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View Full Version : So who's mad at Instagram



KristineS
12-19-2012, 12:22 PM
If you do anything with photos online you've probably seen all the hoopla over the new terms of service for Instagram. It always amazes me when people are surprised that a free site may try to profit off their posts or information, but it seems a lot of people are very outraged by this.

If you weren't aware of this whole issue, here is a background on the new Instagram TOS (http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-instagram-backlash-20121219,0,5928227.story).

What do you guys think? Outrageous or hardly surprising?

vangogh
12-19-2012, 12:38 PM
I'm not mad at them, but only because I have nothing to do with the service. It's funny, because just before they sold to Facebook I was thinking of setting up an account. I downloaded the app and later in the same day I heard the news of the sale and I've never opened the app since. I had a feeling under Facebook's control something like this might happen.

I have nothing against Instagram making money. They are a business. I think why people are upset is because of the way they're going about trying to make money. The original clause in the TOS (I think it's since been removed) said Instagram could sell your images without compensation to you and without even letting you know. What I don't particularly care for is that they can use pictures of you in advertisements to suggest you're endorsing a product or company. If someone were to take a picture of me standing in front of Starbucks for example and Instagram knew it was me in the image, they'd then show the image to my friends and family in a way to suggest that I'm recommending they all go to Starbucks. Just because I'm standing in front of a sign doesn't mean I endorse the product.

None of this should be surprising. In fact I think much of what people are objecting to was already in the TOS prior to the change. It's also pretty much in line with how Facebook does business, so if you're shocked by any of this you haven't really been paying attention. I'm not sure if outrageous is the right word, but I do get why people are downloading their images and closing their accounts.

nealrm
12-19-2012, 03:12 PM
I have no issue with a website trying to make money. In fact I want them to make money so they can continue to operate. However, this method of making money was wrong. They were effectively trying to profit off others people work without compensation.

Wozcreative
12-19-2012, 03:39 PM
Well, photographers and illustrators are now all angry that instagram will be stealing and using their work.. when these people have no problem downloading and pirating software, music and movies and making profit on those.

Instagram had actually responded to the outcry of everyone to clarify they are in fact not going to be selling the photos your posting:
Why the Web Is Freaking Out Over Instagram's Terms of Service - Digits - WSJ (http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2012/12/18/why-the-web-is-freaking-out-over-instagrams-new-terms-of-service/)

More over-reacting from something you read online that gets passed around on facebook...

Business Attorney
12-19-2012, 04:30 PM
I'm not upset because I don't use the service, but I can understand why others are upset. I think the selling is only one aspect. Even if they don't sell some sponsor the rights to use your photo, they can freely use it in their own marketing. If I take a picture of my son acting silly and share it with my family and a few close friends, I wouldn't expect it to be plastered all over Instagram.

Also, I think one problem that Instagram/Facebook and many other Web 2.0 sites have is that their tactics are viewed as changing the rules in the middle of the game. People have committed time and effort to help build the user base for the company and feel that even though they can delete their accounts and prevent the company from using their material, that they have been used.

nealrm
12-19-2012, 06:23 PM
Well, photographers and illustrators are now all angry that instagram will be stealing and using their work.. when these people have no problem downloading and pirating software, music and movies and making profit on those.

Where the heck do you get off saying that. That is a bunch of BS and insulting to large of people. Any photographer or illustrator worth half a sense wouldn't go out and steal copyright work. Simply put, even if they didn't view it as morally wrong, most would avoid it due to the civil legibility.

Wozcreative
12-19-2012, 08:39 PM
Where the heck do you get off saying that. That is a bunch of BS and insulting to large of people. Any photographer or illustrator worth half a sense wouldn't go out and steal copyright work. Simply put, even if they didn't view it as morally wrong, most would avoid it due to the civil legibility.

You must be dreaming of a perfect world. This was a generalization, and there are more mediocre wanna be illustrators/photographers/musicians etc then there are professional ones who cannot afford to dish out the money and keep their morals at the same time. I don't know any professional that didn't start off with a pirated version of a piece of software. No matter if we like it or not, piracy is very much alive. I was just pointing out how ironic this all is.

vangogh
12-20-2012, 01:34 AM
I think one problem that Instagram/Facebook and many other Web 2.0 sites have is that their tactics are viewed as changing the rules in the middle of the game.

Exactly. I realize their terms give them the right to change things midstream, but it all feels like bait and switch. That's been Facebook's MO since the beginning too. The view of the company is everything everywhere should be public and from time to time they make a change that turns something that was private into something public by default.


I don't know any professional that didn't start off with a pirated version of a piece of software. No matter if we like it or not, piracy is very much alive. I was just pointing out how ironic this all is.

