What happens to Facebook images?

BetterSense · Nov 26, 2009

I do not use Facebook, or any other "voluntary data surrender services". I sent some personal photos (snail mail) to a family member with instructions not to copy them. My wife logged onto facebook and found that they had scanned them (poorly!) and uploaded the images to facebook. These are photos that I probably would not have let out of my darkroom if I knew that doing so would have their images lodged on some companies servers.

The whole thing makes me wonder what happens now. I suppose that Facebook's TOS says what they can do with uploaded images, since the uploader is an account holder and bound by the TOS. But what if someone uploads images that they themselves are not allowed to be copying? Does that change anything?

JBrunner · Nov 26, 2009

Facebook TOS says any upload must be free of copyright encumbrance. It is universally ignored by the users and only sporadically enforced by Facebook, however anything with nipples is removed nearly instantly. The TOS is rather obnoxious regarding how Facebook can utilize images, however it in more of a case of them CYAing than anything they ever do. I used to bother about it but have come to realize that image-wise Facebook is largely a repository of snapshots and other mostly unremarkable work, and beyond personal reasons, nobody has much interest in them. The resolution isn't particularly large either. They have no claim to your images because they were uploaded illegally (in violation of the TOS at least) an such a scenario doesn't invalidate your copyright. All in all though, they really don't care, and I doubt you have much to worry about. There is so much of so little on there it amounts to a verbal and visual landfill.

Curt · Nov 26, 2009

What happens to Flicker images?

With my new phone I found a nice Flicker app that displays "My Photos", "Contacts", "Near Me", "Uploads" and "more".

I opened up "My Photos" and not a problem and nothing new there. There was nothing in "Contacts" as far as I went. The next one was "Near Me", I didn't know what that was so I opened it and saw the photo albums of the people in my neighborhood.

This was just the beginning, I browsed a few, it was creepy looking at the home shots, especially all of the babies and children, the couples in various embraces and quite intimate ones at that. I scrolled on and found the next best thing to live humans is POSSESSIONS, from electronics to cars and trucks it's all there for anyone to see.

That would be enough if it wasn't for a little secret that I found in the program. There is an "info" in the upper right hand corner, what kind of info would be displayed if I went there I wondered. I put the finger on info and the GPS coordinates of the location the photograph was taken were right there. That would be easy enough to find right, well it's much much simplifier that that. Just put the finger on the lower right corner of the screen and bring up the "directions" to the GPS coordinates. Instantly there is a map and a push pin right there. Then put the finger on the touch phone image of the push pin and there it is: the complete address of the location were the photograph was taken. So the baby or car or TV or electronics or anything of interest is there with a picture and a complete address zip code and all.

I suddenly felt like I had popped into the cyber security section of a law enforcement agency. On the way to the thanksgiving dinner with family I was the passenger and found that the "Near Me" was constantly updated as we drove. It's the combination of technologies coming together that strip away the security of the "average" person documenting his or her life.

mike c · Nov 27, 2009

Thats can of scary Curt.

wildbill · Nov 27, 2009

http://www.pixable.com/
what happens? they'll print them or make a book.

Perry Way · Nov 27, 2009

Curt said:
What happens to Flicker images?

With my new phone I found a nice Flicker app that displays "My Photos", "Contacts", "Near Me", "Uploads" and "more".

I opened up "My Photos" and not a problem and nothing new there. There was nothing in "Contacts" as far as I went. The next one was "Near Me", I didn't know what that was so I opened it and saw the photo albums of the people in my neighborhood.

This was just the beginning, I browsed a few, it was creepy looking at the home shots, especially all of the babies and children, the couples in various embraces and quite intimate ones at that. I scrolled on and found the next best thing to live humans is POSSESSIONS, from electronics to cars and trucks it's all there for anyone to see.

That would be enough if it wasn't for a little secret that I found in the program. There is an "info" in the upper right hand corner, what kind of info would be displayed if I went there I wondered. I put the finger on info and the GPS coordinates of the location the photograph was taken were right there. That would be easy enough to find right, well it's much much simplifier that that. Just put the finger on the lower right corner of the screen and bring up the "directions" to the GPS coordinates. Instantly there is a map and a push pin right there. Then put the finger on the touch phone image of the push pin and there it is: the complete address of the location were the photograph was taken. So the baby or car or TV or electronics or anything of interest is there with a picture and a complete address zip code and all.

