Instagram's official response

http://blog.instagram.com/post/38252135408/thank-you-and-were-listening

by kurtvarner • 14 years ago

334 254 14 years ago

blog.instagram.com

Mystalic• 14 years ago

I don't think Instagram/Systrom had any intention to sell user photos or do anything as drastic as the blogosphere made its TOS changes sound.

It did the right thing responding so quickly to user feedback. Hopefully it'll result in a TOS that lets Instagram monetize without infringing on the privacy of its users.

jonknee5• 14 years ago

> Hopefully it'll result in a TOS that lets Instagram monetize without infringing on the privacy of its users.

And maybe just maybe they will review further TOS changes before unleashing them. If these terms were really against Instagram's plans, it's almost even more pathetic.

tharris01014• 14 years ago

I agree. There is a lot of attention paid to TOS changes lately. How could they not see that this would come with heavy backlash? I know he keeps saying "not our intention" in that post, but intentions don't amount to anything if the TOS clearly gives them carte blanche with your photos. Just some really bad public relations going on there.

jobu• 14 years ago

Though they probably won't admit it, I'm betting Hanlon's Razor fits this situation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlons_razor)

After reading some of the TOS changes and this blog post it really seems like a case of overzealous lawyering - trying to cover Instagram for all possible uses of the photos.

shabble4• 14 years ago

I'd like to see a site/service along the lines of http://www.tldrlegal.com/ but which crowdfunded some decent lawyers to review the ToS, privacy policy, etc of popular sites (determined by user votes) and provided a list of potentially objectionable statements.

Not as Proper Noun Legal Advice, but more as a set of things which might be a concern, and you should have your own qualified legal counsel examine in detail if desired)

I can think of all sorts of problems though; malpractice, negligence, copyright infringement of ToS, libel for misinterpretations, and many more besides. Maybe that's why it doesn't (can't?) exist.

chmars4• 14 years ago

The legal text, i.e., the announced new ToS, remain relevant, in particular since the ToS rule out suing Instagram (you have to revert to arbitration). I therefore see today's announcement as an important first step but an amendment to the announced new ToS has to follow suit if Instagram really takes this matter serious from a legal perspective.

pdonis• 14 years ago

Hopefully it'll result in a TOS that lets Instagram monetize without infringing on the privacy of its users.

What I don't get is why Instagram doesn't just let users pay for the value they are obviously receiving from the service.

http://blog.peterdonis.com/opinions/your-cloud-data-not-your...

mstefanko2• 14 years ago

The blogosphere will always make things sound worse than they are. But was it really that exaggerated this time. I don't think there intentions were as bad as it came off, but they made a huge mistake. There response was honestly not all that fast considering the instant shit storm this caused. If a million users complain about something immediately after it hits the feeds, and it takes them literally hours to say much of anything about it, there's an issue. The apology was not heartfelt, it wasn't sincere, and came off far more like like, "we're sorry you didn't understand."

I think instagram/facebook should be able to monetize, but I think today marks a gigantic mistake in their history, they went down in myspace fashion. Users dropping like flies, the amount of traffic on services like instaport.me and http://freethephotos.com/ is phenemonal.

In other news, flickr came back from the grave.

newishuser• 14 years ago

As a non lawyer who likes to pretend he knows what he's talking about, I say: "Lovely, now let's get that in writing."

tharris01014• 14 years ago

Exactly. There is a big difference between "not our intention" and "we legally can't do that"

chmars4• 14 years ago

I absolutely agree, the legal Terms of Service (ToS) are relevant and not some blogging about intensions. The legal text is in particular important because according to the ToS, you are now allowed to sue Instagram but you have to revert to arbitration.

AlexMuir2• 14 years ago

This is a completely different style of incident response than parent company Facebook's. I much prefer this (relatively) straight up approach, although I'll admit it's more likely to come back and bite them in the arse a few years down the line.

MattSayar• 14 years ago

Why will it come back to bite them?

tharris01014• 14 years ago

Because some day they will want to do the things he is insisting they "have no intention" of doing and this post will come back to bite them.

AlexMuir2• 14 years ago

I'm not saying it will, but that it's more likely to. No-one knows what technology brings to the table.

Eg. "it is not our intention to sell your photos"

But what if some kickass image analysis startup emerges that can mine valuable data from billions of pics. And then sell that data. So, just like Twitter with its firehose, Instagram licences its data to 3rd parties. They've just ruled that out (except they haven't, because licensing something is legally different to selling it, if not in substance).

It's a lawyer's job to leave terms as much in their client's favour as they can get away with. It would be foolish to close avenues for no reason. There's a balancing act with PR but overall I think Instagram were just unlucky here and handled it well.

davewiner2• 14 years ago

They want to use your pictures to sell products to your friends. Say you take a picture of your friends at Domino's Pizza. They can show that picture to your friends and say "Look this guy who you know loves our pizza. Come try it out." Now you may not mind making an endorsement. But with this plan they don't have to ask you for permission. They can just do it.

And if you turn out to be a hit they can use it to sell the pizza to everyone not just your friends.

And if you're really a hit, they can use it to sell underwear. Or adult diapers. Or contraceptives. Or whatever you might not like them to use your imagery to sell.

alexismadrigal• 14 years ago

Agree. It's pretty obvious where they are going with this. And from an advertiser's perspective, it's pretty sweet. Right now, the distinction they are trying to draw seems to be that they'll only use you to advertise things that you choose to follow.

But what's to stop them from your "implicit" endorsements of products/services you use from location data or with machine vision (something Google can already do with many logos in Street View imagery, I've discovered in my reporting)? Oh, that's right. Nothing. Which is why they don't want to have to ask for permission to do these things.

potatolicious2• 14 years ago

> "They can show that picture to your friends and say "Look this guy who you know loves our pizza. Come try it out.""

They actually can't. There's a world of difference between using a photo to depict an event, and using a photo to endorse.

"Domino's is featuring $5 large pizzas, here's your friend Bob at Domino's last week!" is legal.

"Look at Bob who loves our pizza, come try it out!" is not, unless Bob has signed off on it. You've crossed the line into commercial endorsement, which is a civil suit waiting to happen.

Now, there could potentially be an argument that depicting Bob at Domino's next to a paid message by Domino's is implied endorsement - that's something Instagram will have to figure out. IANAL, though I have studied commercial vs. editorial usage of photography reasonably deeply.

Using someone to endorse a product is a legally non-trivial proposition. It's not as simple as "we can use your photo here".

daltonlp• 14 years ago

I fail to see the difference between the two examples. They both imply endorsement.

In both cases, Dominoes has paid Instagram to promote its product. In both cases, Instagram has taken a photo of Bob (taken by Bob? Taken by a friend of Bob's?) And attached it to a marketing effort on behalf of Dominoes. In neither case does the photo's subject (Bob) or its author (Bob?) have a say over the photo's use.

davewiner2• 14 years ago

Yeah they could put your picture on the Domino's box, saying "Internet users eat here!" and all your friends think "What a dork." Pretty embarrassing and they didn't have to say one word about who you are or what you actually said. They can use the picture because you said they could. And I am not a lawyer, and bet that you aren't either. :-)

stfu• 14 years ago

One of the main reasons these documents don’t take effect immediately, but instead 30 days from now, is that we wanted to make sure you had an opportunity to raise any concerns.