I'm sure it's not 100% true, but I can't think of too many people that didn't start with a pirated version of software either. In this case I know a lot of people are getting upset thinking Instagram would sell their images, but I never took their TOS that way. To me it's more that they'll use your likeness in an image and show it to your friends in a way that implies you endorse something that you may or may not. Facebook does this now. If you like a page it may end up in a promoted post as an endorsement from you. In this case you have actually liked something, but to me it's still wrong.

One thing I think all social networks seem to do is assume every relationship we have is equal and that what we share with one person is what we want to share with all. People generally don't have real relationships that work that way. Our relationships are much more compartmentalized. We typically share a part of ourselves with one group of people, and a different part with another. Sometimes the parts and groups overlap and sometimes they don't. Online social networks give us that marginally at best.

What Instagram is going to do (and nothing in their response suggests they won't) is use your likeness to promote products to your friends. They won't take into account that all are friends aren't created equal and they won't take into account whether or not it's ok with you to use your likeness. By the way that's something celebrities will probably be able to sue them for since it directly affects their own potential for earning money.

SDGSteve
12-20-2012, 09:50 AM
Where the heck do you get off saying that. That is a bunch of BS and insulting to large of people. Any photographer or illustrator worth half a sense wouldn't go out and steal copyright work. Simply put, even if they didn't view it as morally wrong, most would avoid it due to the civil legibility.

Invisible pink unicorn. Seriously, you're living in a dream world, and most of the people who use Instagram are hardly professional photographers anyway, they're people who like taking snaps and can't be bothered with Photoshop. Think this whole thing is unsurprising, Facebook said themselves they'd find a way of monetising it, and they're claiming today they never intended to use people's photos anyway. This is the new future; companies announcing vague things, seeing what the response is, then clarifying according to it.

nealrm
12-20-2012, 11:09 AM
Steve, Wozcreative,
The statement was insulting to the professionals in both fields. It lumped people that happen to own cameras or have graphic art programs on their computer with other that work very hard to make a living at their profession. The comment was on the same line as racist or sexist comments.

What is going on with Facebook and Instagram is part of a disturbing trend that I have addressed before. Companies that have grow so large they think that copyrights and respect for the works of others shouldn't apply to them. It started with not wanting to be responsible with what was on their sites or how their site are used. Now this is the next step, claiming rights to everything that is posted there. Company are getting away with this because of a general nonchalant attitude by many toward this type of theft.

KristineS
12-20-2012, 12:32 PM
Invisible pink unicorn. Seriously, you're living in a dream world, and most of the people who use Instagram are hardly professional photographers anyway, they're people who like taking snaps and can't be bothered with Photoshop. Think this whole thing is unsurprising, Facebook said themselves they'd find a way of monetising it, and they're claiming today they never intended to use people's photos anyway. This is the new future; companies announcing vague things, seeing what the response is, then clarifying according to it.

I think you're exactly right about this. Instagram floated a test balloon and when everyone went nuts, they backtracked. It's really a new frontier when it comes to a lot of this sort of thing. If you're using a free site what do you owe the site and what do they owe you? I imagine we'll see a lot of clarifying on this subject in the next few years.

Harold Mansfield
12-20-2012, 01:23 PM
I don't use Instagram, nor am I a big image up-loader. My opinion is that if you want it protected, don't upload it onto a free website or service.
And even if you do, what's wrong with watermarking your images? Problem solved.

I think people expect too much from free stuff. Like they have some kind of right to use other people's stuff however they wish and it's a pretty self serving, unrealistic expectation. Things like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and so on cost a ton of money to build and operate. People don't do it out of the goodness of their hearts just to provide free services to everyone.

When using free things online, you should always be conscious of the possibility that they will change the terms of service at will and don't owe you privacy. If you want privacy and security online, either do it yourself, pay for it from a company that promises it as a service, or don't put it online for the world to access.

vangogh
12-20-2012, 03:55 PM
Instagram floated a test balloon and when everyone went nuts, they backtracked.

Welcome to the world of Facebook. That's how the company has been operating for years. They introduce something new that pushes past people's limits and then when everyone complains they pull back. They never pull back to where things were and end up in a place that's probably still past people's limits, but since it's not as far past as the original change it ends up being accepted.

dianecoleen
12-20-2012, 07:55 PM
I'm not actually mad with Instagram 'coz I'm not using that App. I'm just fine using Facebook and Twitter so far. I think most of their terms is against their customers. Perhaps they can at least compensate the owner of the photo they will be selling for ads. Or better yet create a concise Terms and Conditions in using the site. If they will continue their plan I don't think they will get income from it. *Just sharing my thought anyway.

vangogh
12-21-2012, 02:15 AM
I think most of their terms is against their customers.

