8 October 2008
Many of us enjoy visiting and using the ever-expanding world of social sites that offer instant popularity and social status among those of similar interests. You know them as facebook, myspace, youtube, and the list goes on… Sure they seem harmless enough, you go and upload stories, photos or videos of you and your friends; you chat with an old friend you haven’t seen in years or even meet that special someone & live happily ever after.
Think of all the sites you have to log-in to and ask yourself, “How is my information being used?” How many of us take the time to scroll below the big flashy “Sign-Up Now!” buttons to check out those small links at the bottom of the page with names like “Copyright“, “Terms of Use“, “Legal” or “Privacy Policy“. My guess would be a lot fewer of us then we would like to admit.
I’ve been asked why I don’t host my media on some of those popular sites for free instead of going through all the trouble and cost of doing it manually. Well, the simple answer is this:
It’s mine and I don’t give anyone permission to mess with it.
Let me explain:
Not to pick on any site in particular, but if I were to host my videos on a video hosting site named say, yew_toobe it states that signing up with them grants them things like “world-wide“…”non-exclusive“…”royalty-free“…”sublicenseable“…”transferable“…rights to go ahead and “reproduce“…”distribute“… and make “derivitive works” of MY Work.
(see illustration below).
Perhaps we should pull out the magnifying glass and take a closer look at those small links on the bottom of the page.
… Clarity Magnified – Take a look at the Fine Details
fase_bouk: (124,000,000 log-ins)1
… Clarity Magnified – Take a look at the Fine Details
mii_spaise: (246,000,000 log-ins)1
… Clarity Magnified – Take a look at the Fine Details
yew_toobe: (3,000,000,000 video-views)2
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