Instagram will make some big changes to its intellectual property policy on January 16th, and many people are not happy about them.
Among the many changes – Instagram can sell your photos to anyone and not pay you a dime, according to CNET.
Another section claims the company is immune to class-action lawsuits and other legal action if it makes private photos public.
Here’s more from CNET:
That means that a hotel in Hawaii, for instance, could write a check to Facebook to license photos taken at its resort and use them on its Web site, in TV ads, in glossy brochures, and so on — without paying any money to the Instagram user who took the photo. The language would include not only photos of picturesque sunsets on Waikiki, but also images of young children frolicking on the beach, a result that parents might not expect, and which could trigger state privacy laws.
Google’s policy, by contrast, is far narrower and does not permit the company to sell photographs uploaded through Picasa or Google+. Its policy generally tracks the soon-to-be-replaced Instagram policy by saying: “The rights you grant in this license are for the limited purpose of operating, promoting, and improving our services.” Yahoo’s policies service for Flickr are similar, saying the company can use the images “solely for the purpose for which such content was submitted or made available.”