Actually I think they're right in line with their customers. The problem is we're not their customers. We're the product. The customers are their advertisers.

Harold Mansfield
12-21-2012, 01:44 PM
Actually I think they're right in line with their customers. The problem is we're not their customers. We're the product. The customers are their advertisers.
And so many people fail to realize that. Customers buy stuff.

dianecoleen
12-21-2012, 06:36 PM
Actually I think they're right in line with their customers. The problem is we're not their customers. We're the product. The customers are their advertisers.

I see. I might have mistyped it. :) I wonder how many consumers will continue to use the app and accept their new TOS. I'm assuming that this is similar to what Facebook has implemented (sponsored post). Does that sponsored post works with Facebook? Thank you.

vangogh
12-22-2012, 03:03 AM
And so many people fail to realize that. Customers buy stuff.

Yep. I think most people miss that. People assume if they're using something, they're the customers, but like you said customers pay for stuff. With most of these social sites we're the product they sell to advertisers.


I wonder how many consumers will continue to use the app and accept their new TOS.

I lot of people did close their accounts. In fact National Geographic dropped them. Here's an article about it (http://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2012/12/19/instagram-boycott-now-includes-national-geographic-and-anonymous/). I'm sure a lot of people will stay and continue to use Instagram as they always have, but enough people left to get them to remove some of the initial changes.

I think the idea is similar to how sponsored posts work on Facebook. I'm not 100%, but pretty sure that's where Instagram was heading.

dianecoleen
12-26-2012, 05:15 PM
Well, I wish them luck with that new TOS. Haven't heard additional info regarding that since the release of the new TOS. Anyway, Thank you for the heads up @vangogh.

vangogh
12-26-2012, 11:46 PM
Other than their backtracking a bit a couple of days later, I don't think Instagram has said anything.

And for a bit of comical relief and a bit of proof that Facebook's privacy policies are confusing here's a funny post. How Facebook Tagging Helped Make Randi Zuckerberg’s "Private" Photo Go Public (http://marketingland.com/how-tagging-made-randi-zuckerbergs-private-photo-go-public-29503). Randi is Mark's sister and apparently she wasn't aware that something she thought she shared privately, wasn't as private as she thought.

KristineS
12-27-2012, 12:53 PM
Man, everyone jumped on that Randi Zuckerberg thing too. You'd think she'd shared a nude photo or something. I've seen several stories about what happened.

dianecoleen
12-27-2012, 02:26 PM
Oah! That story is a bit funny. I've shared another news though to my G+ about the twitter conversation between Randi and her follower. Here is it: Randi Zuckerberg Also Confused About Facebook Privacy (http://www.cnbc.com/id/100339568)
It's hard to keep some privacy if you're a public figure, right?

I have drawn a bit of confusion regarding their terms of privacy settings. Thanks for the additional resource you have provided, I'll surely check on it.

vangogh
12-27-2012, 03:53 PM
It is a funny story and it also makes the point that while Facebook might have some privacy measures in place, they're confusing to most people. Randi Zuckerberg isn't just a member of the family, she used to hold a very prominent job with the company. If she has a hard time controlling how public or private her Facebook posts are, why should anyone thing the typical Facebook user is going to do any better.

dianecoleen
01-03-2013, 05:30 PM
This news had make her supposedly private photo into a more public one. She should have been more quiet or just act natural about it. So, to lessen the picture's publicity. Anyway, this story has ended and I think I should moved on with another story. :)

vangogh
01-04-2013, 02:15 PM
She should have been more quiet or just act natural about it.

I know. If she had never said anything, there would be no story. She didn't want this photo seen, yet her complaining about it being tweeted is what led to everyone seeing it. I guess she's not the most social media savvy person around.

I do think the whole thing does say something about Facebook's privacy controls. They exist, but clearly they aren't so easy for people to understand how they work or how to set them to reflect what kind of privacy they want to maintain.

SDGSteve
01-04-2013, 03:41 PM
Steve, Wozcreative,
The statement was insulting to the professionals in both fields. It lumped people that happen to own cameras or have graphic art programs on their computer with other that work very hard to make a living at their profession. The comment was on the same line as racist or sexist comments.

Not sure I'd go quite that far but OK I appreciate your point, I don't think either of us are saying that EVERY photog/illust does these things, but equally saying that none of them do is impossibly rose tinted.

