Wednesday, January 10, 2018

Instagram Revisited And Reconsidered

The Jamie Lynn in ice, Rescue, Virginia (Click to enlarge)
(I love late afternoon winter sun, my favorite)
Olympus E-M1 Mark II, 12-100mm f/4 lens @ 54mm; 1/2000th sec. @ f/5.6; ISO 200
On January 2nd of this year, I announced that I would be starting an Instagram feed and posting images each day.  I did this at the urging of some photography friends who seem to enjoy using this forum to share their images.  Instagram is a way for me to put out many more images per week than the typical three I've posted on this blog.  In December I created an Instagram account with the intention of starting to share images on January 1st.

 Last week, I received an email from a good friend, a retired, highly respected professional photographer, suggesting I reread the "Terms of Service" for Instagram and their use of images that user's post.  Like most of you, I pretty much glanced over that part of the process.  But I should have paid closer attention.  Here, in part, is what Instagram's Terms of Service say about them using your images under the "Rights Section, Paragraph 1:"

Rights

  1. Instagram does not claim ownership of any Content that you post on or through the Service. Instead, you hereby grant to Instagram a non-exclusive, fully paid and royalty-free, transferable, sub-licensable, worldwide license to use the Content that you post on or through the Service, subject to the Service's Privacy Policy, available here http://instagram.com/legal/privacy/, including but not limited to sections 3 ("Sharing of Your Information"), 4 ("How We Store Your Information"), and 5 ("Your Choices About Your Information"). You can choose who can view your Content and activities, including your photos, as described in the Privacy Policy.
What does this mean?  What are the ramifications?  It means that anything you post on Instagram remains your property but you are agreeing to allow Instagram to do virtually anything with it without your knowledge, consent or any reumuneration (they are not going to pay you to use your stuff).  And that is worldwide and forever.  They can sell or license your images in any way they choose, derive income from your images, sell them to be used by advertisers with whom you may not endorse or agree (in other words you would never use their product but your image is being used to sell their product).  They could use images of your children in ways that you would vehemently object.  Sorry, you don't have a say in it.  You agreed to the Terms of Service.  And, I don't see anything that forces them to attribute any content to its creator.  They can use your images and no one would ever know you made the images.

 I should have read this section more carefully and I am thankful to my friend for pointing it out.  Now, I have to decide whether or not to a) continue posting professional level images, b) only post snapshots or c) shut down my Instagram feed.  

 I've been thinking about this for about a week now.  I'm really not concerned if Instagram would use an image of mine for advertisement.  I do object to Instagram licensing my images to a third party and that third party is one with which I have serious issues.  I would have no power to force them to stop using my images.

 Another complication is that my contract with my stock photo agency gives them the right to exclusively license all of the images I they accept from me.  By posting any images that I have previously sent to them, I am in technical violation of the contract since Instagram can now license those same images.  I'm thinking about getting out of the stock photo game anyway since the income derived from this source has dwindled dramatically over the past few years.  This issue may not be a problem in the future.

 Lesson Learned:  Don't take for granted Terms of Service even on the huge social media platforms as they may not be written to protect you, but to take from you without your knowledge, approval or payment  Read those terms of service closely before making a decision whether or not go go forward with using a service or product.

 Thanks for looking. Enjoy! 

 Dennis A. Mook 

  All content on this blog is © 2013-2018 Dennis A. Mook. All Rights Reserved. Feel free to point to this blog from your website with full attribution. Permission may be granted for commercial use. Please contact Mr. Mook to discuss permission to reproduce the blog posts and/or images.
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5 comments:

  1. AnonymousJanuary 10, 2018 at 5:42 PM

    I too recently started posting on Instagram and had similar concerns as well as people "stealing" images without Instagram willing to step in to help prevent such theft. I have, therefore, removed many of my best images and will now only share my lesser images and those that are snapshots.

    It is too bad that the legal systems in our countries allows this kind of EUL/A to be instituted.

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    1. The Wandering LensmanJanuary 11, 2018 at 9:29 AM

      I also remember a "photographer" in NYC that would take Instagram images from others, make some minor modifications and sell them as his using the "derivative" art exception to the copyright laws. Big kerfuffle about that a year or so ago.

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  2. gnarlydogJanuary 11, 2018 at 1:02 AM

    option C, really!
    Instagram has gone from bad to worse and now it's Instacrap :-(

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  3. JeffJanuary 11, 2018 at 9:09 AM

    Here is another thought...would the "damages" related to posting on Instagram be mitigated by posting only low resolution images, i.e. long side = 900 pixels?

    I recently spoke to a professional photographer who posts on Instagram and he said that the terms of service are unenforceable in his state. How does that work?

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    1. The Wandering LensmanJanuary 11, 2018 at 9:32 AM

      The images I have posted are 1080 pixels on the long side, which is what I read is the maximum that Instagram will publish. Also, the ones I submitted are just 96 pixels in density, so they are pretty low res, however, they still can be used for electronic advertising at that resolution, I believe.

      As far as the agreement not being enforceable in any particular country, state or locality, I have no idea. I suspect Instagram has dozens of lawyers researching and writing these terms of service so they are as universal as they can be.

      Delete