I suddenly felt like I had popped into the cyber security section of a law enforcement agency. On the way to the thanksgiving dinner with family I was the passenger and found that the "Near Me" was constantly updated as we drove. It's the combination of technologies coming together that strip away the security of the "average" person documenting his or her life.

Wow, that sounds like the setting of an expose' video, 60 Minutes-esque.. to be uploaded to YouTube where it will go viral.

In my opinion, Government is inept. It fails at everything it does. It even failed to keep a lucrative brothel running in the black when it overtook the Mustang Ranch in Nevada after they threw the owner in jail for for liberating his income from the goons. Within six months the brothel went bellyup. Bankrupt! Government is one big giant failure. We don't need a new big brother program to rule over us honest people and the overhead of one to look over the bad boys (and girls) is just unbecoming to a free people flogged into paying taxes for every sundry under the sun and then some.

Information is King!

It is information that will save a free society! Someone needs to expose this thing you stumbled upon and make it look really dark and foreboding. The embarrassment will cure the problem (I wager).

aluk · Nov 27, 2009

I imagine that if you tell Facebook that user x has uploaded images in violation of your copyright then Facebook will remove them pretty quickly. Fill out the form here to request a DMCA takedown notice... though it might be a better idea just to ask your relative to take the pictures down!

Colin Corneau · Nov 27, 2009

I suggest a long talk in a closed room with the family in question.

firecracker · Nov 27, 2009

BetterSense said:
I do not use Facebook, or any other "voluntary data surrender services".

Me neither. But I have a lot of friends who are so into this SNS stuff and keeping themselves busy uploading and uploading and uploading...

Now when you have facebook, Twitter, myspace, flickr, youtube, APUG, etc, and you have a cell phone and PC and a bunch of cameras, life is busier than you want it to be.

I would rather take a good nap than worry about these things.

firecracker · Nov 27, 2009

If I was a very enthusiastic protester, the last thing I would do is to make my own profile...

Prosecutors Drop Charges over Twitter Use at G-20 Protests
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/11/5/headlines#8

CIA Invests in Software Firm Monitoring Blogs, Twitter
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/10/22/cia_invests_in_software_firm_monitoring

Jeff Kubach · Nov 27, 2009

firecracker said:
Me neither. But I have a lot of friends who are so into this SNS stuff and keeping themselves busy uploading and uploading and uploading...

Now when you have facebook, Twitter, myspace, flickr, youtube, APUG, etc, and you have a cell phone and PC and a bunch of cameras, life is busier than you want it to be.

I would rather take a good nap than worry about these things.

Me too!

Jeff

ntenny · Nov 27, 2009

Curt said:
I put the finger on info and the GPS coordinates of th location the photograph was taken were right there.

Flickr doesn't include that information unless told to---of course something like a "what's nearby" application is only going to see images that are geotagged, and many cameraphones with GPS include the geotag automatically. IMHO, if there's a problem, it's more with those phones than with Flickr itself.

Personally, I'm not worried about it even with a small child and some valuables in the house. It's easy enough to figure out where I live from the geotags on my Flickr photos; but if you wanted to do something malicious with that information, it's not worth your while to try to get past the dogs and the various other eyes on the property. Unless you're after *me* specifically for some personal reason, in which case Flickr isn't really your easiest way to find out where I live.

They do, at least, have an unobjectionable rights policy about the images.

-NT

Christopher Walrath · Nov 27, 2009

Pinko hippy communist perverts! I bet they eat their young.

tkamiya · Nov 27, 2009

I have a long standing personal policy to NEVER upload any pictures with recognizable faces, mine or anyone else, to public websites. While it is true everyone is being video taped everyday by security cameras, having photos I uploaded cataloged and pretty much at disposal to anyone with every intent, just scares me. Paranoid, perhaps, but technology have moved beyond most people's expectations without much regard to morality on possibly causing harm to others. With this kind of mind set rampant, I tend to want to protect myself.

Doc W · Dec 1, 2009

The idea that some day we would become a surveillance society, with Big Brother watching over us, has faded. We are indeed a surveillance society, but we are being watched by each other, not by the state. Well, ok, yes the state watches us, but by far, the most persistent, dedicated, prolific snoops are ordinary citizens who watch each other. Many of us expose to the world our personal lives - quite literally - including every little emotion and mood, on a daily basis.

Concern over such things as children in public photographs is closing the barn door after the horse has bolted. Go on to myspace or youtube and count the number of children who willingly and certainly without parents' permission post photographs (some quite immodest to say the least) and personal information about themselves.

