Instagram, the popular mobile photo-sharing app recently bought by Facebook (for $1billion), announced on Monday, 17 December, that they will be changing their T&Cs starting January 16 2013. Good thing someone found the time to read them, because it seems that Instagram is as evil a business as Goldman & Sachs is.
As if copyright law wasn’t enough of an issue ever since Napster started the copyright wars in 2000, Instagram took it one step further by saying that it could sell its’ users photos to be used in ads and promotions, without the express permission of the owner and without any compensation:
“To help us deliver interesting paid or sponsored content or promotions, 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.”
And
“We may share your information as well as information from tools like cookies, log files, and device identifiers and location data with organizations that help us provide the service to you… (and) third-party advertising partners.”
As anyone apart from the people working at Instagram and Facebook would have realized beforehand, this is simply a bad idea: there was no way that this wouldn’t outrage people (and I have to add, with hacker organization Anonymous running around the Internet like a modern day Robin Hood, if I were Instagram, I would be even more scared). So after rummaging for a day and a half on how to get out of this, they found the perfect excuse: the language in the new T&C was confusing, because, as we all know, “legal documents are easy to misinterpret” (Instagram Blog).
Kevin Systrom, Instagram’s co-founder, went on to say on their blog that “Instagram users own their content and Instagram does not claim any ownership rights over your photos. Nothing about this has changed” and “we respect that your photos are your photos. Period.” To hear him say it, it’s like we are all idiots – not even Wired or National Geographic seemed to have the necessary resources to understand Instagram’s complicated legal language.
Instagram did back down quickly, however, and promised to change certain parts of their T&Cs and do it before the New Year. So we will have to wait and see what their T&Cs will look like, and how the Instagram consumer experience will change next year.
But could it be that the damage has already been done? That their reputation has been irrevocably damaged?
It would seem so – especially when it comes to professional photographers and even celebrities. Regular folk might not expect to have their pictures of the cake they baked last night used in ads or even mind as much, but photographers, for example, make their living from pictures.
The even sadder thing is, Instagram used to court photographers in its beginnings and did everything possible to be associated with them as it gave them credibility. Now, however, with this move they made, it’s like Instagram has completely forgotten about its first relationship – that with professional photographers. Clayton Cubbit, a photographer from New York said that this new policy is “Instagram’s suicide note” and another photographer said, “dear Instagram, you know I love you but this may just be a dealbreaker” and another one simply said, “I’m out”. National Geographic also said that they are “suspending new posts to Instagram. We are very concerned with the direction of the proposed new terms of service.”
Celebrities would also have a lot to lose if Instagram decided to use their photos for ads. After all, Kim Kardashian, Rihanna and the like make a great deal of their fortunes from advertising. Why would they just give photos of themselves to Instagram for free? Not only would they lose lots of money – but their brands could be damaged as well, as you never know what they would be associated with. And if the celebrities go, why would the ‘normal’ people stick around? Kim Kardashian, who has the most followers on Instagram, is already rumored to be considering leaving the platform, and even Zuckerberg’s sister supported the anti-Instagram cause by liking a post on Facebook called “Instagram’s suicide note”.
The ironic thing is, in their quest to make money to satisfy their parent company Facebook, all they have done is send people to other similar social platforms, such as Flickr and Starmatic. BBC reported that a source at Flickr said that they were “loving it” and they took the occasion to point out that they allow users to set usage permission for each and every picture they post. Starmatic, an app very similar to Instagram had been struggling since its launch 3 months ago, but on Tuesday, a day after Instagram made their announcement, over a million pictures where uploaded on the app which is double the amount posted since its been launched!
So why did they do it? With Facebook at the handles, they definitely had all the resources (i.e. money and brains) to get some decent lawyers to handle their T&Cs. Was it that they really hoped people wouldn’t notice? That couldn’t possibly be the case, could it? Considering the backlash that Facebook, for example, gets whenever they make the slightest changes (even if it is just the layout) how could Instagram think they would get out of this unscathed?
Instagram, compared to its parent company, doesn’t have what it takes to keep people no matter what. Facebook friendships and connections built over time by hundreds of millions of people are much harder to replace, and that’s why people don’t leave it. Instagram, as users proved with Starmatic on Tuesday, is actually very easily replaceable. And if the Kardashians, Justin Bieber or any celebrity decides to move to another Instagram-like social network, than it could be expected that their fans will follow.
What do you think of Instagram’s plans – was it all just a big misunderstanding, as they claim? Will you or your friends delete your Instagram accounts? And by the way, if you do decide to delete your accounts, do it before 16 January 2013 and use an app such as Instaport to download your photo archive.
Lilach
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I do believe that the new T&C does not apply to photo’s taken before 16th January.
Nevertheless… it is worrisome that such a huge player changes things in such an off hand manner. I’m sure they must have known the Internet would go over them with a fine toothed comb.
Thanks for the Instaport tip. I think I’m going to keep my account for a bit longer, maybe put a name in the photo.., don’t know. I always have my (Pro) Flickr account.
What are you doing with your account?
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Thanks Roger appreciate your comment. I’m still keeping my account as although I’m not a fan of what theyve done I still enjoy using it and also have lots of connections there too
I’m interested to see how things progress in the new year
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Lilach,
It would be nice to have a social media company that actually understands how to talk to people. The worst customer service in the world comes from social media companies. Maybe someone should explain to them what the world social is, and how to communicate online.
Andy
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Thanks Andy appreciate your comment and completely agree with you. I’m also thinking that they must have suspected that this would happen – the amount of publicity it’s caused… But then I could be cynical lol.