I see, they learned quite a bit from politicians. First push for the extremes, and if you get buried by bad press, produce a watered-down compromise.

Still, it is a surprisingly fair statement from a Facebook owned company.

Flenser• 14 years ago

Is it bad press? Or free advertising for their new features for promoting accounts? I don't think there was any downside to making the TOS changes the way they did.

nikunjk• 14 years ago

Kevin Systrom is the man. To be acquired, be part of a public company and still respond quickly, succinctly and effectively their monetization plan is something a lot of companies can learn from.

jonknee5• 14 years ago

It's not hard to say what people want to hear, especially when you're not under oath.

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/16/disruptions-instagr...

kurtvarner2• 14 years ago

Great, now all the bitching can change to be about their plans to advertise. The sense of entitlement that people have is getting ridiculous. Why do you deserve an absolutely free service?

mirkules4• 14 years ago

We (consumers) deserve to have an honest description of how our data is and will be used. We also deserve to receive the service we signed up for and not have the ToS switched on us midway through the lifecycle of the product. The fact that that is happening is dishonest, and is called a "bait and switch" in most other industries.

clarky077• 14 years ago

>We also deserve to receive the service we signed up No you don't. They can shut the whole thing down and don't owe you a damn thing.

If you don't like the new ToS, when they switch to them and an accept/decline option comes up in the app you can feel free to decline and delete the app.

larskinn• 14 years ago

No. I'll hold my judgement until I see the new TOS, but what they propose in this blog post is much more reasonable. If the new TOS reflect that, I see little reason to bitch about it.

nhangen3• 14 years ago

I don't think users feel that way. What they want is to be acknowledged and respected for helping build the server to what it is today. No users = no service. Don't sell us out just because you chose to take money and sell for a cool bil.

kurtvarner2• 14 years ago

Really? Only 5 days ago this was on the front page of HN: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4917689. And what about the complaints of Twitter and Facebook ads? You can't say that people don't whine about companies monetizing via advertising.

clarky077• 14 years ago

The users didn't help build anything. Instagram built a cool service, and the users used it. They didn't build anything.

Now obviously network effects help something like this grow, but don't kid yourself. They aren't running a charity. They are running a business. At some point you have to start making money or the service just goes away. Then all that those amazing users "built" will be gone in a second when they flick the power switch.

toufka• 14 years ago

No one is asking for a free service. But businesses are giving it. I don't see why businesses deserve to monetize my private information. I'd gladly pay for a feature-rich gmail or facebook where my privacy was guaranteed. But no business is standing up to take my money.

soup10• 14 years ago

The big psychological difference is that they are taking something that was free and then starting to charge/advertise versus having it be that way from the start. Kinda like how people would get annoyed if they have to pay to use the bathroom, or for napkins at a restaurant. Or checking you bags on an airplane. It's about setting expectations.

The other thing is that a lot of people use Instagram to share photos they only want their close friends seeing, so people are more sensitive about privacy changes.

_delirium• 14 years ago

I don't generally mind free services adding whatever advertising or other things they want, but imo it gets into considerably different territory when there's anything like a transfer of ownership or substantive licensing of ownership-like rights. Those kinds of transfers should be very explicit, where users consciously and knowingly agree, "yes, I agree to license this content for [x,y] use". Of course, Instagram claims they didn't do that here (though EFF's lawyers seem to disagree).

For example, I use Flickr as a free service, and I don't think they owe me anything. They could add advertising if they want, they could remove the free tier and shut down my account if I don't pay, they could shut down the service entirely, etc. That's all well within their rights, since they run the service. But imo it's a qualitative difference from those kinds of changes if they were to add new ToS terms claiming ownership or ownership-like rights over my photographs. That's very different because it can actually damage my career outside their service if I fail to notice the relevant ToS change and they grab some rights I didn't intend to license to them.

alecdibble• 14 years ago

Hopefully the take-away is an explanation would have been helpful when the ToS was changed. Everyone was given limited information and they interpreted it how they could.

Maybe sites will think about this next time they quietly changed their ToS.

MichaelGG• 14 years ago

If they needed an explanation to say "the terms say this, but we don't really mean it" then perhaps they should just not release a ToS with stuff they don't actually mean.

It's little comfort for a company to say "oh the contract says X, but don't worry it's not true".

The take-away here is to actually properly review the ToS in light of "how might a user interpret this" not in "how can we make sure we have the absolute most coverage on our side".

comice• 14 years ago

What they claim their intentions were is unimportant.

They were granting themselves irrevokable rights to do things people didn't ever want them to be able to do.

jaggederest• 14 years ago

A possible negative scenario: They grant themselves these rights and then get spun off / acquired by someone with malicious intent. The rights never expire... Can you guarantee that your company will respect the rights of users a decade from now? A century?

shabble4• 14 years ago

Also, you now can't ever sell exclusive rights[1], because there's a perpetual sub-licence capable party floating about out there.

[1] IANAL, but I think that's how it would work; for any licenceable aspect which you wish to grant exclusively, they can grant the same to one or more others, making it non-exclusive.

gyardley• 14 years ago

The language we proposed also raised question about whether your photos can be part of an advertisement. We do not have plans for anything like this and because of that we’re going to remove the language that raised the question.

Interesting use of the present tense in the second sentence, in an "I am not having an affair with that woman" sort of way.

rjd• 14 years ago

To late they lost my trust when facebook brought them, and even rumours of facebook behaviour was enough to walk away.

My account is now gone, same with atleast a dozen people I've talked to in the last day or so. I'd hazard a guess the quick response has been in response to sudden surge in accounts deleted.

jonknee5• 14 years ago

Take it with a grain of salt. They tried to sneak this by and it blew up in their faces.

While under oath, Kevin Systrom: “No, we never received any offers,”

Reality, Instagram had an offer from Twitter and Kevin Systrom had direct knowledge.

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/16/disruptions-instagr...

That said, at least it looks like they're going to tweak the TOS change in favor of their users. But with Facebook pulling the reigns, we all know where this will end.

nathanb• 14 years ago

Some language in the post I found interesting:

> The language we proposed also raised question about whether your photos can be part of an advertisement. We do not have plans for anything like this and because of that we’re going to remove the language that raised the question.

Note that he doesn't say "we won't use your photos as part of an advertisement", he merely says "the reason we're removing that language is because we don't [currently] plan on using your photos as part of an advertisement".

