We set up Broadstuff on Facebook a few weeks back, to experiment with how one type of social media interacts with another. We also set up a group in Twitter.
Its been an interesting experience, but one of the issues that emerges as one publishes more material on the site, is that question of "just whose stuff is this" becomes more pressing. With respect to copyright,
Facebook's FAQ says:
You retain the copyright to your content. When you
upload your content you grant us a license to use and display
your content. For more information please visit our Terms of
Use, which contain a link to our Copyright Policy and other
important information about your privileges and responsibilities
as a Facebook user.
All very nice...but, when you dig into the
Terms and Conditions, they say:
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 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.
Words like irrevocable, perpetual, worldwide, sublicence rights and "any purpose" are quite worrying.
Don't get us wrong, we went into this with eyes open, the point we're making is that a month down the line, when you add up the content our blog alone has given Facebook, thats quite a lot of material. Does it matter - not yet, but at some point it probably will - imagine for example that we become Global Gurus, and our mojo is sought from the millions....Facebook has automatic rights to rush to market worldwide with our own work as vodcasts, podcasts, books, whatever.
Or, cometh the Facebook monetisation, the ability to grab and manipulate a lot of media and data for free (eg photos etc) would be potentially fairly valuable.
(Note today....Google is
fighting attempts to make it remove its data after a time period)
An alternative is our approach to Twitter, where we basically post the heading and the url of the post, so the content is not published on Twitter per se - less satisfying perhaps as its a 2 click read, but its certainly far clearer who has the rights, albeit creative commons ones.
Forrester does not apparently like the term User in matters Social Networking or User Generated, and prefer the term "customer", or even "friend" We quite agree with the user bit, but demur re Friends...the correct term of course is "sucker" As in:
Tracked: Jul 25, 20:49
Why would anyone do this, I hear you ask? Well, take one look at the IP rules in Facebook, not to mention its "black hole" messaging properties and you begin to see why. There are two useful articles on TechCrunch on the various options available today
Tracked: Aug 15, 11:04
...maybe the kids will take notice. Danah Boyd called it about right on Facebook. She raises the same issues we have been raising over the last few months. I am utterly confused by the ways in which the tech industry fetishizes Facebook. There's no dou
Tracked: Sep 06, 22:16
Yesterday furious debate was joined on that Ad platform, and in essence we think that Facebook are currently trying to be too supply sided on their interpretation of social net advertising (missing the cluetrain), and that - in our view anyway - social ne
Tracked: Nov 08, 17:39
As we consult in the area of new media we felt it would be useful to at least have gone through the process of setting up a Facebook Page (not a Profile, a Page - for a Business). We decided to set up our Blog (Broadstuff) rather than the company (Bro
Tracked: Nov 13, 10:53
So...the Broadstuff Blog was disabled from Facebook today. Checked the FAQ as requested, and it says: Disabled Why was my account disabled? Your account was disabled because you violated Facebookâs Terms of Use, to which you agreed when you first
Tracked: Nov 19, 16:45
Went to an interesting NMK event last night - PR in the Wild - to hear 3 people I respect speak - Sarah Ogden and Will McInness of the Brighton Mafia (Midnight Comms and NixonMcInness respectively), and Drew Benzie whose blog I follow. Topic was the chang
Tracked: Nov 21, 10:55
A fascinating article in the Guardian today, essentially accusing Facebook of being a front for a US NeoCon / Libertarian political agenda. Some beautiful quotes: Clearly, Facebook is another uber-capitalist experiment: can you make money out of friend
Tracked: Jan 14, 10:23