Yisela Gonzalez

April 23, 2014

WRI 10
Professor Moberly
Copyright in Social Media Cites

As a generation in the 21
st
century, we have been exposed to many social media cites.
Where in order to make an account you have to agree to the terms and conditions. Which are
very long, and almost no one has the time to read through and make sure they actually agree with
it. But then people have to face the consequences of not having rights to what they have posted.
In some cases, what has been posted is then officially available to anyone to repost or use to their
convenience. Since people do not read the terms and conditions people must then face the
consequences. Social media cites like, Twitter and Tumblr, are an example of how if the user
does not read the terms and conditions then they face the possibility of not having copyright.
Without your consent your photos can be taken from you and can be exploited in any way. For
example they can have a mean comment or can be made as a meme or they could even be
distorted. Within this proposal I explore how, by making the terms and conditions shorter, people
will be able to read them and protect themselves from those in the social media cites they use.

Living in a society were social media is very popular we are constantly posting personal
information about ourselves without being aware of how many people can view this information
and the entitlement that we have to what we uploaded on social media sites. Ever since the
creation of Facebook in 2004 and Twitter in 2006 people have posted millions of personal
pictures and videos on the web. However, when creating a social media account have you ever
stopped to read the terms and conditions? Most likely the answer will be no. When coming
across the terms and conditions we tend to ignore and just hit the I agree box because it is too
much information for one to comprehend, read, and retain. If a person actually read every
privacy policy agreement he encountered, it would take approximately 250 hours or 30
workdays. (Centanni) Due to the fact that we do not want to read the long agreement this is a
way for social media cites to manipulate us in the way that we will not be aware of the rights we
loose once we agree to their regulations. Under 17 U.S.C. 102, copyright protection is
embedded in "original works of authorship" and can be "fixed in any tangible medium of
expression. If another directly infringes any of the owner's foregoing rights, the direct
infringer is susceptible to criminal sanctions and civil liability. (Centanni) In other words, we as
the people have copying protection for our original work, like for example our pictures. If
anyone decided to reuse our work in any way, they are going against our rights and case face
charges. But, the terms and conditions state otherwise. They say that we do not have those rights
as long as you click agree. You will no longer have that power. But how could we know this if
we dont have the time to read their ridiculously long terms and conditions.
This situation of having long terms and conditions leads to a critical problem, which is,
who really owns what is posted online. With that said, for people who are users of the
unmistakably Facebook site their current terms state that by posting your pictures people are free
to obtain it without any kind of approval from you (Who Owns Photos and Videos Posted on
Facebook, Instagram or Twitter?). Twitters Twitpic, which is a photo sharing service, says, by
uploading a picture you lose your rights to it (Who Owns Photos and Videos Posted on
Facebook, Instagram or Twitter?). So anyone can use it in whatever way they wish, again with
out the need of your approval. But yet not many of this know this unless we did research after
having accepted to use the website.
There are still plenty of people who do not know what sort of consequences they face if
they continue to post personal pictures that shouldnt really be posted. For example, now when
applying to a job the company could possibly look for you on Facebook or any social media cite
and look at your posts. If they see something that they do not like, it is possible that they do not
hire you. Not only are looked for when getting hired but also as you already have the job. Ginger
DAmico a Spanish teacher at Brownsville High School was suspended for a total of 30 days,
which were not paid, for having been seen by parents and school board members in a picture
with a male stripper. Although, she had not posted the picture herself on Facebook she was still
suspended because she was the only one that was recognized from all the school staff who
attended the Bachelorette party (Clemmit). Social Media has grown immensely over the last few
years, making their lives transparent, allowing hundreds, to thousands, to millions of people have
access to their everyday activities, including bosses and strangers.
In order, to avoid people from not knowing what they are getting themselves into by not
having the time to read the terms and conditions in every social media cite they decide to join,
the company should be made to have much shorter, and concise terms and conditions. That
people could read in about 10 min or so. If the person believes this is still a waste of time, then
the person is responsible for whatever may happen once on the social media cite. But that way a
person is able to either have the choice to open the account or not, depending on what the terms
and conditions state.
If people were given much shorter terms and conditions they would be aware of their
rights taken and be aware of what to post and what not post on the internet on the social media
they may be using. Just with making the wording much simpler would make a big difference by
making it shorter and easier to understand. Because the vocabulary they use is really large and
most of is not vocabulary that people use day by day. Even if the terms and conditions were