I'm sure if they thought of a way they could make money by doing so without losing critical mass, they'd be all over that.

bentruyman• 14 years ago

Of course. It would be silly to speak in absolutes like that and not leaving certain advertising opportunities on the table for the future.

loceng2• 14 years ago

Nor "at this time" doesn't mean they can't and won't add this later anyhow. This is damage control, though damage has been done.

tedunangst• 14 years ago

He also doesn't say he's going to stop beating his wife.

marshray5• 14 years ago

I like how he said "The language we proposed ... " to refer to "Yesterday we introduced a new version of our Privacy Policy and Terms of Service that will take effect in thirty days."

jka2• 14 years ago

It's a science fiction idea I think, but something that would also fly, given their statements, would be to show photos of people who look like your friends (Facebook have the machine learning / pattern matching capability) in order to influence your decisions; someone who looks like a great crush you had, dining at a nearby restaurant, for example.

This would neither necessarily fit into the classification of 'advertising', nor be showing photos to 'your friends', who would immediately call this kind of behaviour out. This would sorta tally with the fact that photos are public by default AFAIK, and the comments about privacy.

Hopefully irrelevant, but just a thought.

ChrisClark2• 14 years ago

What do you mean they tried to sneak it in? They already had it there in the old TOS but no one bothered to read it, or at least they didn't care when Instagram had full rights to advertise with their photos before.

The new TOS actually limits what they an do more than the old one.

ChrisClark2• 14 years ago

Really? Do people not agree that the old TOS less restrictive?

blhack2• 14 years ago

Oh for crying out loud, they did not try to "sneak this by".

Stop trying to cast a simple snafu regarding a ToS as some evil conspiracy.

Remember that the people running this company are you peers. It's disgusting watching the community salivating over burning them all at the stake today.

They're your friends, or just like your friends. Knock it off.

jiggy2011• 14 years ago

Just because they work in a similar area does not make them "friends". Besides it is good for an industry to keep it's peers in check.

See also: Banking.

mburshteyn2• 14 years ago

They may be a distinct brand, but Instagram is still owned by Facebook, the company openly attempting to shift society's views on privacy.

mnicole3• 14 years ago

My personal friendships with people employed by Google, EA and Microsoft have no affiliation with how much I support those companies.

chmars4• 14 years ago

It's a business, not a personal relationship.

My peers and friends at least would never use my pictures to create ads and in any case, my relations to peer and friends are not based on comprehensive and one-sided ToS …

guelo• 14 years ago

None of my friends communicate to millions of people via lawyers and PR departments.

23david• 14 years ago

I disagree. This was a carefully worded response. Notice "commit to you that we will be doing more to answer your questions, fix any mistakes, and eliminate the confusion. As we review your feedback and stories in the press, we’re going to modify specific parts of the terms to make it more clear what will happen with your photos." They expected this.

It's a classic move from the Facebook playbook. Push out a far-reaching privacy policy or feature update. Release a message or press release saying that "we're listening". Make token changes and say "we've listened and made changes". And just in case people start to sue, vigorously lobby and donate to government officials to keep the regulatory heat off their backs.

They are trying to get away with as much as they can. These stupid companies are going to be the reason why 10 years from now the Internet is going to be a morass of government regulation.

Don't work for or support companies that act like this. Shame on them. Period.

I wouldn't be surprised if at some point soon you won't be able to register a domain name or start an Internet company without taking a licensing exam.

ryguytilidie3• 14 years ago

Man, this is some absolutely insane over the top hyperbole.

No one tried to cast this as a conspiracy, they simply called it what it is, a company monetizing by making the user experience worse.

"Remember that the people running this company are you peers. It's disgusting watching the community salivating over burning them all at the stake today."

I don't know whats craziest here. First, equating "burning them at the stake" to "deleting their accounts on that persons website" is absolute lunacy and I don't know how anyone could take your points seriously. Second, pretending that because these people look like my friends, they should get a free pass on changing their terms to better monetize user content is just lame, just because someone looks like me and is a millionaire doesn't make them immune to incredibly correct criticism.

FuzzyDunlop• 14 years ago

Your statement doesn't hold true because actual peers call each other out on bad moves, and the failure (or lack of attempt) to find an actual good move.

If we take your words as gospel, then we should be critical of them and we should take action.

This is also because Instagram as a business is not a peer, does not follow advice, and absolutely needs to be burnt at the stake (and salivated over?) to realise it made a mistake.

001sky• 14 years ago

Remember that the people running this company are you peers. It's disgusting watching the community salivating over burning them all at the stake today. They're your friends, or just like your friends. Knock it off.

-- If not in jest, this is rediculously naive. just FYI.

gcmartinelli2• 14 years ago

Are you implying that <i>none</i> of your peers take questionable actions in business? If so, open your eyes.

fweez• 14 years ago

In the blog post announcing the changes (http://blog.instagram.com/post/38143346554/privacy-and-terms...), they called out a "few key updates." The changes to the TOS were described as, "Our updated terms of service help protect you, and prevent spam and abuse as we grow."

Our "friends" over there sure didn't go out of their way to call out an important change in the TOS. If it wasn't an attempt to sneak this by, it's indistinguishable from one.

fluidcruft2• 14 years ago

I particularly appreciate all their statements about "nothing HAS changed" which ring hollow when balanced against the fact that the changes aren't in effect and won't be for 30 days.

w1ntermute9• 14 years ago

> That said, at least it looks like they're going to tweak the TOS change in favor of their users. But with Facebook pulling the reigns, we all know where this will end.

I think the fears are really overblown: http://www.theverge.com/2012/12/18/3780158/instagrams-new-te...

hugoroy2• 14 years ago

No they're not. This article from the Verge is weird. The important changes are in the copyright license. The instagram blog post is lying by omission.

Look at the former section "Proprietary Rights in Content on Instagram"

> Instagram does NOT claim ANY ownership rights in the text, files, images, photos, video, sounds, musical works, works of authorship, applications, or any other materials (collectively, "Content") that you post on or through the Instagram Services. By displaying or publishing ("posting") any Content on or through the Instagram Services, you hereby grant to Instagram a non-exclusive, fully paid and royalty-free, worldwide, limited license to use, modify, delete from, add to, publicly perform, publicly display, reproduce and translate such Content, including without limitation distributing part or all of the Site in any media formats through any media channels, except Content not shared publicly ("private") will not be distributed outside the Instagram Services.

This section about copyright has turned into something pretty much like Facebook's:

> Instagram does not claim ownership of any Content that you post on or through the Service. Instead, you hereby grant to Instagram a non-exclusive, fully paid and royalty-free, transferable, sub-licensable, worldwide license to use the Content that you post on or through the Service, except that you can control who can view certain of your Content and activities on the Service as described in the Service's Privacy Policy, available here:http://instagram.com/legal/privacy/.

cube132• 14 years ago

While I agree that the facebook fears are probably overblown, the TOS' language does not comfort me at all. In fact, I think that the Verge is entirely wrong in that article(IANAL, etc.).

This TOS tweak allows Instagram go sell your content for advertising purposes to a third party. They can use your images, as is, in their advertising(presumably on Instagram, though that is not clear). So they can take payment for your content, without compensating you at all.

That's a pretty huge difference from Facebook's TOS. In there, they state that they will use your content to deliver ads. They're not delivering your content to other parties to be used in their ad campaign.

declan• 14 years ago

Here's another take that disagrees with their blog post -- and this one is from an actual practicing intellectual property attorney: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57559859-38/instagram-riva...