Prior to doing web/SEO full time I worked in the film industry and saw a vast majority download films from torrent sites, I see graphic designers downloading software and taking stock photos and fonts and so on precisely because they know how to get rid of watermarks or change an image just enough that you can't quite tell if it's a steal or a similar shot, tons of digital art and illustrations rip off photographers, a friend who does wildlife photography recently discovered an entire collection of oil paintings selling for thousands which were all direct copies of his work, lots of stuff on places like Deviant Art is made up of others work, some people credit and pay stock fees and so on, some people don't. Colossal numbers of people in any profession download free MP3s from time to time even if not all the time, it's human nature, no one's perfect, photogs and illustrators are as likely to steal something as the next guy.

The point was the web is full of opinion from us the masses about how stealing music and film is somehow the music/film companies fault and what whiners they are complaining about it, or how it's Google's fault because it has links to that content, damn capitalists etc. everyone but the thief is at fault. But when someone tries stealing stuff we've created it's an appalling disgrace and unquestionably the fault of the thief, damn capitalists etc.




What is going on with Facebook and Instagram is part of a disturbing trend that I have addressed before. Companies that have grow so large they think that copyrights and respect for the works of others shouldn't apply to them. It started with not wanting to be responsible with what was on their sites or how their site are used. Now this is the next step, claiming rights to everything that is posted there. Company are getting away with this because of a general nonchalant attitude by many toward this type of theft.

I agree this is happening, but it's also naive to think free services are just going to stay that way forever, they all have to make money at some point and ad revenue alone is rarely enough, Instagram gave everyone a pretty cool little application basically free of charge or at least ridiculously cheaply for a year or two, now they need to earn some money, if people don't like it they can use Flickr or whatever instead. I use Flickr, if they did this I'd close my account and be grateful for several years of free storage and getting to meet some nice and talented people.

We don't have a right to get free Facebook, Youtube, Google, we're just lucky they have built their businesses that way and survived so far, it's their site and they can do what they want with it, and however cool and funky Instagram or Zuckerberg or whoever seems it's irrelevant, the second they agreed that first venture capital deal they ceased controlling the company and the suits became boss, in many cases the same suits who are getting their music and films stolen and need to up profits elsewhere to make up the difference, they are venture capitalists because they are focused on making money, if they don't they can't capitalise the next cool startup we'll all want to use. Sure they could have done it better, Flickr offer a decent deal where you can sell your photos through Getty via a deal they set up, something you only get normally if you have a vast library of extremely high quality images, but ultimately they can do whatever they feel like having spent tens or hundreds of millions developing the whole thing we can all use for virtually nothing.

In the end people power won anyway, Instagram aren't going to steal anyone's photos and everyone can go on stealing music and films if they want to with little fear of reprisal, we the masses are still getting the best end of the deal, Facebook are now lumbered with an expensive lump they can't monetise properly to add to the even larger lump of Facebook itself they can't monetise properly and numerous venture capitalists are screaming "when do I get to make some money out of these billion users", I don't like this approach of forcing a change and seeing what the reaction is particularly, but it's their call and I think the whole episode ultimately shows off the people power that the web gives us.

Harold Mansfield
01-04-2013, 03:45 PM
It amazes me that people use free websites and expect premium protections and services. It's not like these companies are scanning the internet and scraping your personal information and images without your permission. You are giving it to them freely.

I know no one ever reads those TOS statements, but maybe you should start. Almost all of them have a "we reserve the right to change our mind and do whatever we want" clause in them. You don't have to agree. But you do.

If you want privacy, don't put your stuff online or post on free websites. How simple is that?

vangogh
01-04-2013, 04:11 PM
I know no one ever reads those TOS statements, but maybe you should start.

I try. I bet I read more of them than most people. I'm even able to interpret some lawyer speak accurately. However it's not easy to understand all the stuff in a TOS, especially when they go on for dozens of pages like some do. Until they're short, to the point, and written in a way the average 10th grader can understand I'm not sure it's fair to think most people can protect themselves by reading the TOS first. Also keep in mind, this issue with Instagram wasn't about the TOS you could have read before signing up. It's about a change in the TOS after you've already been a member. I know they all say we reserve the right to change, but how can you realistically decide based on what the company might do. Unless you're just going to reject every TOS that exists.

I completely agree with you that people have to stop thinking they should be entitled to all these services for free. These are companies that have a right and need to make money. However I think many are leaning toward being deceptive in what their business model is. You and I can understand that when you sign up for a free service, you're part of the product being sold. Most people are less internet savvy though and don't realize.

patrickprecisione
08-06-2013, 09:07 AM
No to move too far off topic, but is anyone annoyed by Instagram video? I can't scroll through my feed without accidentally turning a video and the obnoxious music that comes with it.

vangogh
08-07-2013, 02:22 AM
Can't say I'm annoyed by them, but it's only because I've never seen one. I was all set to join Instagram when Facebook bought it. I instantly lost interest in everything Instagram.