Developing: Pakistani Plane Escorted by UK Fighter Jets — 2 Men Arrested

Listen to the Buck Sexton Show Live on TheBlaze Radio

Technology

Popular Photo Site Instagram Unveils Alarming New Policy: It Could Sell Your Pics Unless You Delete Your Account by Jan. 16

Dec. 18, 2012 10:30am Liz Klimas

The popular photo filter and sharing app Instagram updated its use policies Monday with a provision that has users up in arms: It can sell user photos without paying or telling them.

One user Clayton Cubitt has called it ”Instagram’s suicide note.”

Instagram Users Upset Over Terms of Use Update That Allows It to Sell Photos Without Compensation

(Image: Wikimedia)

The updated Terms of Service includes the following (Editor’s note: emphasis added):

Instead, you hereby grant to Instagram a non-exclusive, fully paid and royalty-free, transferable, sub-licensable, worldwide license to use the Content that you post on or through the Service, except that you can control who can view certain of your Content and activities on the Service as described in the Service’s Privacy Policy, available here:http://instagram.com/legal/privacy/.

[...]

To help us deliver interesting paid or sponsored content or promotions, you agree that a business or other entity may pay us to display your username, likeness, photos (along with any associated metadata), and/or actions you take, in connection with paid or sponsored content or promotions, without any compensation to you.

A photo like this was filtered using Instagram. It shows a racegoer during the Crown Oaks Day at Flemington Racecourse on November 8, 2012 in Melbourne, Australia. (Photo: Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)

CNET reported Electronic Frontier Foundation senior staff attorney Kurt Opsahl dissecting what this means, saying “it’s asking people to agree to unspecified future commercial use of their photos.”

Not only are users upset that they wouldn’t be compensated for photos of theirs that are sold, but there are privacy implications as well. As CNET puts it, what if there were children in the photo of beautiful Waikiki beach that was sold to a resort without the parent’s permission?

In its blog post, Instagram wrote the changes are effective as of Jan. 16, so users have until then to delete their account or be subject to the new agreement. Many have said they want to do just that:

Instagram Users Upset Over Terms of Use Update That Allows It to Sell Photos Without Compensation

And Wired wrote up a quick how-to to help users download their photos and delete accounts:

First you’ll want to download all of your photos. Instaport will download your entire Instagram photo library in just a few minutes. Currently the service only offers a zip file download of your photos, although direct export to Flickr and Facebook are in the works.

[...]

After you’ve removed your photos from Instagram, you can quickly delete your account and pretend you’ve never even heard of Lo-Fi filter.

Word of warning though, once you delete your account, you will not be able to reactivate it or establish it again in the same name.

Still, CNET pointed out that just because this text is in the terms of use, doesn’t mean that Facebook/Instagram will actually go forward with selling your photos.

Gizmodo too makes some valid points as to why it believes fans should stop whining about the new measures:

What none of these hair-pulling photo-sharing apocalypse-moaners neglect to mention is that Instagram’s a business. A business that charges nothing for something that millions of people use constantly.

[...]

So it has three options.

Instagram can charge you to download it, in which case, nobody will download it anymore.

Instagram can charge you a subscription to use it, in which case everyone who has downloaded it will stop using it.

Or, Instagram can figure out a way to license the throwaway pictures you capture with 90 seconds of mental activity throughout the day, because it’s not a photographic non-profit, and needs some way of keeping its meager staff of ten people from being evicted.

Gawker reported Samford University Law School professor Woodrow Hartzog saying Instagram does need to establish some copyright control over its user’s photos, but he added “it is fair to question the scope of many of these terms as potentially outside of the realm of what is required to operate. It’s no secret that users rarely read and understand these terms, so companies have little incentive to draft user-friendly agreements.”

In August, Facebook purchased Instagram for (insert Dr. Evil’s voice from Austin Powers) $1 billion.

Benghazi, IRS, AP...What's next? Only TheBlaze TV offers the truth from Glenn Beck, Andrew Wilkow, and Real News from TheBlaze. Get instant access and a free trial here.