"That effectively guts the user's control over the use and exploitation of the photo," says Daniel Schaeffer, an attorney with Neal & McDevitt, a boutique law firm in Northfield, Ill., specializing in intellectual property. "The most obvious and immediate example is the ability to allow businesses to use your photos in advertising, but the actual effects could be even farther-reaching."

creativityland2• 14 years ago

It's only a matter of time.

cynicalkane3• 14 years ago

Read your source more carefully, and stop selectively quoting. Systrom spoke of formal, written offers. The Twitter offer was a verbal agreement. I do not know my corporate contract law but it would surprise me if these were the same thing.

mpyne2• 14 years ago

> Systrom was asked about formal offers. The Twitter offer was a verbal agreement.

Verbal contracts are still contracts. Written form is preferred because it's easier to enforce after-the-fact, not because it's required for legal contracts.

And either way, Systrom would have taken an oath to "tell the truth, and the whole truth". This type of glaring omission over quibbling about whether an offer was a "formal" offer or not would get most in trouble with the courts...

tobyjsullivan2• 14 years ago

I like this response. Terms of Service often need to change over time and, as of late, the Internet seems to have made a game out of ripping the changes to shreds when put forward by a known brand.

I'm looking forward to seeing how companies handle ToS changes moving forward. Is there a way to avoid the backlash altogether?

frossie• 14 years ago

Is there a way to avoid the backlash altogether?

Err, write TOSes that are not a land grab of other people's intellectual private property and/or private data? You make it sound like it is unreasonable to care about that.

tobyjsullivan2• 14 years ago

I think you underestimate the Internet's ability to find things to misquote and complain about.

The predominant backlash to Google's recent ToS changes come to mind as an example of selective content being reported out of context.

dntbrme• 14 years ago

Why don't they just offer to share some of the profit of selling/using the photos? I think this would gain more users who would not mind being in promotional post, as long as they get a cut.

drivebyacct22• 14 years ago

When you're getting into bed with Facebook, writing poor terms of service in the same week that you lie about acquisition offers is a pretty damn good way of souring the well. If they revise the ToS and remove the offending sections, good, but for some, it will already be too late.

hexis• 14 years ago

"To be clear: it is not our intention to sell your photos."

That is less clear than saying "We will not sell your photos." It's either a knowingly slippery statement, or they forgot how to not be slippery.

listaware• 14 years ago

This was exactly what I stuck with me. Intention can be either direct or indirect. So they could sell something as a package, which would be indirectly selling something, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intention_(criminal_law) . I'm no lawyer, but it does sound like that statement had the once over by a few.

jburwell• 14 years ago

There seems to be a disconnect between the TOS and this statement. If/when it comes down to brass tacks, a legal agreement between the Instagram and its users trumps a blog post about intentions. Talk is cheap -- codify the intentions expressed in the blog post in a TOS revision before the current changes take effect.

darushimo• 14 years ago

It's difficult to believe that the language of the ToS communicates things they 'don't intend', Especially following this potential Twitter-acquisition / possible perjury situation.

Also, lets not forget that this is not a startup talking to us anymore--this is a Facebook-owned company. I would expect Facebook to take full advantage of their intentionally vague legal wording.

Although with that said, they don't need to stop the bleeding as much as shut up the major negative press about it, and this statement will probably do that.

blhack2• 14 years ago

What an absolute shock! Instagram hasn't actually decided to cut off their own hands!

Splendor• 14 years ago

Too late. I already deleted my account.

numbsafari2• 14 years ago

Same here. I'm also working on deleting my FB account. That one is a lot harder to do because so many of the small businesses and artists that I follow have abandoned maintaining their own blog/website in favor of just using FB.

g-garron• 14 years ago

what a big mistake! What if FB is suddenly turned off? they do not even have their own url.

Well, not everybody thinks about worst case scenarios.

aculver• 14 years ago

I don't want "innovative advertising that feels appropriate on Instagram" any more than I want what Facebook has done with advertising in my timeline. Please just give me an option to pay a monthly fee to turn all that garbage off.

wmeredith• 14 years ago

I've paid for and really enjoyed Flickr's Pro service for years. The fact that they just released a really nice app made it easy to kill my Instagram account once and for all today (I'd thought about it when they first got acquired by Facebook, but never followed through).

tharris01014• 14 years ago

I would pay for this too. Unfortunately, not a lot of people would.

level09• 14 years ago

I guess you still need to work on your language, Can't you just use clear sentences with straight meanings ? e.g. > we respect that your photos are your photos. Period wouldn't it be better to just say "we are not going to use your photos without your permission ? "

wbharding• 14 years ago

What the blogosphere seemed to miss when getting all crazy about Instagram selling their pictures to businesses for advertising: what business in their right mind would want the bad press that would go along with exploiting Instagram users? The first time a business used a user's picture without their knowledge, the Internet would go crazy with rage, and rightfully so. It was never going to work that way, because businesses wouldn't want to be part of that game any more than the users would.

The FUD that CNet was able to perpetrate far outweighs any reasonable outcome that I can foresee. For this reason, I take Kevin at his word: both that they aren't going to do stupidly publish user pics on the side of buses, and that they will learn from this blunder.

lalwat• 14 years ago

Still out.

timkly• 14 years ago

Let’s say a business wanted to promote their account to gain more followers and Instagram was able to feature them in some way.

Isn't this just exactly how facebook fooled the world? You pay x to gain y followers and when they have bleed that river dry, they roll out another update that requires you to pay z if you want your posts to show up in their feed?

jmgrimes• 14 years ago

I think that a possible positive side effect of all this is that customers might start realising that they actually would rather pay for web-based software.

suprgeek• 14 years ago

There are several variations of "Our real intention is....", "we are aiming for...." in this post. Instagram users really need to realize that "Actual TOS agreement" trumps a thousand "our real intention...." blog posts.

Plus as other posters have pointed out there are some pretty clear giveaways in the Phrasing of some of the denials. In the very first paragraph is " Since making these changes, we’ve heard loud and clear that many users are confused and upset about what the changes mean...." Basically saying that our changes were not bad it is the users that are confused.

If you have not already --- ABANDON SHIP

creativityland2• 14 years ago

Abandoned.

richardjs• 14 years ago

Legal documents are easy to misinterpret.

It's a shame this is the case. Isn't it part of the point of legal documents to be hard to misinterpret? Isn't that supposed to be why they use such stiff language?

ianstallings4• 14 years ago

Not like it will matter. The witch hunt has started and nothing can disperse an angry mob. Except free pie of course.

shabble4• 14 years ago

There's something I can't quite put my finger on, that makes this response seem a bit forced and insincere.

"Legal documents are easy to misinterpret. So I’d like to address specific concerns we’ve heard from everyone"

My understanding is that legal documents are written precisely to be as hard to misinterpret as possible. They say exactly what they mean, and (subject to possible judicial interpretation) mean exactly what they say.

