Recently Facebook changed its terms of service ("TOS") in response to a concern of the company's attorneys about its old policy. The revised TOS were overreaching and overbroad to meet the legitimate concerns that Facebook had. After a justified outcry, Facebook recanted.
However, there is a legitimate concern at base here.
1. You post some information on your page, for example a haiku.
2. The copyright in the photo and haiku remain yours but you grant Facebook a license to use it on Facebook and in their marketing materials while you're a member of Facebook.
3. You cease to be a member.
4. License terminates.
But, what if you posted a haiku on your friend's page? When you cease to be a member and the license to Facebook terminates, do they have to pull down all your posts to others' sites as a default? You may very well want them to. You may not care.
Facebook wants to ensure that your posts on other pages remain up. (At least that's the excuse they gave, the actual policy was far more broad than that - I'm just giving them the benefit of the doubt.) And you may be cool with that. Alternatively, you may want all your posts down.
We have to look at how to address TOSs so that authors can keep control of their works after they leave a social networking site. But, if the author doesn't care, a networking site doesn't have to be denuded if people leave the site.
This has raised some interesting questions, and it will take some trial and error before we strike the right balance. As far as engaging to solve the problem, clearly Facebook put the wrong foot forward. Hopefully, we can find a more equitable solution going forward.
Friday, February 20, 2009
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