With cell phone cameras, your every little move can be of interest to people you never met who can record you and circulate what you have done within minutes to an international audience of voyeurs. God help you if you have done something incriminating or even embarrassing in public. Furthermore, none of this is subject to scrutiny by any agency who would protect you so what you do can be edited entirely out of context and used for all sorts of purposes. "I will SUE" you shout. Ok, sue the originator then try to remove all instances from cyberspace. Good luck.

Now that's scary.

Jesper · Dec 1, 2009

Interesting thread.
Much attention is given to the relationship between authorities and organizations on one hand and individual citizens on the other. Worldwide there are a multitude of laws concerning what information may be gathered and kept but these are not applicable if the citizen volontary surrenders the information.

Every user agreement of every service is very clear in the terms, but very few people tend to read them and even fewer understands.

Some years ago I read the user agreement for hotmail, and discovered that by agreeing I not only gave the company permission to use whatever material I sent throught the service but I also surrendered the copyright.
I have no idea why they thought it necessary to require the copyright, nor have I ever heard of any instance when it has been enforced but why was it considered necessary to go these lengths?

Today we have a situation where companies are protecting themselves by requiring users to agree to more extended rights than what is really necessary to make sure that they cannot be at fault should problems arise.
Technology is advancing faster than policies and the average user has absolutely no idea of what he/she has agreed to (the user may have joined to see, but didn't realise that the deal also was to be seen).
It is always easy to say that it is up to the user to understand an agreement before signing it, and this is legally true. Except of course with children (in most countries children are not allowed to sign deals, and should they manage to do so it is not valid).

Curt's story about his Flickr findings is typical of the Internet of today (both good and bad). Most people make information about themselves and their possesions available to an extent that would scare them had they known. Every piece of information that we provide the Internet about ourselves can be abused in at least as many ways as it can be used.
From a legal point of view everything is OK. It would be very strange if we suddenly had laws as to what information that we could share about ourselves and what we couldn't share. It would however be a good thing if people would actually understand what they agree to (and how the information could be used and abused) before signing a deal.

Erik Petersson · Dec 1, 2009

A lot of people did stupid things when they were young. It will be harder for them to forget, learn and move on, because what they did may be googled as long as they live. For example, a friend of mine ran naked and dead drunk around the church a winter night when he was a student. What if that was photographed and showed up when future bosses or girlfriends wanted to check him out?

C A Sugg · Dec 1, 2009

The only images from high school I've put up on my FB page are of students registering to vote. (My graduating class road-tested the Twenty-sixth Amendment.) The way I looked at it was that this is both history, and by no stretch of the imagination defamatory.
Still in the queue, some shots of classmates watching Duke Ellington check out the school's piano. Think anyone would object?

elekm · Dec 1, 2009

Look, we have to accept that in this rush to technology and social networking, there is no privacy. Also, if you shop, buy gasoline or enter nearly any store, there are private security video cameras recording your image. While most of it will end up being erased, the only sure way to ensure your privacy is to wear sunglasses at all times and to never leave your house.

Even being on the Internet leaves an electronic trail in the form of IP addresses.

It also means no credit cards, no ATM machines, no checks and no forms of electronic payments. Use only cash. I don't know what to do about the banking system. I suppose you could demand to be paid in cash and pay all of your bills -- in person with cash.

By the way, the youth of today are probably most responsible for the proliferation of photos posted on social networking sites.

Perry Way · Dec 1, 2009

elekm said:
Look, you idiots....

Wow. Okay, I'm unsubscribing to this thread now, due to the tone...

tkamiya · Dec 1, 2009

In my mind, there is a big difference between being video taped by mall security camera, accidentally being photographed in someone else's pictures, AND volunteely uploading your/friends'/family's/my every move and/or sometimes embarassing moment in these social websites. One, you do not have a control, the other you do. And, taken in good quantity, it is not that hard to predict and assume (rightly or falsely) one's character and move, and tie it to either real name or psudo name based on what someone puts up in these websites. I value my privacy and respect that of others. I do not upload pictures with recognizable faces to social websites, because I have control over what I do with the images I take.

I am exiting this thread as well. I see no reason to be called "you idiots" just because my opinion is not the same as someone else's.

jgcull · Dec 1, 2009

Maybe somebody has said this. Pardon me for not reading every page, but on Facebook it specifically asks you if you have the rights to this image (as you upload it). There is a box to check. This person would have had to say, "yes", that they owned the rights.

What happens to Facebook images?

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