I'm sure the average layperson might misunderstand or not realise the consequences or scope of a particular term, but as I understand it, the original concerns appear to have been raised by an EFF lawyer[1] who presumably does have a reasonable grasp of the matter.

That sets the tone for the piece.

"Instead it was interpreted by many that we were going to sell your photos to others without any compensation. This is not true and it is our mistake that this language is confusing. To be clear: it is not our intention to sell your photos."

We are selling a package. Which might include some photos and some other advertising or whatever services, juicy user data, etc, but we're definitely not selling the photos. Only the package thing.

"Ownership Rights: Instagram users own their content and Instagram does not claim any ownership rights over your photos."

My understanding is that this is irrelevant to everything except maybe attribution; they're granting themselves sufficient rights to transfer & sub-licence the works, which is essentially everything necessary to sell/use/licence a copy. In fact, the existence of a perpetual royalty-free transferable/re-licenceable licence will significantly devalue the content, if the actual owner wanted to sell or exclusively licence the content.

Maybe I'm reading it wrong. But it definitely feels like the Non-Apology-Apology "We're truly sorry that you feel upset about how we're trying to shaft you good & hard."

[1] mentioned in http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57559710-38/instagram-says... as Kurt Opsahl[2]

[2] https://www.eff.org/about/staff/kurt-opsahl

dustingetz• 14 years ago

> legal documents are written precisely to be as hard to misinterpret as possible

legal documents reuse diction that has been ruled on and has court established precedent, which creates a bias towards diction which ended up in court in the first place.

i read that in a HN comment somewhere, sorry, no citation.

shabble4• 14 years ago

That's a very interesting "survival of the most litigated" sort of evolution. I wonder how much of a given document is unnecessary evolutionary baggage copy & pasted because it's part of That Standard Clause. I'd love to read more if you happen to recall the comment/story

DannyBee• 14 years ago

Only partially. The real reality is legal documents reuse stuff that the partner liked.

ChuckMcM5• 14 years ago

I don't think you are reading it wrong.

There was an interesting controversy at Google about ownership of what you worked on in your own time, and their assertion that the carve out in California law about 'having to do with the business' basically covered everything because they were pretty much into everything.

If you read it in a strict legal sense, by signing the employment agreement you agreed to give Google a lifetime perpetual right to anything your worked on at any time during your employment with them. So a cry went up, and the official response was "You know what we meant, we aren't really claiming everything." So I said, "Ok, lets rewrite it then to say that you don't mean everything, you only mean things that are in businesses that Google is actively pursuing, and not things Google isn't pursuing." my intention was to align the legal text with the statement of their intention. Silence. Tried again. Silence. Eventually presented HR with a 'modified agreement' which had the new language, they refused to sign it. So I asked, which is it? To which they said "We stand by what we said, you are reading too much into this." And my lawyer said, "If I was a lawyer and had this on file and decided I really want to use whatever it was you were working on, this language clearly says you agree to them taking it from you without any compensation."

That was when I decided to leave.

I get that it is "simpler" and reduces the companies risk to have that language in there, after all it would be hugely painful to have to compensate someone more than they already did to use something that person wrote, and it keeps folks from creating a business "on the side" and then selling it back later, but there is what they say, and what they do. And what they will do. My lawyer once said, "If they say it doesn't mean that, then have them update it, if they won't then they do mean that, even if they don't want to say it."

marshray5• 14 years ago

I disagree with your lawyer.

A more likely explanation is that Legal didn't want to modify their very-expensively produced and widely-reviewed employment contract for some mere employee. And HR had you figured out as a troublemaker. :-)

larrys• 14 years ago

"My understanding is that legal documents are written precisely to be as hard to misinterpret as possible."

Actually it depends on the circumstances. Sometimes you want to be precise and sometimes you want to be ambiguous depending on what you are trying to achieve.

Semi legal example: Let's say you are offering people email accounts with a web hosting service. You can be precise and say "you can have up to a million email accounts" or you can be less precise and say (believe it or not) "unlimited". If you say the latter you can then define imprecisely what you mean by "unlimited". If you specify a number you will box yourselves in. Same with customer support or a host of other things. Precision sometimes works against you. (Corrected I said the opposite before edit.)

Another example. Let's say you have a display of free utensils (plastic like at a fast food restaurant). You can say "take no more than 10 ketchup packs" and you will probably end up getting more waste then if you say nothing. In that case, precision works against you.

pseut• 14 years ago

"Take no more than 10 ketchup packs" would be a very unusual legal document. I'm not sure that's the most informative analogy.

mmcnickle• 14 years ago

It's exactly how I read it too.

"Ownership Rights: Instagram users own their content and Instagram does not claim any ownership rights over your photos. [Not that it matters]"

It's all misdirection.

smackfu4• 14 years ago

>My understanding is that legal documents are written precisely to be as hard to misinterpret as possible.

In this case, the issue is that legal documents are written to be as cover-your-ass as possible. Instagram needs a license for your content to show it on their site. Then a lawyer says "what if Facebook sells Instagram to someone else?". So they add a bit that makes it a transferable license. That was easy! But then someone who is not trying to cover Instagram's ass reads it and says "that means they can sell the rights to my photo." And that's true. It wasn't the intent of the lawyers but the lawyers really had no intent regarding protecting the user's rights. They're just watching out for Instagram.

mark-r4• 14 years ago

It is the responsibility of someone in the company (not necessarily a lawyer) to think about how those legalistic terms would look before they were unleashed on the public. The company is now big enough to know better. The changes to the TOS that are promised in the blog post should have been made up front, not in response to a PR disaster.

nemof• 14 years ago

A little bit of balance for the pitchforks crowd:

http://www.theverge.com/2012/12/18/3780158/instagrams-new-te...

This story is giving me a headache.

spangborn• 14 years ago

It's already been pointed out that the Verge ignored several important pieces of the ToS when writing that article - take a look at the comments both on HN (for other articles) and The Verge to see.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4940062

ianstallings4• 14 years ago

What blows my mind about this whole mess is how quickly this community has gone off on some witch hunt. Just read the comments. This is apparently what you have to look forward to if your startup is successful and you eventually try to monetize. Good luck everyone.

forensic3• 14 years ago

Boo hoo, the multi-millionaires are getting insulted when they try to fuck their users!

Won't someone please think of the feelings of the millionaires!

I'm pretty sure they can wipe away their tears with $100 bills and their feelings won't suffer permanent damage. Since their feelings are so much more important than all of the people they are trying to fuck over.

ianstallings4• 14 years ago

Are you an adult? These are your peers not billionaire bankers leeching off the backs of the poor. You know, programmers, marketers, entrepreneurs. They made it. And you want to tear them down because they've been successful? Now that they have money they are automagically evil? What planet am I on?

patrickgzill• 14 years ago

imgur.com is something like $24 a year, and AFAIK they don't claim any ownership on your photos...

davidcollantes• 14 years ago

For me, that's too late. Flickr mobile app is getting better, using it.

danso2• 14 years ago

>> The language we proposed also raised question about whether your photos can be part of an advertisement. We do not have plans for anything like this and because of that we’re going to remove the language that raised the question. Our main goal is to avoid things like advertising banners you see in other apps that would hurt the Instagram user experience. Instead, we want to create meaningful ways to help you discover new and interesting accounts and content while building a self-sustaining business at the same time. ---- <<<

This whole time, I was thinking, "whatever they do, they won't back away from this language...why else would they drop a bombshell if they weren't willing to suffer the blowback"...And it turns out, it was just some optional path they were considering and thought, "what the hell, let's just put in there for now, no biggie"

???

