Page 23 - Leisure Living Magazine May 2017

Reading The Fine Print: Who Owns What On Popular Websites
“Law You Can Use” Courtesy of the Ohio State Bar Association
Q:Facebook changed its terms of service in January 2015. How does this affect me?
A: Most terms
impacting the
average user have
not changed.
Facebook has
tried to simplify
the language and
has introduced a
guide (“Privacy
Basics”) to help
users with privacy settings. The new terms explain more about how Facebook uses your information (such as your location) with its family of com- panies and advertisers. But be cautioned: your control over information you provide is limited.
Q: I took a funny photo and posted it to Face- book. Now it’s being used for a local company’s billboard ad. Is that legal?
A: Probably not. According to the law, the local company can’t use your photo for an ad without your permission. The 1976 Copyright Act gives you exclusive rights to original works including the rights to reproduce them, display them pub- licly and perform them in public, whether or not you register your work with the U.S. Copyright Office.
However, photos, stories and even secrets are now being broadcast to the world through pop- ular social media sites like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Most site users don’t read the “terms of service” to learn what rights they have and what rights they may have given to website own- ers. If you read the terms of service, you may dis- cover that you have granted these sites the right to license your photos to others without having to compensate you. Even if they have a right to do this according to the terms of service, they may not have done so. Most sites will offer to help you reach the person who appropriated your picture without your permission.
Q: What permis- sion did I give Facebook?
A: You may have given permission for a “non-ex- clusive, transfer- able, sub-licens- able, royalty-free, worldwide license to use ... content you post,” which essentially allows Facebook to dis- tribute your in- formation for free
to other users and to Facebook’s business part- ners, who develop games and advertisements you might see on the pages. These various users can reformat or modify your material for use with their systems. If you have an image or video that you may want to sell, it would be wise not to post it on a site where you have granted permission to use your material without paying you for it.
Q: If my privacy settings only allow pictures and videos to be shared with close friends, will they be protected from use by strangers?
A: Not necessarily. For example, if the privacy set- ting of one of your friends allows public sharing, then your information also may be shared with the public. One key point of Facebook’s terms is that its license with you ends only when you delete your account. If you see that something of yours was shared without your permission after you closed your account, that could be a violation of the Facebook agreement.
Q: Can social media sites remove things I post or remove something if I object to the posting? A: Google, Facebook and Twitter reserve the right to remove content, as do many other service providers. Facebook has expanded the list of con- tent it has the right to remove. This now includes content that is “hate speech, threatening, or por- nographic, incites violence or contains nudity or graphic or gratuitous violence.” Following dead-
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