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I have been following the discussion on Twitter about Facebook’s change to TOS that allows them to keep the rights to everything you publish on Facebook even if your close your account.

In the Mashable article: Facebook: All Your Stuff is Ours, Even if You Quit
Stan Schroeder points out the real issue with the TOS changes.

The TOS says the following:

You hereby grant Facebook an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to (a) use, copy, publish, stream, store, retain, publicly perform or display, transmit, scan, reformat, modify, edit, frame, translate, excerpt, adapt, create derivative works and distribute (through multiple tiers), any User Content you (i) Post on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof subject only to your privacy settings or (ii) enable a user to Post, including by offering a Share Link on your website and (b) to use your name, likeness and image for any purpose, including commercial or advertising, each of (a) and (b) on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof.

It also used to contain another bit that is now missing.

You may remove your User Content from the Site at any time. If you choose to remove your User Content, the license granted above will automatically expire, however you acknowledge that the Company may retain archived copies of your User Content.

This is also reinforced by the “Termination” section:

The following sections will survive any termination of your use of the Facebook Service: Prohibited Conduct, User Content, Your Privacy Practices, Gift Credits, Ownership; Proprietary Rights, Licenses, Submissions, User Disputes; Complaints, Indemnity, General Disclaimers, Limitation on Liability, Termination and Changes to the Facebook Service, Arbitration, Governing Law; Venue and Jurisdiction and Other.
 

Basically, anything you post on Facebook is theirs to keep even if you terminate your Facebook account.

Now here is where it gets really creepy.

This morning I was warning a coworker about the changes to Facebook TOS and gave him a link to the Mashable article above.  He tried posting the link on his Facebook page to warn his friends.  Facebook striped out the title of the article and only posted the link.  Has Facebook started censoring negative comments about the changes to TOS?

If someone posts my copyrighted work to Facebook, does Facebook now have the rights to it even though I never gave them permission myself?  I hope the public outcry will put an end to this change.

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John Hocking
http://twitter.com/10minuteexpert

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