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Instagram made a potentially fatal mistake by releasing that info. It was important info that we needed to be reminded of, but clearly it was politically motivated on the part of senior management to come out right away and say they were reversing their policy. Why didn’t they have it in the terms to begin with and do the right thing? Greed caught them. Great article and thanks.
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Thanks Martin, completely agree, greed is an ugly trait in many large companies. Very disappointing to see how they went about it and weren’t completely transparent about it.
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I think the problem is twofold:
1) Companies are struggling to make sense of social media
2) Facebook really doesn’t care about users. All it wants is making money.
I strongly believe that it was a ploy (and I talk about that in one of my articles) to test us and see if we are as gullible as when we joined Facebook a few years ago.
When a company puts the dollar sign before its audience and customers, it is bound to fail…
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Thanks Cendrine. Interesting comments. I’m certainly still seeing a lot of companies struggling with social media – particularly with how to use it effectively but more than anything how to monetize it.
Facebook is now so huge they simply can’t care about its users. But let’s be honest they are a business and need to make money somehow and because they’ve kept the “freemmium” model they’ve had to be much more ruthless in its monetization.
I’m looking forward to seeing how things progress in 2013…
Lilach recently posted..[Read This] Images that Influence
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Much ado about something we should’ve anticipated. We’re shocked that a free app with servers, an office and a team of employees has to make revenue somehow. How greedy of them! They should provide services to us for free at our terms. Seriously? Anytime we load material onto a social media platform we need to get over the expectation that privacy is guaranteed and won’t be shared. Nothing is for free! So use instagram as it’s meant to be used. Only load what you want to be or feel comfortable sharing. Don’t load all your photos professional photographers, load the ones you’d like spread for marketing purposes and don’t load the ones you don’t want the image to be oversatutated on the net. I do believe sm companies need to do a better job with explaining their terms (I see lawyers hands in that wording, it’s basically catch all legalese to ensure all situations cover IG). But I don’t think we should be indignant and lose our shit over a company wanting to generate revenue.
Twitter: mauishopgirl
While I do completely agree that a free app needs to make money somehow, the way they wanted to do it is completely inexcusable! why not do ads, like everybody else? And just because Facebook and the like are selling our info no matter what, it doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t at least try to show our indignation and try to change things. If we were to passively await while companies, politicians etc. do whatever they wanted just because “we should’ve expected that” and “it was bound to happen”, than our lives would be much worse. I come from a country where politicians and companies do whatever they like and don’t even pretend to care about the people, all because nobody speaks their minds against them. When they know they have someone to answer to, they do a better job.
And also, it’s not just the fact that they wanted to make money by selling people’s photos without their permission and without compensating them, but also the fact that they didn’t mention it and when people noticed it they said that we didn’t understand the language.
So yeah, I do believe that we should feel indignant and lose our shit when a company does something like that! I know that Facebook needs to make its $1 billion back, but there are other ways. and if there aren’t, too bad.
Thanks Claudia, appreciate you taking the time to comment.
I think it was the way they went about it that really made people angry. It certainly will make me read Terms and Conditions more frequently than just clicking the box!
Let’s see what they do in 2013…
Lilach recently posted..[Read This] Images that Influence
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Thanks Tania appreciate your comment. It’s scary how we now expect everything for free and have entered into the freemmium way – services such as Skype, Facebook,Twitter and the like are all free and less than 10 years ago we would have had to pay for such services that we’ve come accustomed to getting freebies.
For me it was more about how they weren’t transparent about their T&C’s, they knew what the repercussions would be but hey I guess for them they naively didn’t think it would affect them.
Lilach recently posted..[Read This] Images that Influence
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If to judge from this point of view, then probably the majority of social networks, different applications and services can probably have more disadvantages than benefits
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Thanks Julie. I guess variety is the spice of life:)
Lilach recently posted..[Read This] Images that Influence
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Thanks Lilach As always well written , well informed. Very welcome.
Twitter: hauschkagrace
Thanks Grace, a pleasure as always. Hope you’re well:)
Lilach recently posted..[Read This] Images that Influence
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Look how slippery Instagram is in their press release: “we respect that your photos are your photos. Period.” Uh huh. And we, Instagram are arrogating the right to “share” them with whomever we please. Instragram users will still own their photos. which actually makes them valuable, as opposed to being in the public domain. Instagram merely assumes the unlimited publication rights. It’s a “business model” of the successful — take what’s not yours and sell it.
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Thanks Astro, appreciate your comment. Whoever wrote their press release needs to be fired lol. Or maybe that was their intention… afterall some do say that all publicity is good:).
Lilach recently posted..[Read This] Images that Influence
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As we discovered in the music biz, lots of shiny new companies were set up with cool ideas but little understanding of what a business model is. The idea was to grab as many users as quickly as possible any way they could. Then, oops, how do we pay for the staff and PR? Let’s put pressure on the source – in their case music, in this case people’s intellectual property – and chase the ad dollar. Yet all these sites rely on rust. As MySpace discovered, you can be become as relevant as a Polaroid camera very, very quickly when people lose that trust.
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Thanks Michael very true. They have certainly damaged their reputation and lost a lot of their users, particularly those who this affects the most i.e. photographers etc.
Whilst I appreciate every business has to make money there are many ways and I think they’re going down a slippery road this way…
Lilach recently posted..[Read This] Images that Influence
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I still can’t get what was the main motivation for Instagrgam to publish such information? I guess that was their biggest mistake… Anyway thanks for good article and happy new year!
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Thanks Marta, maybe they just wanted some PR? Who knows if it even was a stunt but they certainly (and continue to) attract a lot of attention, albeit good and bad.
Happy new year to you too:)
Lilach recently posted..[Read This] Images that Influence
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