Social media intellectual property policies compared
During a social media workshop with a client today a question was asked about the IP of content you submit. I wasn't too happy with the answer we gave so did some research on some popular services, a summary of which I've put into a Google Docs spreadsheet below.
An important thing to bear in mind, which is common to pretty much all these services, is that you will retain the ownership but the services will grant themselves a wide-ranging licence and often sub-licences. These kind of licences are absolutely necessary though if the services are to do their job of sharing content with other users.
See the spreadsheet in Google Docs or view it below:
During my research I found these other useful resources:
- "Facebook terms of service compared with MySpace, Flickr, Picasa, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Twitter" by Amanda French
- "Online Policy Primer: Flickr Terms of Service" by Paula L
- "Facebook's New Terms Of Service: "We Can Do Anything We Want With Your Content. Forever."" by Consumerist.com
- What is Creative Commons - for those not familiar
