It’s Too Late: You’ve Already Signed Your Soul to Facebook

You’ve probably seen the same Facebook statuses that we’ve seen today, the ones in which the writer asserts that “I hereby declare that my copyright is attached to all of my personal details” posted to Facebook, warning the social network it isn’t allowed to spread your funny one-liners, photos, or secret e-mails with your mistress without your permission. The problem? As Gawker points out, you’ve already given Facebook permission to do pretty much whatever it wants to do to you. “You’ve already agreed to allow Facebook to use your intellectual property in connection with Facebook (for, say, Facebook ad campaigns) when you signed up, as outlined in its Statement of Rights and Responsibilities: ‘[Y]ou grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any IP content that you post on or in connection with Facebook (IP License).’ You can’t retroactively change that agreement with a status update!” Any good news here? Just that Facebook probably won’t be that big a jerk to you. “Facebook’s license ends when you delete your intellectual property, so they’re unlikely to use your photos or status updates without obtaining permission first.” [Gawker]