Article: Who Owns Your Photos?

You ask me, this world has gone crazy. It used to be that any photographer had the rights to his own photos, but now services like Instagram and Facebook (albeit the same company now, of course) suddenly claim (ok, not so suddenly for Facebook) ownership or at least rights to sell and to lease your photos with not so much as a notice, let alone payment!

Am I the only one thnking that there's something seriously wrong with this picture? Surely not! Governments and different instances fight against piracy and network distribution in the name of royalty payments to a degree that is all but ridiculous. Where are those governments and instances when a big company stomps on the rights of small people? Gaining money from the activity, possibly? For all I understand, Facebook's way of claiming posession of (public) photos in its services is anything but legal in most countries in this world.

But I guess there's as many ways to interpret the law as there are the Bible. If I had an Instagram account, I would have already deleted it after migrating my photos to Flickr.


Instagram says it now has the right to sell your photos
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57559710-38/instagram-says-it-now-has-the-right-to-sell-your-photos/




****

Edit Dec.19, 2012

Of course, you may want to believe it was a misunderstanding and give Instagram a second chance. Personally, I wouldn't.