> The language we proposed also raised question about whether your photos can be part of an advertisement. We do not have plans for anything like this and because of that we’re going to remove the language that raised the question.
Note that he doesn't say "we won't use your photos as part of an advertisement", he merely says "the reason we're removing that language is because we don't [currently] plan on using your photos as part of an advertisement".
I'm sure if they thought of a way they could make money by doing so without losing critical mass, they'd be all over that.
This would neither necessarily fit into the classification of 'advertising', nor be showing photos to 'your friends', who would immediately call this kind of behaviour out. This would sorta tally with the fact that photos are public by default AFAIK, and the comments about privacy.
Hopefully irrelevant, but just a thought.
It isn't off-topic because it is a direct response to it's parent who was trying to make a point by example that refers to this use of rhetoric
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loaded_question
It isn't offensive because it is simply using the loaded question to provide a loaded answer that uses the exact same rhetorical trick to turn the tables. To try to show by example that the point being made is little more than a trick.
It is the nature of a loaded question with an obvious appeal to emotion that makes responses to it seem offensive.
Stop trying to cast a simple snafu regarding a ToS as some evil conspiracy.
Remember that the people running this company are you peers. It's disgusting watching the community salivating over burning them all at the stake today.
They're your friends, or just like your friends. Knock it off.
It's a classic move from the Facebook playbook. Push out a far-reaching privacy policy or feature update. Release a message or press release saying that "we're listening". Make token changes and say "we've listened and made changes". And just in case people start to sue, vigorously lobby and donate to government officials to keep the regulatory heat off their backs.
They are trying to get away with as much as they can. These stupid companies are going to be the reason why 10 years from now the Internet is going to be a morass of government regulation.
Don't work for or support companies that act like this. Shame on them. Period.
I wouldn't be surprised if at some point soon you won't be able to register a domain name or start an Internet company without taking a licensing exam.
Who would impose such a requirement of licensure? Certainly not the government --- that would be a prior restraint on freedom of speech/press and therefore unconstitutional.
No one tried to cast this as a conspiracy, they simply called it what it is, a company monetizing by making the user experience worse.
"Remember that the people running this company are you peers. It's disgusting watching the community salivating over burning them all at the stake today."
I don't know whats craziest here. First, equating "burning them at the stake" to "deleting their accounts on that persons website" is absolute lunacy and I don't know how anyone could take your points seriously. Second, pretending that because these people look like my friends, they should get a free pass on changing their terms to better monetize user content is just lame, just because someone looks like me and is a millionaire doesn't make them immune to incredibly correct criticism.
That said, sounds like people aren't willing to "agree that a business or other entity may pay us to display your username, likeness, photos (along with any associated metadata), and/or actions you take, in connection with paid or sponsored content or promotions, without any compensation to you."
I can't believe that people just expect everything to come to them for free.
Well, when you create the expectation, as Instagram did, that things will come for free, and then you stop fulfilling that expectation, customers will leave. Not sure how long it will take startup founders to understand and it blows my mind how frequently people on HN seem to act like people "owe" a site something for the service they're providing. If I get an invite to your free photosharing site with features X, Y and Z, you're creating an expectation. If you change your offering once you get a ton of users in the hopes of monetizing them, you're changing the offering and these people leaving is justified. The reason they got there in the first place was because of your offering, which you're now changing.
My peers and friends at least would never use my pictures to create ads and in any case, my relations to peer and friends are not based on comprehensive and one-sided ToS …
edit: give me a $1
See also: Banking.
If we take your words as gospel, then we should be critical of them and we should take action.
This is also because Instagram as a business is not a peer, does not follow advice, and absolutely needs to be burnt at the stake (and salivated over?) to realise it made a mistake.
-- If not in jest, this is rediculously naive. just FYI.
Our "friends" over there sure didn't go out of their way to call out an important change in the TOS. If it wasn't an attempt to sneak this by, it's indistinguishable from one.
I think the fears are really overblown: http://www.theverge.com/2012/12/18/3780158/instagrams-new-te...
Look at the former section "Proprietary Rights in Content on Instagram"
> Instagram does NOT claim ANY ownership rights in the text, files, images, photos, video, sounds, musical works, works of authorship, applications, or any other materials (collectively, "Content") that you post on or through the Instagram Services. By displaying or publishing ("posting") any Content on or through the Instagram Services, you hereby grant to Instagram a non-exclusive, fully paid and royalty-free, worldwide, limited license to use, modify, delete from, add to, publicly perform, publicly display, reproduce and translate such Content, including without limitation distributing part or all of the Site in any media formats through any media channels, except Content not shared publicly ("private") will not be distributed outside the Instagram Services.
