Have you checked your TOS lately

It would appear that most of the Social Networks and big Internet juggernauts have decided to change their terms of service (TOS). Interestingly most indicated the changes started on the 24^th of June! I have no idea why this date matches up. Also the changes all pretty much incorporate similar terms, although written in obscure wording.

To paraphrase the essence is those services offering the ability to upload any information, store it or process it now let it be known that they are allowed to use this to suit their own purposes. Often they will add such as to improve their service. Similar conditions and wording have been in many TOS agreements for such services so they can handle our data, but their "clarifications" have muddied the water. A lot of users are starting to worry that this also means they can use your data in any way they like such as to train AI, modify and republish as they wish.

Needless to say, this has worried several people, particularly artists using such services as Adobe. Supposedly scores of users have tried to abandon Adobe subscriptions, then only to find it is very difficult, for some almost impossible, to leave without incurring significant fees. Similar problems and perceptions are affecting artists on Instagram so I’m not sure of the exact numbers but it seems a great rush that has apparently left Instagram for an alternative, Cara.

I actually do read the terms of service and must admit the changes are a bit hard to follow. However, I do agree they leave the way open for the services to claim ownership of anything you post on their particular offerings. In a few places, they do still say that you own copyright but I assume their lawyers just haven’t seen that clause yet.

Most of these services actually rely on us to supply the content that they then package up and use to convince advertisers to pay them money (often very big money). The problem is they “believe” we are happy having free access to their service, with the public exposure the world wide web can offer and not being paid for our content. Yes, these juggernauts have costs but their profits are larger, massive, even unimaginably disgustingly exorbitant!

So I decided some time ago not to share anything I intended to sell (like finished art work or photos) in a ready copyable form anywhere on the internet. I have still been publishing on the likes of Flickr, Blogger, Instagram and my own website, those things I’m working on, progress updates and just stuff I find interesting. This works for me because I’m not relying on the Internet to sell things my works.

Where does that leave us creatives and what can we do about it? 

I’m probably gonna leave social media to the bots for now and see what happens. Maybe play around a little in Cara.