The new Facebook terms of use are overly aggressive, if you ask me. It was this type of "greedy" licensing that made me quit Orkut way back when (by greedy, I mean the pattern matching greedy, not the Scrooge McDuck greedy).
In a nutshell, by using Facebook, they claim that users are agreeing to all but assign then copyright of their content to them. For example, if a user uploads a picture of themselves, but then decides later on the remove it. If I understand correctly, Facebook takes the position that they can still use that picture in any way they want, forever. They could potentially even sub-license out rights for a fee. I'm certainly simplifying the terms of use and subsequent licensing of content, but this is my general interpretation. I doubt that a licensing agreement like this would be completely enforceable, but in general it would probably help Facebook avoid any tussles with aggravated users. Will they abuse these license claims? I would hope not, but I'm not so sure. I found their searchlight advertising system to be wholely offensive, but that's just my personal opinion.
Of course this type of "greedy" licensing to unsuspecting licensors makes my blood boil, but during the time which has passed since I joined and subsequently quit Orkut, I've learned to embrace open source software, and to some degree the concept behind the Creative Commons licenses.
As an alternative to quitting Facebook, I'm considering the use of a creative commons license for all my content that I share on Facebook, so that I'm giving Facebook (and everyone else in the world) a lot, but not all, of what they are claiming.
I'm glad that more people are reading the fine print, and I hope that this issue does not fade out before it faces substantially more scrutiny.
UPDATE: Thankfully, Facebook has taken down the new terms of use and have restored the previous terms of use, which state that the licensing they claim is terminated if the user closes their account.
In a nutshell, by using Facebook, they claim that users are agreeing to all but assign then copyright of their content to them. For example, if a user uploads a picture of themselves, but then decides later on the remove it. If I understand correctly, Facebook takes the position that they can still use that picture in any way they want, forever. They could potentially even sub-license out rights for a fee. I'm certainly simplifying the terms of use and subsequent licensing of content, but this is my general interpretation. I doubt that a licensing agreement like this would be completely enforceable, but in general it would probably help Facebook avoid any tussles with aggravated users. Will they abuse these license claims? I would hope not, but I'm not so sure. I found their searchlight advertising system to be wholely offensive, but that's just my personal opinion.
Of course this type of "greedy" licensing to unsuspecting licensors makes my blood boil, but during the time which has passed since I joined and subsequently quit Orkut, I've learned to embrace open source software, and to some degree the concept behind the Creative Commons licenses.
As an alternative to quitting Facebook, I'm considering the use of a creative commons license for all my content that I share on Facebook, so that I'm giving Facebook (and everyone else in the world) a lot, but not all, of what they are claiming.
I'm glad that more people are reading the fine print, and I hope that this issue does not fade out before it faces substantially more scrutiny.
UPDATE: Thankfully, Facebook has taken down the new terms of use and have restored the previous terms of use, which state that the licensing they claim is terminated if the user closes their account.