This section about copyright has turned into something pretty much like Facebook's:
> Instagram does not claim ownership of any Content that you post on or through the Service. Instead, you hereby grant to Instagram a non-exclusive, fully paid and royalty-free, transferable, sub-licensable, worldwide license to use the Content that you post on or through the Service, except that you can control who can view certain of your Content and activities on the Service as described in the Service's Privacy Policy, available here:http://instagram.com/legal/privacy/.
>"Ownership Rights: Instagram users own their content and Instagram does not claim any ownership rights over your photos. Nothing about this has changed. We respect that there are creative artists and hobbyists alike that pour their heart into creating beautiful photos, and we respect that your photos are your photos. Period. I always want you to feel comfortable sharing your photos on Instagram and we will always work hard to foster and respect our community and go out of our way to support its rights."
He should add in brackets that the user has automatically given Instagram "Ownership" of a gold plated license to do whatever the hell it wants with content posted, in case anyone was wondering.
It can mean that they cannot re-license your work, which is to say you wouldn't have to compete with them in terms of pricing to a third party but I don't know if that is what the ToS says so a closer reading is in order.
So I would say "sub-license" means "re-license". It would be very unfortunate to have to compete with Instagram on pricing for your own content to a third party. Or some company that buys Instagram/Facebook out.
Just read this bit: "To be clear: it is not our intention to sell your photos. We are working on updated language in the terms to make sure this is clear."
So I think that clears up the 'sub-licensable' aspect. It doesn't rule out giving them away for free - which come to think of it, would hard to compete with price-wise! I'm really starting to wonder what they had in mind.
A reply from the author of the article in the comments[0]:
> You guys know that I used to be a copyright lawyer, right? This stuff is all boilerplate terms of service — every service from Apple, Google, Microsoft, Twitter, etc all have it.
0: http://www.theverge.com/2012/12/18/3780158/instagrams-new-te...
As you can see, the new Instagram © license is like Facebook's or Twitter's. But very different from others. (Actually, the current Instagram © license is okay)
I'd very much like to see how he responds.
What are you talking about? Have you read their ethics statement[0] yet?
In the world of journalism, that's a very serious accusation to be making without any evidence.
You might want to read the link you posted.
> Our company has its own advertising team responsible for selling ad space on our site. We do not accept money or other consideration from companies as a condition or incentive to write a review or story, whether favorable or unfavorable, on The Verge.
> We do not invest in companies that we cover, and employees are forbidden from owning, trading, or buying stock in companies we cover or companies in the general tech sector, without exception.
> We don't take free things from companies, or from their PR firms. This rule is simple and we stick to it
> We do not take free or discounted merchandise
> We do not take free or discounted services.
> Employees of The Verge may not be otherwise employed by or receive compensation from companies that they are likely to cover as part of their news beat, nor are they permitted to have any advisory role (paid or unpaid) at those companies.
> We do not accept any samples on any preconditions, such as, that we will agree to provide a review simply because the company sent us a sample.
> This stuff is all boilerplate terms of service — every service from Apple, Google, Microsoft, Twitter, etc all have it.
"That effectively guts the user's control over the use and exploitation of the photo," says Daniel Schaeffer, an attorney with Neal & McDevitt, a boutique law firm in Northfield, Ill., specializing in intellectual property. "The most obvious and immediate example is the ability to allow businesses to use your photos in advertising, but the actual effects could be even farther-reaching."
FWIW, the author of the Verge post I linked, managing editor Nilay Patel, also holds a law degree, and previously worked as a copyright attorney.
As I explained to someone else in another comment[0], I suggest you not embarrass yourself any further by making baseless accusations about journalists who take impartiality very seriously.
> What's your point?
That the OP's link's author's professional qualifications are also possessed by the author of the post I linked, making that a moot factor.
I have no reason at this point to doubt his judgment, as he is clearly quite a capable individual, as he has managed to become the managing editor of one of the top tech news sites in an industry bursting with competition and upstarts.
This TOS tweak allows Instagram go sell your content for advertising purposes to a third party. They can use your images, as is, in their advertising(presumably on Instagram, though that is not clear). So they can take payment for your content, without compensating you at all.
That's a pretty huge difference from Facebook's TOS. In there, they state that they will use your content to deliver ads. They're not delivering your content to other parties to be used in their ad campaign.
Verbal contracts are still contracts. Written form is preferred because it's easier to enforce after-the-fact, not because it's required for legal contracts.
And either way, Systrom would have taken an oath to "tell the truth, and the whole truth". This type of glaring omission over quibbling about whether an offer was a "formal" offer or not would get most in trouble with the courts...
Can you at least read the article before talking about generalities of mergers&acquisitions?
You know - just like the terms and conditions.
The new TOS actually limits what they an do more than the old one.
While under oath, Kevin Systrom: “No, we never received any offers,”
Reality, Instagram had an offer from Twitter and Kevin Systrom had direct knowledge.
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/16/disruptions-instagr...
That said, at least it looks like they're going to tweak the TOS change in favor of their users. But with Facebook pulling the reigns, we all know where this will end.