Back to The Blaze »

Comments (25)

FeralHuman
Posted on December 19, 2012 at 5:36am
I left Netflix when they doubled the price I was paying sometime in 2011. I do not do FaKeBook nor twitter. Never heard of the Instagram. I do not even want to put my back up on Carbonite, I do not want to use the cloud, do not use my smartphone for anything except phone calling and texting, that may even be dangerous. I got a very good deal on the smartphone, I only pay 19. dollars per month for unlimited calls and texts with Republic wireless. I have a home phone called Majic Jack, have no pay cable tv, only pay for internet. Had to cut back after somebody elected a muslim in ’08.

Report this comment
Log in to Reply Reply
Sparhawk
Posted on December 18, 2012 at 11:13pm
Instagram is now owned by FaceBook, and FaceBook’s Terms of Service ( https://www.facebook.com/legal/terms ) includes the following:
“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.”

Report this comment
Log in to Reply Reply
TheCalmOne
Posted on December 18, 2012 at 3:33pm
I love that photo of the hat.

Report this comment
Log in to ReplyReply
- Kaoscontrol
  Posted on December 18, 2012 at 6:20pm
  Yeh…I’m downloading that photo so I can sell it!…wait… I don’t own the copyright– that would be wrong!
  
  Report this comment
skunk
Posted on December 18, 2012 at 3:07pm
Instagram account deleted. I also have a feeling that this change that they are imposing on their users will change pretty quickly.

Report this comment
Log in to Reply Reply
cknapp
Posted on December 18, 2012 at 2:38pm
I am 51 and do not download files for free, I pay for software, music, videos, etc. I do not work for free, why would anyone else expect someone to provide goods and services (Facebook, Instagram, etc.) for Free? Oh, I see, Liberals who never learned to keep score when paying soccer, who never learned how to lose graciously because they never learned how to win graciously….etc., etc.

I pay Carbonite to back up 2Tb of data to “the cloud”, I pay FLICKR for the Pro service of unlimited photo uploads (over 4,000 to date), I pay for Anti-Virus software, etc., etc.

Report this comment
Log in to ReplyReply
- Brooke Lorren
  Posted on December 23, 2012 at 3:44pm
  You don’t pay to use the Blaze, do you?
  
  I provide a lot of content that is free to users. I’m not doing it out of the goodness of my heart though. Content providers do make money.
  
  Instagram is trying to find a way to profit from their service. Claiming copyright to other people’s work is not the answer, and probably wouldn’t hold up in court.
  
  Report this comment
Matt
Posted on December 18, 2012 at 2:09pm
Yes, Gizmodo, Instagram does need to “be profitable”. Except that they really don’t. Facebook already bought them. Facebook should just use it to increase it’s bottom line in the same way that Google uses it’s free products. Make Facebook and Instagram a single product, and you will have facebook’s revenue streams being bolstered by increased instagram use. In fact, most people I know who do a lot of instagramming rarely, if ever log on to their facebook. This would definitely work to bolster eyeball time on facebook ads.

Report this comment
Log in to Reply Reply
Matt
Posted on December 18, 2012 at 2:03pm
Just finished deleting my account. I give them a week before they re-neg on this new policy.

Report this comment
Log in to Reply Reply
Magyar
Posted on December 18, 2012 at 12:18pm
What’s the big damn deal– cancel the account and find another. If this company wants to make the biggest most idiotic business decision ever—LET THEM!

Report this comment
Log in to Reply Reply
ThroughTheLies80
Posted on December 18, 2012 at 11:50am
So what happens when someone has uploaded someone else’s copyrighted picture to their Instagram account and then Instagram sells that picture because they think they own the rights to it? I see a lot of legal issue arising from this.

Report this comment
Log in to ReplyReply
- Brooke Lorren
  Posted on December 19, 2012 at 1:04pm
  This is an issue that has yet to be addressed by the courts. Other companies, like Facebook and Pinterest, have similar TOU, although they haven’t come out and said that they claim the right to sell our work outright.
  
  As someone that makes money from my photos and other work that I put online, I would certainly be contacting my lawyer if someone posted photos that I took and started selling them. It helps that my husband will be a lawyer, so it would be easy for me, and it would most likely be a small claims court case, but at some point, it is likely that these kinds of TOU will end up in court.
  