shorter but still had complicated words, people still wouldnt read. Because people now, tend to
read the easy and short articles. People want things easy and quick. Most users of these services
do not bother to read the user agreements and upload text, pictures, and videos without
considering the legal implication(Centanni). Once people are able to read it they will be in
power of being able to actually make a choice into agreeing to make the cite or not.
Some people would possibly blame the user. Because they believe the user should be
more responsible about knowing what they could be getting into like in any other situation.
People should be responsible citizens for there actions and responsible for the consequences. In
this case, not taking the time out to read the terms and conditions would be the users fault.
Because although effort must be put in order to get through reading the whole terms and
conditions page it can be done. It just takes time, which like Centanni said it would take 250
hours or 30 days, but it is not impossible. The company of Facebook or Twitter could argue that
it is no their job to make things easy for the person, they are providing the information they want
on the terms and conditions because they have the right to. Their job is not to make it simple and
short for their users. They would say that what they have provided on the terms and conditions is
placed where it is because of its importance. It could possibly not be important to the person
creating the account but it could be for them. That is the reason why they even included it in the
first place.
However, in honest truth people are not asking to get the terms and conditions dumbed
down rather just make it much easier for one to actually read through. Because at the end of the
day, even if people knew that what they posted could be used by someone else or would forever
stay on the world wide web, they would still chose to post things. For example, I know that the
pictures I post on Facebook or the status I post are going to always be on the Internet. Even if I
think I did everything to delete them, once its on its on forever. But even when I know that I still
post pictures not ones that could possibly harm me in getting a job or something as serious as
that but I still post on Facebook, Im just much smarter about it. People, like me, just want to be
able to be aware of what could happen once you have created your profile. Not have read the
terms and conditions to make the final decision of whether or not you want to create the
Facebook or twitter account. Plus, some of the things included on the terms and conditions is
totally not even connected to the website. If a law were to be made to keep the terms and
conditions in a certain way it would help everyone out. The ones who are in charge of creating
the terms and conditions page would have less trouble, because what they would have to write
would be very simple and short. Second of all, the people would read the terms and conditions
and they would be able to still have the Facebook profile or Twitter account but they would
either limit or not limit themselves to what they would post online.
Before creating a new account on a social media cite there are steps to making it official.
You must first put in general information. After that it takes you to the terms and conditions
page. Which many of us do not even bother reading but the title of Terms and Conditions and
maybe, just maybe we may causally scroll through without reading a word. But then come the
consequences of this. We are not familiar with the rights we own and dont own after clicking
agree. We simply think that what it says is not important and will not matter in the long run.
While the truth is, not reading the terms and conditions can have really big impact on your life.
As mentioned before if we skip the terms and conditions we think we can post anything and it
will only matter to those who we are friends with or have following us if we have a private
profile. But this is not quite right. Everyone, and I mean everyone has access to the status, tweet,
or photograph you have published. Even if deleted it will never go away. In some cases, jobs will
search you up and will go through your information and figure out what kind of person you are
and decide if they want you to represent them or not. This could determine if you get a job or if
you get into a university or not, or at least thats how the new trend goes. If companies were to
make the terms and conditions page much shorter, people would not be facing this issue. This
would not mean people would not join the social media cite but would only be able to see what
they would be getting themselves into. Making it much simpler and readable would help
everyone out. What I mean by readable and simple is less complicated wording and to be able to
be read in about 30 min at most. Rather than the typical 30 day reading process. Nobody has time
for that, or just doesnt want to make time for it. Making the terms and conditions much shorter
would benefit both people joining to social media cite and the social media cite itself.














Works Cited
Centanni, Jillian A. "Think Twice Before Posting Online." Intellectual Property Litigation
24.1 (2012): 8-11. Academic Search Complete. Web. 23 Apr. 2014.

Gill, Kathy E. "MediaShift." PBS. PBS, 25 Jan. 2013. Web. 12 Apr. 2014.

"Who Owns Photos and Videos Posted on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter?" Law Offices of
Craig Delsack LLC Intellectual Property Attorney Corporate and Business Lawyer Real Estate
Lawyer New York NYC Who Owns Photos and Videos Posted on Facebook Instagram or Twitter
Comments. Law Offices of Craig Delsack, 21 Dec. 2012. Web. 10 Apr. 2014.

Clemmitt, Marcia. "Social Networking." CQ Researcher 17 Sept. 2010: 749-72. Web. 24
Apr. 2014.