before, and they keep doing it. It's shady, and it's rather lame.
- orijing 15y agoPer Facebook's advertising guidelines [1]: Copyrights and trademarks Ads cannot include any content that infringes upon the rights of any third party, including copyright, trademark, privacy, publicity or other personal or proprietary right. The advertiser must have intellectual property rights to the creative and be permitted to display such creative as advertising on the Facebook Site. So yes, it is clearly not allowed, assuming that the copyright holder has not given the advertiser the permission to use his picture. [1] https://www.facebook.com/ad_guidelines.php https://www.facebook.com/ad_guidelines.php
- Confusion 15y agoIt's a disruptive, unorthodox, mischievous public relations hack. Also a legal and moral hack. Or at least, that's probably how they feel about it. This is the dark side of thinking outside of the established box: sometimes it's not that others don't see the outside of the box: it's that, on average, we don't want anyone to go outside the box in that way. Remember: getting away with murder is hacking the justice system.
- paisible 15y agoNot really surprised, I just went to unsusbcribe from their newsletter this morning, was getting increasingly tired of their over the top sales shpeel.