  Report this comment
BasketFullOfPuppies
Posted on December 18, 2012 at 11:26am
If a hard disk manufacturer told you that it had free license over anything that you put on the disk, would you still buy it?

As for the idea that they could change their service terms to make copyright infringement part of their service as a business, that is asinine BS.

Part of being a “business” is determining your model before you enter into the world. Changes to your business model are to be expected. But, if a dry cleaner were to suddenly state that 1/10th of all clothes he cleaned, were to become his property, he wouldn’t last very long.

If Instagram survives this, it is proof positive that we need to change the way that people are informed of privacy policy changes.

Report this comment
Log in to Reply Reply
blanco5
Posted on December 18, 2012 at 11:09am
It’s their business and they can make the rules. You can look elsewhere or try to create your own. At least they gave a warning so people can delete the accounts. Facebook is also an area where people cry out and even the BLAZE censors, but again, it’s THEIR business and they can run it how they want.

Report this comment
Log in to ReplyReply
- richard the lion-hearted
  Posted on December 18, 2012 at 11:31am
  It may be their business but it in no way gives them the right to distribute your information, their excuse is lame, advertising is sold without such infringement based on how many people visit or use the product. This mentality by citizens to just freely give up their privacy is not only foolish, but dangerous. You will be the first in the sights of the government soon because they will have more info about you than those who practice restraint from feel-good, non-essential crap like intsagram.
  
  Report this comment
- richard the lion-hearted
  Posted on December 18, 2012 at 11:39am
  Oh one more piece of info, my sister-in-law who still uses facebook told me that while in “private conversation” with someone, the topics of which they discuss appear in some form of ad in real time while they are typing along the side columns of the page. There is no privacy on any of these sites, tread carefully with what you expose of yourself…Lord help us!
  
  Report this comment
- blanco5
  Posted on December 18, 2012 at 1:12pm
  Richard—we are on the same page (no pun intended). I don’t do instagram. I understand your concerns and I agree. Unfortunately, they probably warn of this in very small print that very few read and abide by. Now on Facebook—I probably am one of the first to get to go to the internment camps. I will save you a scrap of bread when you get there!!!!
  
  Report this comment
- richard the lion-hearted
  Posted on December 19, 2012 at 1:21am
  Geez…I hope it’s wheat BLANCO5. Truth be told, the comments we type here are being carefully explicated by Homeland Security, AKA: GOVERNMENT SECURITY.
  
  Report this comment
biohazard23
Posted on December 18, 2012 at 10:56am
WTF is Instagram?

Report this comment
Log in to ReplyReply
- JRook
  Posted on December 18, 2012 at 11:08am
  So how is this different from any number of web sites, including this one that receive money from third party cookie companies that collect information, create profiles and sell those profiles. 22+ third party cookies on last count are loaded when you come to this site.
  
  Report this comment
- biohazard23
  Posted on December 18, 2012 at 11:19am
  No, really, what the heck is Instagram? I don’t use any of those social networking site thingies. I’ve heard of this one, but I have no idea what it does.
  
  Report this comment
- The-Monk
  Posted on December 18, 2012 at 11:25am
  Morning Biohazard23,
  
  Hope all is well with you today. : )
  
  Report this comment
- biohazard23
  Posted on December 18, 2012 at 11:30am
  Hey, Monk! Good morning to you, too! How’s things? Hope you’re not getting a lump of coal in your stocking this year. :)
  
  Report this comment
SeekerEmerald
Posted on December 18, 2012 at 10:38am
I don’t use instagram much, but I am a photographer, and photographer’s rights are a BIG deal for me. They could write this agreement in such a way as to be able to make money without going to the this extreme degree.

Report this comment
Log in to ReplyReply
- bpodlesnik
  Posted on December 18, 2012 at 10:50am
  I will no longer have an instagram after this week, which is unfortunate, because I really liked it.
  
  Report this comment

It appears that you have Javascript Disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser preferences for a better user experience on TheBlaze. You can not comment without Javascript enabled.