Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Why I Don't Post My Photos on Instagram or Facebook

I'd sure like more people to see my newer images in the social medium of today, a large part of which is Facebook and Instagram. 

But I won't post my images to these sites.  I will post my images to legitimate sites that do respect my rights.  As an example, Time ran some of my new Antarctic Peninsula images as a web gallery at time.com:
 http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,2094706,00.html

I've also posted a gallery of nearly every trip that I've taken on my own website. 


The problem with posting an image to Facebook or Instagram is that these companies (Facebook owns Instagram) continually put out new Terms of Service (TOS) that will have disturbing language which gives them the rights to use your images as they choose. 

Here's a good explanation of what's going on, and a select quote:
http://thedambook.com/blog/2013/01/instagram-terms-still-terrible/

> I think the methods they are using here are a bad deal for the user.
> And mostly because there does not seem to be a way for the user to
> leave and take her identity with her. It’s a perpetual license to use
> your identity in service of, well, whatever they want to use it for.
> And you are giving up the right to take action against them to stop
> it. Ever.

I wish that these companies would stop trying to grab the rights to my images, in such sneaky fashion.  If they want my and your images so bad, they should work out a system where they request permission and pay you for the use of your images.

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