>So Instagram is now going to use photos taken by its users in advertising, and they may or may not disclose to viewers when the advertising is happening.
No, they are NOT going to do that.
It's 2012. Why are people --and especially someone like Wheaton-- behaving like it's 1994 and they are learning this "web" thing for the first time?
I've seen the same bloody story play up 10 or 20 times. They made a BS change on their license terms, they are is gonna be a small fuss from their users about it and they are gonna revert it.
It's not like Instagram-the-company even intended to do that in the first place -- most likely they screwed up the phrasing but meant something extremely more limited (like: we'd have be able to use your pics when advertising Instagram-the-app itself).
Instead, people are acting like Instagram was really going to sell their photos and not pay them, and like this thing won't be revoked in less than a month.
That is absurd.
Why?
1) The backslash from the users, especially with 2-3 active competitors against the company (Twitter, which added photo filters to its app, being the latest heavyweight).
2) The lawsuits from users their photos they did attempt to sell.
3) It's not a way to make money, anyway. Instagram is not a Getty Images like company -- and limited size pictures with cliched filters is not exactly a stock image market. Getty actually partners with Flickr, which has actual photos of ALL kinds and PAYS the photographer if it uses the pictures, but it's not like anything lucrative came out of it, for either Flickr, Getty or the users.
Yes, this backlash from users is exactly what's happening. You can't simultaneously try to dissuade the backlash from happening and depend on it to prevent the undesirable events from taking place.
>Yes, this backlash from users is exactly what's happening. You can't simultaneously try to dissuade the backlash from happening and depend on it to prevent the undesirable events from taking place.
No, but I CAN and AM expecting people participating in the backlash:
a) NOT to behave like it's the first time they are seeing this
b) NOT to behave like this move was intended as perceived, and
c) NOT to behave like this wont be reverted pronto.
And I expect this especially from internet savvy people like Wheaton, who have seen this play out tens of times on the nets with similar licence changes...
Had Wheaton written something like "I'm sure this is another one of countless examples of ill-thought and quickly reverted license changes" I would be totally OK.
The way it is now, it's like someone writing "Oh, my god, Charlie Brown was tricked again by Lucy, I don't believe it!!!!" for paragraph after paragraph.
Not to mention that I also presented several other reasons besides the backlash why this is a non-story (for one, it's inconceivable as a business move, when a competitor, Twitter, just turned on "kill mode", second it doesn't make sense as a monetization tactic, it's not like hipster filtered photos are a stock photo favorite, or stock photography itself is a large market).
Instagram would have closed shop the very first day it actually ATTEMPTED to sell a user photo without his permission.
Plus, I addressed this very question in my reply already. Not to mention that my first comment have several ADDITIONAL reasons why this is not actually happening.
CNN and other media outlets report that Facebook reverted their TOS update and went back to using the previous one. 'The site posted a brief message on users' home pages that said it was returning to its previous "Terms of Use" policy "while we resolve the issues that people have raised."
Are you? Citing one situation where they pulled back doesn't account for all of the endless updates they made against people's wishes, most recently that whole thing where they don't give users a choice anymore at all.
>Are you? Citing one situation where they pulled back doesn't account for all of the endless updates they made against people's wishes, most recently that whole thing where they don't give users a choice anymore at all.
What "users wishes"? Some people will always complain for anything.
It only matters when large volumes of users protest. Some guy in rural Montana not liking some Facebook policy doesn't mean FB will change it.
In this case the MAJORITY of the people are using Facebook as they did before, and have no problem with any changes.
Not the same case with Instagram, where the change has to do with the core (and basically only) feature of the service, uploading your photos.
> most likely they screwed up the phrasing but meant something extremely more limited
I'm a pretty firm believer in Hanlon's razor ("never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity"), except when it comes to lawyers. They tend to put a lot of thought into what they write, and understand the ramifications of their words.
I worked for an ad network which was showcasing a banner template that looked like this: log in with your Facebook account from an ad, profile pictures of your friends appear, share stuff about the product with them. I'm pretty sure that covers "use of your pictures for advertising". It's not exactly using your face in the next Super Bowl ad, but it's still using your image for commercial purposes.
Why are you so sure they aren't going to do it? Facebook used and continues to use people's names and pictures in ads. I agree it's unlikely they'll do it Getty-style, but that's not the only way to make money off your picture.
Didn't Facebook already use people's pictures in their ads? What makes you so sure this will not happen again? (well okay, maybe not after all this outrage).
Instagram using users pictures in their ads (for Instagram itself) is totally fine (with the appropriate warning in the TOS). Companies do that all the time.
The problem would be Instragram using user pictures for third-party ads, ie. selling user pictures to ad agencies.
My question is do the Terms of Service allow for the situation Wil Wheaton is explaining?
People all over the technology industry fall over themselves trying to predict what these companies are going to do. A lot of them fail. Changing the ToS is a big deal because its tangible and meaningful. Intent is hard to define and I don't think folks should get the habit of assuming a companies intentions.
I agree, as I mentioned in an above comment, I feel like the ads will be something like FB's promoted posts that show highlighted ads of things your friends like.
To me, this sort of ad in the IG stream using photos my friends took at restaurants/venues, saying that 'my friend recently went to X place' seems like a pretty engaging ad that I'd like to see. I already look at my friends' photos, so having one show up again promoting a restaurant I might like to go to wouldn't a big deal to me.
But as you mentioned, I just don't know what the TOS actually allows for, so I'm only speculating.
No, they are NOT going to do that.
It's 2012. Why are people --and especially someone like Wheaton-- behaving like it's 1994 and they are learning this "web" thing for the first time?
I've seen the same bloody story play up 10 or 20 times. They made a BS change on their license terms, they are is gonna be a small fuss from their users about it and they are gonna revert it.
It's not like Instagram-the-company even intended to do that in the first place -- most likely they screwed up the phrasing but meant something extremely more limited (like: we'd have be able to use your pics when advertising Instagram-the-app itself).
Instead, people are acting like Instagram was really going to sell their photos and not pay them, and like this thing won't be revoked in less than a month.
That is absurd.
Why?
1) The backslash from the users, especially with 2-3 active competitors against the company (Twitter, which added photo filters to its app, being the latest heavyweight).
2) The lawsuits from users their photos they did attempt to sell.
3) It's not a way to make money, anyway. Instagram is not a Getty Images like company -- and limited size pictures with cliched filters is not exactly a stock image market. Getty actually partners with Flickr, which has actual photos of ALL kinds and PAYS the photographer if it uses the pictures, but it's not like anything lucrative came out of it, for either Flickr, Getty or the users.