Instagram swipes your copyright...

[calumscott]

...out the back door and perfectly legally.

If you care about:

a) Your photos and the content in them
b) Photographers' rights and copyright law

then you really should consider ditching your Instagram account before the 16th of January 2013.

The Terms and Conditions in force from then grant Instagram "a non-exclusive, fully paid and royalty-free, transferable, sub-licensable, worldwide license" to all your content. They even go so far as to state, "you 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."

Basically, they are saying - if you have stuff on Instagram at 16/01/2013, we can sell it on and give you nothing for it.

But it's actually worse than that. If you delete your account AFTER 16/01/2013 then the statement "[if you] deactivate your account, your photos, comments, likes, friendships, and all other data will no longer be accessible through your account (e.g., users will not be able to navigate to your username and view your photos), but those materials and data may persist and appear within the Service".

Put another way, "even if you delete your account and YOU can't access your stuff, we can and we can still do what we want with it".

Just as an aside, I don't (or should that be didn't?) have anything against Instagram or facebook per-se. I'm just very passionate about photographers' rights...

 

[fbsf]

Thanks for the heads-up Calum. FB'd to spread the word.

 

[calumscott]

They are taking a bit of a panning on Twitter at the moment!

I couldn't remember if I had an Instagram account or not so I went on to see if I'd registered, I figured resetting any passwords on any of my email addresses would be a good way of finding out...

...I very nearly spat coffee when I saw what reCaptcha gave me as a security word...

 

[fbsf]

:rofl: :rofl:

 

[alanywiseman.]

Well spotted Calum :clap: :clap: :clap:

 

[Jeltz]

Well I've deleted my account along with its 1 picture :grin:

Here is the BBC news report on it. instagrams policy change that is not me deleting my account, I contacted them but they didn't seem very interested

 

[Aleman]

I'm just very passionate about photographers' rights...

Me too! Which is why I don't have anything that could be commercially viable online, apart from on a photozine site that explicitly states in its Ts and Cs that they won't do what all the others FB/ Twitter and now instagram say they will do.

Basically if you don't want others to nick your photos, don't put them online

 

[PD]

I've been a photographer for many years, only pics I put on line are into a forum much like this one, and then only low resolution images. If its on line someone will pinch it.
And after I've spent several hours chasing some small and fast insect across marshes and swamps I'm not in love with someone who thinks they can sit back and download it for free.
Frigging hard work !

I use to try and sell some images on line and my advice to anyone...dont bother unless you do it in a very business/commercial manner. Even sites like the BBC or respected newspapers will rip you off.
I won't mention responding to those sites that e mail you and say..we liked your picture we saw on line, can we use it to illustrate a project/article..we will credit the image with your name..........!!!!! Frig off or make me an offer to buy it at a proper price.