Terms of Use: Facebook

So I have read the Terms of Use of Facebook. It was fun, nerve-racking, boring and interesting. Unlike my classmate and friend Per I will not recite as much, merely because you – the reader – can look it up yourself right here. Call me lazy, but I really do think that is more important to have a discussion about the terms then to just tell you what they say. Also I think it is better to relate to Per’s contribution to the discussion then to simply do exactly like him. Many things will be the same, since we are obviously looking at the same text. I will only recite the text which I think is of interest for a discussion.

First and front most I find it interesting that you – as a user of the Facebook site, whether you are a registered member or not – have to oblige to the Terms of Use. At the same time you also agree that they can delete material too. So while you are responsible for the material they can at any time take it away. As I see it, it is like wanting the cake and eating it too. It is more importantly a bit of a lose/lose-situation for the user as well. I am not at all surprised, but it would for a change be somewhat revolutionizing the day that a big corporation decides to actually take some responsibility. And yes I know: it is most likely that that corporation would get a massive amount of lawsuits on there hands – but I actually think that they can afford it and that the statement is more important then the results of it. This is my personal belief of course.

Further down in the document you find the following statement: “All content on the Site and available through the Service, including designs, text, graphics, pictures, video, information, applications, software, music, sound and other files, and their selection and arrangement (the "Site Content"), are the proprietary property of the Company, its users or its licensors with all rights reserved.”. You can interpret this in two ways – either you as a user have the right to the material on the site or that it is the corporations’ users. I think they practically mean that the users of the site – that is the users of Facebook – have the right to its materials. As long as the material us – of course – is used in a non-commercial way.

Furthermore the terms state that: “Unless explicitly stated herein, nothing in these Terms of Use shall be construed as conferring any license to intellectual property rights, whether by estoppel, implication or otherwise. This license is revocable at any time without notice and with or without cause.”. If you rewrite this it means that any interpretation coming to a conclusion that the license you except while registering or visiting the site actually takes away your intellectual rights is wrong. Meaning: you still own the intellectual rights to the material on the site. Still it is hard to read this text and even after looking up the words I still feel somewhat unsure of what it really means, but that is how I would interpret it. At the same time the document state that: “By posting User Content to any part of the Site, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to the Company an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such User Content for any purpose, commercial, advertising, or otherwise, on or in connection with the Site or the promotion thereof, to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such User Content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing.”. So basically even if you own the right to the material in question – Facebook owns the right the use it in any way they like. Still it is only for as long as the material is on the site. So if you take it away you really will not have a problem.

It is also against the Terms of Use to upload any copyrighted material. Which is kind of like saying that the user can’t upload any copyrighted material, but they can use the users. Contradiction? Yes I suppose, but then again you really don’t need to put copyrighted material on the site or material that you do not want there. And as far as I know there hasn't been a case where Facebook has actually taken material from the site and used it in a commercial way. I doubt that such a behavior would lead to anything good for the site – it would just aggravate its users’.

The document states, under the headline submissions, that: ”You acknowledge and agree that any questions, comments, suggestions, ideas, feedback or other information about the Site or the Service ("Submissions"), provided by you to Company are non-confidential and shall become the sole property of Company. Company shall own exclusive rights, including all intellectual property rights, and shall be entitled to the unrestricted use and dissemination of these Submissions for any purpose, commercial or otherwise, without acknowledgment or compensation to you.”. Again I feel that this is standard procedure in this kind of legal document, but yes: in this case the do own the intellectual rights.

This pretty much concludes my thoughts about the Terms of Use for Facebook. The conclusion that my fellow friend came up with is the same as mine. They can’t interfere with your intellectual rights – since Facebook can’t stand above the law. The only thing they do have the right to is comments und likewise. They can still use any material for a commercial purpose. What mostly surprised me about the debate that we had in Sweden a while ago is not that they supposedly owned the material and could use it the way they wanted – it is that fact that this document is not different from any other legal document that you sign while registering on a website. That is the important note in the discussion – that you should be aware of the fact that most sites will do anything to not be responsible for… well anything. As long as you are aware of that fact and just do things that you feel you can be responsible for in the end I think it is a fair assumption to say that you won’t get any lawsuits in your mailbox. Be rational, use your common sense.