Is that seriously the mindset of a billion dollar company? All I can imagine is:

1) They are lying

2) They really thought people wouldn't read the TOS (hasn't Facebook learned by now that someone will read it and make a big deal about troubling language?)

3) They are an incredibly careless company who will make other "mistakes" that could harm users.

I had been mostly ambivalent about this whole thing, as I don't maintain a very active Instagram account. But now I might just put in the energy to delete my account.

javajosh• 14 years ago

Does anyone else find the phrasing "Legal documents are easy to misinterpret. So I’d like to address specific concerns we’ve heard from everyone..." to be eerily similar to Dr. Breen's PSAs in the beginning of Half-Life 2?

Dr. Breen: "Let me read a letter I recently received. 'Dear Dr. Breen. Why has the Combine seen fit to suppress our reproductive cycle? Sincerely, A Concerned Citizen.' Thank you for writing, Concerned. Of course your question touches on one of the basic biological impulses, with all its associated hopes and fears for the future of the species. I also detect some unspoken questions. Do our benefactors really know what's best for us? What gives them the right to make this kind of decision for mankind? Will they ever deactivate the suppression field and let us breed again? Allow me to address the anxieties underlying your concerns, rather than try to answer every possible question you might have left unvoiced."

rauljara• 14 years ago

I find this thread really fascinating. I have a hard time imagining a more better apology from Instagram. They accept responsibility, there isn't a trace of hostility towards any of the people who 'misinterpreted' their terms, they are upfront about needing to make money, and they communicate (or attempt to) that they were never in favor of any of those kind of downright villainous things it seemed like they were in favor of. If anyone in the masses of angry Instagram users could be appeased by words, this is probably about as good as you could do at appeasing them.

However, judging from the responses here, a lot of Instagram users are unappeasable, and I don't think unreasonably. Their motives are basically unknowable by anyone not in their inner circle, so all we have to go on is their actions and their words. If your internal heuristics say that when it looks like a social media company is trying to steal your personal data/intellectual property, they probably are and will then lie about it after the fact... well, that seems like a reasonable heuristic to have this day and age. I'm not sure I buy into it unreservedly, but I wouldn't try to convince anyone they're wrong about it, either.

This whole event shows me (or at least, reminds me) that there are limits to what words can fix.

danso2• 14 years ago

I can imagine a better response, but not one that would take significantly longer for lawyers to vet. An ideal response would actually show examples (i.e. "This is an example of your photo being used in conjunction with an advertisement. This is an example of how your photo will never be used"), because as it is, the language is just couched enough that Instagram users, once burned, will be even more suspicious and cynical.

lifeguard2• 14 years ago

The terms are deliberately foggy in a way to protect Instagram. They used a good lawyer.

The product manager failed here, not the lawyers.

feralmoan• 14 years ago

The sentiment reads 'Yeah yeah, we hear you, here's some token feel goods but we're going to continue to forge ahead and hope the idiots among you generate enough positive noise for us to drown out the dissenting signals'.

I understand they need to monetize (god, it's taken HOW LONG!?!? Jesus!), but that doesn't excuse them from intellectual dishonesty. People have genuine concerns and they should be addressed clearly.

I think the market would simply be happy with a 'Creative Commons' default option tbh (like deviantart, flickr etc) with an account or picture level opt-out. Really simple, just put a cherry on this crap. Somewhere.

saraid216• 14 years ago

> I understand they need to monetize (god, it's taken HOW LONG!?!? Jesus!), but that doesn't excuse them from intellectual dishonesty.

I thought, "We run a business," was a blanket excuse for intellectual dishonesty in general.

smackfu4• 14 years ago

It's not a great apology because it implies things were just unclear, and need to be clarified. And we were silly for being confusing by the tricky legal stuff.

For instance, they say "The language we proposed also raised question about whether your photos can be part of an advertisement." No, the language they proposed clearly said that was something they could do: "you agree that a business may pay us to display your photos in connection with paid content." (paraphrased) Or the bit about "you own your photos and that hasn't changed". True, but that's not what people were complaining about. They were complaining about how it says "you own your photos but you grant us the rights to do anything with them up to selling them." Instagram just saying "you own your photos" back is meaningless as a response and sounds like they think we are just stupid.

(My source for the original complaints: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/17/instagrams-terms-of...)

primitur2• 14 years ago

>This whole event shows me (or at least, reminds me) that there are limits to what words can fix.

I think it should show you that there are limits to what people will understand.

This is an APOLOGY from Instagram. It cannot be construed as anything more than a PR Document.

However: their TERMS OF SERVICE are a REAL CONTRACT. Whatever they say about the contract is one thing - once you agree to that contract in a legally binding way, however: thats another thing entirely.

What this should be showing you in all your fascination is how easily people can be duped into thinking that "their company" is 'friendly' after a few pages of words are dumped out into the mob-o-sphere .. and beyond that, it should show you that PR often trumps LEGAL in the public mind -but never in the civic one.

mseebach2• 14 years ago

They promise to change the terms of service.

d--b• 14 years ago

Raul, the terms and conditions are pretty clear, they do have the right to sell your photos to someone else. This is simply unacceptable.

dcposch• 14 years ago

The majority of Instagram users are nontechnical and have never heard of the TOS change, nor do they care. Letting advertisers put someone's Instagrams on a billboard is a pretty low bar for "villainous".

I think it's amusing that Instagram is, in its own words, "trying to build a viable business", just a few weeks after they sold for a billion.

In short: Instagram is a fun site for sharing silly photos.

Facebook vastly overpaid for it, and the pedantic hacker types on HN and Slashdot vastly overestimate the importance of its new terms.

Deestan• 14 years ago

I think it's very simple: If they truly believed they would never stoop to those "downright villainous things", they would not need to allow for them in the TOS.

Putting the promise in the actual TOS is much more believable than putting it in a blog post.

onedev4• 14 years ago

If only the law worked that way.

Next time read the ToS of every service you use, and feel free to get angry at every single one of them.

LnxPrgr3• 14 years ago

From the link:

"The language we proposed also raised question about whether your photos can be part of an advertisement. We do not have plans for anything like this and because of that we’re going to remove the language that raised the question."

I think they deserve a little patience and a chance to follow through with their promise. When they do, we can see how villainous the terms still are. And if they don't keep their promise, we can call them on it.

