6: Tute Task

Who owns the content you put on the internet on various sites (this includes pictures, video, text, etc)? Think about all the content you upload onto social networking sites - Do you own it? Who has the right to use your creations?
I had always assumed I owned everything I posted online. Apparently I'm wrong.

According to User Generated Content and Terms of Service - Who Owns Your Stuff?, a blog post on Digital Technology by founder Amit Agarwal, the content you post online may not be yours once it has been posted onto the web. The post looks at the ownership of content posted on some of the largest blogging, content sharing and social networking sites on the internet including Facebook and YouTube.

I have gone to the main sites and looked up their T&C's:

• Facebook
  You own all of the content and information you post on Facebook, and you can control how it is shared through your privacy and application settings. In addition...
  
  The terms go on to basically say you give them permission to use all of your content, subject to your 'privacy and application settings', of course.
  
  
  
• YouTube
  For clarity, you retain all of your ownership rights in your Content. However, by submitting Content to YouTube, you hereby grant YouTube a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicenseable and transferable license to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, publish, adapt, make available online or electronically transmit..."
  
  Just another way of saying they have rights over your content... Scary, isn't it?
  
  
  
• Blogger
  Google claims no ownership or control over any Content submitted, posted or displayed by you on or through Google services. You or a third party licensor, as appropriate, retain all patent, trademark and copyright to any Content you submit, post or display on or through Google services and you are responsible for protecting those rights, as appropriate.
  
  Finally! Something that doesn't have control over the reproduction of personal content posted online! What? Keep reading? Hmm ok...
  
  By submitting, posting or displaying Content on or through Google services which are intended to be available to the members of the public, you grant Google a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to reproduce, publish and distribute such Content on Google services for the purpose of displaying and distributing Google services.
  
  So turns out Blogger is the same as all the other online companies that reserve the right to reproduce your content "royalty-free"...
  

Do we ever really know what we're agreeing to when we press "I Accept These Terms & Conditions"?

It is worrying to realise that these online companies can take our words and images and use them to increase their bottom-line. It is a good idea to check the privacy settings of your various social networking pages to limit the amount of personal information they have rights over.

Researching this topic I was reminded of a story I heard last year about an American family whose Christmas card family photo was used in a grocery store in Prague after being posted on a blogging site (image below). The owner of the store claimed he believed it to be a computer-generated image. The family said they will be adding a watermark to any future family photos...