Sunday after the Thanksgiving Holiday, I was perusing through my Facebook account, and noticed a friend had posted something on her Wall regarding copyrighted material. Early the next day, I received a phone call/e-mail from another friend asking me what I thought about the Facebook copyright notice, and whether he should copy/paste it to his Wall. After reading the universal responses from Facebook, Snopes.com, and social media experts, I thought I would weigh in on the topic, because there are some key fundamental points being overlooked. As a reminder, here is what the copyright message said:
In response to the new Facebook guidelines I hereby declare that my copyright is attached to all of my personal details, illustrations, comics, paintings, professional photos and videos, etc. (as a result of the Berner Convention).
For commercial use of the above my written consent is needed at all times! (Anyone reading this can copy this text and paste it on their Facebook Wall. This will place them under protection of copyright laws. By the present communiqué, I notify Facebook that it is strictly forbidden to disclose, copy, distribute, disseminate, or take any other action against me on the basis of this profile and/or its contents. The aforementioned prohibited actions also apply to employees, students, agents and/or any staff under Facebook’s direction or control. The content of this profile is private and confidential information. The violation of my privacy is punished by law (UCC 1 1-308-308 1-103 and the Rome Statute). Facebook is now an open capital entity. All members are recommended to publish a notice like this, or if you prefer, you may copy and paste this version. If you do not publish a statement at least once, you will be tacitly allowing the use of elements such as your photos as well as the information contained in your profile status updates.
The approach Facebook, et al, took in debunking the validity of this message was to provide the public at-large with a basic lesson in licensing law – e.g. Facebook is granted, by you, a license to “use, distribute, and share the things you post, subject to the terms and applicable privacy settings.” Is a lesson on licensing rights sufficient? How is Facebook, as the licensee, able to dictate the terms upon which you, as the licensor, must abide with your intellectual property? Is there something to the essence of the Hoax? I know. I know. If you don’t like, then don’t use it.
Alternatively consider this, Facebook, and other Cloud-based service providers, want absolutely nothing to do with the ownership of your content. Reason being, there is too much inherent risk in owning user-submitted content. The regulatory menagerie would be very oppressive to an organization’s bottom-line. This is a very simple message, and one in which the public can easily understand.
Simply put, Facebook, et al, should come out and say that owning user-submitted content would subject us to regulatory oversight that would make business operations oppressive; and our core-business function is not the “stuff” you put in our Cloud, but the “things” you do once you are in our Cloud. That’s where the Golden Egg is for Facebook and other cloud-based service providers. The more “things” you do in our Cloud, the better we are able to analyze that data and service you.
Out of college, I worked for an e-media storage company, and our service agreements expressly limited our liability for loss of client data to the price of the media itself, not the content contained within. The rationale was simple, the more e-media stored in our vaults, the more money we made. Why have the headache of knowing/owning what was contained in the e-media? The message above is an ascertainable answer that will put the public at ease, and not generate panic and paranoia.