EwanG• 14 years ago

What they should do (IMNSHO) is say "Yup, we're doing what we said we're doing, but - 1) We will never charge you to use the service and 2) If we do sell your photo you will get a 30% cut." Seems to me that would change this from a fail to a WIN in record time...

dsrguru• 14 years ago

The thing is, most apologies contain the word "sorry." By contrast, this one acknowledges that "[l]egal documents are easy to misinterpret" and that they don't blame us for interpreting "you agree that a business or other entity may pay us to display your ... photos ... without any compensation to you" as what it sounds like.

cbs3• 14 years ago

>I have a hard time imagining a more better apology from Instagram.

I don't. This message from on high wasn't particularly bad for a startup, but there are plenty of internet "lifestyle businesses" that can communicate with their user base much much better. The guys who accidentally turn their hobby projects into a small, sustainable business for themselves talk to their userbase with a level of candidness that you'll never see from startup guys, so don't piss on my leg and tell me its raining.

I can imagine a better explanation from instagam easily. It wouldn't start with "Legal documents are easy to misinterpret", it would start with "It's no secret that lawyers will write contract terms as strongly in our favor as possible in a general cover-your-ass measure. Even though we don't plan to do the thing you're all so pissed off about, we sure had them write the terms in a way that gives us room to change our minds in future and actually do most of what you are worried about."

Actually, I guess I can't imagine that. They don't have the balls to admit that. They did the standard lawyer-over-the-shoulder thing of calling it all this big misunderstanding, and we really should have just trusted them to be more benevolent all along.

porker• 14 years ago

> but there are plenty of internet "lifestyle businesses" that can communicate with their user base much much better.

Like..?

> The guys who accidentally turn their hobby projects into a small, sustainable business for themselves talk to their userbase with a level of candidness that you'll never see from startup guys

I'd really like to know which, so I can learn from them.

loceng2• 14 years ago

You're dead-on -- and this is Facebook now in charge who doesn't care about your privacy, or even your settings.

drivebyacct22• 14 years ago

How about one where the tone was "We over stepped" instead of "You read it wrong".

It's like 343 industries telling users that they didn't receive emails because they had invalid email addresses on their Xbox accounts (which is impossible)...

smegel• 14 years ago

"To be clear: it is not our intention to sell your photos."

Weasel words. What's so hard about saying "we wont sell your photos, promise, fingers crossed", unless they actually do want to keep that option open.

I imagine a rock solid guarantee that users photos wont be used without their consent would go a very long way in appeasing people.

"If your internal heuristics say..."

No, when the company TOS say they will appropriate my property for their financial benefit, it is reasonable to assume that they may in fact act accordingly.

The right words can and do go a long way in rectifying mistakes. Weasel words that create even more uncertainty and appear to be hiding an agenda tend to infuriate people.

unreal37• 14 years ago

I respectfully disagree.

I've been involved in writing Terms of Service for a few big web sites. The back and forth with the lawyers is of course frustrating. And at the end of the day, you have something that comes off overly broad just to "cover everyones asses" from some future theoretical lawsuit.

So even though the TOS allows it, it was not their intention to actually do it. They're going to go back and revise the wording to be what they actually do intend.

Great apology.

I am always on the lookout for weasel words too, don't get me wrong. The "I am sorry that anyone was offended" apology always rubs me the wrong way, cause the person saying that is not sorry for saying it and doesn't regret saying it, but just sorry for offending. But this apology comes off to me as genuine.

pfortuny2• 14 years ago

It is not our intention. As if that mattered when signing a contract.

mseebach2• 14 years ago

> What's so hard about saying "we wont sell your photos, promise, fingers crossed", unless they actually do want to keep that option open.

This is what's hard about it: The second they sign any kind of commercial agreement for money, no matter what you and I consider "selling", hundreds of litigious a-holes (pardon my french, but I do believe that's the correct description) with their eyes firmly fixed to Facebooks market cap, will decide that today is a great day to get some courts to decide what exactly the words "we", "won't", "sell", "your" and "photos" means. And even if they win (not that there are any winners in such a case), the same thing will happen again the next time they do such an agreement.

bborud• 14 years ago

I think it should be hard to fix with mere words when trust is broken either intentionally or by carelessness.

tripzilch2• 14 years ago

Exactly. Given they made this mistake, this reaction was exactly the best they could do, short of immediately releasing a new and improved TOS, "better like this?"

It remains to be seen how well they've really listened when they put up their next attempt at writing "easy to misinterpret legal documents".

And after that, the next TOS change, and the next one after that ...

Draiken• 14 years ago

The problem is, when reading that "apology" I get the feeling they just admitted they failed to fool their users with the first attempt.

As many stated, the document was not unclear or misinterpreted, it was very explicit.

Now they say they don't want to sell your pictures and will change their ToS to make it clearer. Since it was already clear, the conclusion I made, is that they'll just try hiding those "unclear" statements better.

Hope not, but I don't think they'll give up that "right" so easily.

itsprofitbaron• 14 years ago

I posted something similar on here[1] about how Instagram cannot sell its users photos and what they're actually doing is trying to monetize similar to how Facebook does Sponsored Posts.

Instagram's terms of service stated that was their intentions:

  To help us deliver interesting paid or sponsored content or promotions, you agree that a business or other entity may pay us to display your username, likeness, photos (along with any associated metadata), and/or actions you take, in connection with paid or sponsored content or promotions, without any compensation to you.

And "Section 106: Exclusive rights in copyrighted works aka. 17 U.S.C. § 106"[3] essentially states Instagram cannot sell its users photos and it cannot use its users photos and alter them in any meaningful way.

The problem was how they communicated the change and they've admitted that too[2] although they've started to fix this with this blogpost and will continue to communicate this.

[1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4939650

[2] https://twitter.com/instagram/status/281133360833773568

[3] http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html

clarky077• 14 years ago

<rant> I really have no idea what people are complaining about. What are you putting in your Instagram photos? It's a cool service that lets you share pictures with friends. What is it that you think your pictures are worth?

When you sign up for a free service, you have to know that you are the product. PERIOD. Don't sign up for free services if you don't want to be the product. Go pay flickr. They will take your money. Stop bitching about free services adding ads so that they can keep the lights on and keep offering your free service. </rant>

mikebonnell• 14 years ago

Decent response, but I remain unconvinced.

piyush_soni• 14 years ago

Sorry. The damage has already been done, and we clearly hear your intentions, instagram. I deleted my account and don't plan on joining back.

DigitalSea• 14 years ago

I am happy with this apology. Everyone loves to hate on something, once one person starts hating others join in the mob mentality against someone or an entity continues until it gets to the point where the arguments have lost sight of what they were originally arguing about. What kind of apology were people expecting? An apology using animated GIF's and infographics?

Considering the photo quality of Instagram photos is extremely questionable, are people really upset that a photo of the nicoise salad they had could be used in an ad for for promotional purposes? Please. 99.9% of the photos on Instagram wouldn't be fit for advertising considering they're most shots of insecure teenagers taking photos in the mirror and the rest pictures of food.

Calm down.

gkanai• 14 years ago

I deleted my Instagram account and won't be going back. Flickr's new mobile apps and their much more user-friendly TOS is where was before Instagram and where I want to be in the future.

DRMAN• 14 years ago

It's time to say goodbye to both Instagram and facebook and say hello to iphoto!

hoi• 14 years ago

Seems to me this is a test. Push the updated terms of service out, if no-one complains, or if there is only minimal response then cool, it's acceptable by the users. If complainst come around, mitigate that risk by issuing an apology afterwards. As the phrase goes - " Do What You Think Is Right & Apologize Later "

uptown2• 14 years ago

It's odd. The vast majority of Instagram users seem to leave their accounts open to the public - more so that most photo-sharing services I've used in the past. Instagram presumably has business relationships with all sorts of entities. And Instagram has APIs allowing users to access the data exposed by these public galleries. It seems the pieces are already in place for a 3rd party to enter into a business relationship with Instagram to pay for access to the data contained in their users photos. Why were the new terms even necessary?

ygmelnikova• 14 years ago

These mistakes are so common among billion dollar corporations. Can they not anticipate these sort of reactions? Do they get 'Larry' down in legal to quickly write something up and then post it without another thought?

forensic3• 14 years ago

If it slips by unnoticed, they are looking at hundreds of millions, possibly billions of dollars.

So the upside is VERY VERY big. Well worth the risk.

aptwebapps• 14 years ago

The proof is in the pudding. Let's see the new TOS.

julienmarie• 14 years ago

"Legal documents are easy to misinterpret." => Isn't their goal the opposite ?

mark-r4• 14 years ago

Easy to misinterpret by people who aren't lawyers and judges is the implication. But when actual lawyers come out and warn you about what it really means, you need to be concerned.

onedev4• 14 years ago

All of you a pathetic. Along with the blogosphere.

bobsoap• 14 years ago

> All of you a pathetic. Along with the blogosphere.

Care to spellcheck and elaborate?

onedev4• 14 years ago

No, because that was a typo and typos happen.

thekevinjones• 14 years ago

For those that would still like to easily move their Instagram images to Flickr, without exporting to a zip then reimporting,we built a small webapp that will allow you to do so only a few clicks.

http://freethephotos.com

Tloewald• 14 years ago

And we have always been at war with Eastasia.

li-ch• 14 years ago

I don't trust the legal opinions from the sales and marketing people. I'll read the ToS myself.

fernly• 14 years ago

Exactly what part of "you agree that a business or other entity may pay us to display your ... photos (along with any associated metadata), ... without any compensation to you" is "confusing"?

It is not complicated legalese; on the contrary it is admirably terse and lucid English. The reason that "it was interpreted by many that we were going to sell your photos to others without any compensation" is because that is EXACTLY what it says they will do.

Unambiguous. Not confusing. What's confusing is that Kevin Systrom now claims it does not say what it very clearly and unambiguously says.

reasondiscourse• 14 years ago

Another way to approach this might be to ask yourself specifically what uses you as a user do not want Instagram to pursue with your photos. Then look at the TOS and assess whether the TOS give you any protection against those uses. If the TOS do not protect against those uses then you can tell Instagram directly via feedback what you do not want them to do with your photos. It is easier to amend the TOS by adding specific, unambiguous restrictions on certain uses than it is to try to define the full scope of the permissions to users using random examples.

To restate this another way: Instead of trying to imagine everything Instagram might be permitted to do under the TOS, imagine what you as a user do not want them to do, and then ask for explicit restrictions on those uses.

jlgray• 14 years ago

If they had said we're setting up a market to sell Instagram photos. You can opt-in any of your photos, we'll take a cut for running the service, and you get the rest. The problem would be filtering out the junk, not getting people to sell their cat pictures.

bhashkarsharma• 14 years ago

Is it just me who feels that it is just a re-run of the classic 'Zuck' way of doing things: Make mistake and apologize when it blows up? What's happening inside the company is any outsider's guess, but I definitely don't feel reassured.

thekevan• 14 years ago

tl;rd: We're not selling your pictures, just using them for our own ads.

lnanek2• 14 years ago

tumblr seems to be doing quite well just letting users promote their posts. instagram could be moving that direction, not just for businesses. i guess they have facebook doing it from the business side, though, so it is natural for them

mherdeg• 14 years ago

Speaking of which, how cool is it that Instagram's official blog is a tumblr? That infrastructure is everywhere!

ck2• 14 years ago

I still don't get why instagram is evil and facebook is fine.

Is it because instagram is more disposable/replaceable to people?

tripzilch2• 14 years ago

> Legal documents are easy to misinterpret.

Actually the reason legal documents are written in a quirky funny dialect is to make them less ambiguous, not more so. If they are, whoever's written them is doing it wrong.

In today's social environment, the way people are made to feel like customers/users, only to later be sold as product, with little regard to privacy and/or control over their data and profile, isn't it funny how people are starting to assume the worst?

In all fairness, except for that bad start, later on you write the confusing language was your mistake, so you probably meant to say "Legal documents are hard to write, especially when people actually read them".

> Ownership Rights Instagram users own their content and Instagram does not claim any ownership rights over your photos.

Um, yeah. What's "Ownership Rights"? It's not a legal term. Yet you capitalized and bolded the term. I'm sure you didn't mean to say "Copyrights" because you know what those are very well and take great care to not mention them. Also you can't have meant "Personality Rights" because they're generally non-transferable.

On the other hand, at least you acknowledged the public's reaction. And rather quickly, at that. That's good.

You also say you're listening and will improve the wording of the TOS. How that will turn out remains to be seen, when it happens. If so, I hope you'll excuse my skepticism.

babesh• 14 years ago

The more interesting question is what is Instagram planning to do that caused this change in terms of service. I would bet that they are going to group photos together that show off a product or to attach advertising around your photos based on location or what the photo shows. I think that they are doing this soon.

ryguytilidie3• 14 years ago

At my last job, our Director of Operations was responsible for rewriting the company rulebook/handbook. People didn't really know why, since we were a small company and I don't think anyone had ever read the handbook. Obviously, as you can imagine from someone with the title of Director of Operations, no one was asked for input.

A few weeks later, we;re all given copies of the handbook and ordered to sign it. People read the handbook and it was very clear that the new rules were not in line with company culture at all. No drinking in the office when we had multiple beer fridges, stuff about how you can be fired with less notice, etc. Of course, no one in their right mind would agree to an amended rulebook while at a company, especially when they could freely move to another startup.

The thing that amazed me most though, was in our next company meeting, people kept asking the Director of Operations about the rulebook and he finally snapped to say "Look, I made some changes, if you dont like them, its just really not a big deal, I don't think the rulebook actually means anything anyway".

Okay so lets recap. Our director of operations spent months writing a "meaningless" document? Doubtful. If so, why WRITE the document at all? This is the parallel I see here. There was no reason whatsoever to change the terms, yet they had some presumably high priced lawyers rewrite them. Why would they do this? Do we really believe they spent time an effort updating these terms for no reason? To me, this reads as some SERIOUS backpedaling and I would be shocked if they actually didn't intend to use data in the exact way people were upset they would.

Instagram's official response

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