Instagram says “Legal documents are easy to misinterpret”

After the uproar on Instagram’s ToS, Instagram’s c0-founder, Kevin Systrom, quickly made a blog post to explain the situation and also promised to listen and change.  I think the Instagram community is too great to be ignored (#againstnewtos).

If you visit Instagram today, you can see some disappointment (pictures do tell), anger over the ToS. Of course, most of us are not lawyers to scrutinize the words. Instagram explained that Instagram do not own the content that you posted. We do understand that the user “owns the content”. However, there is a sentence that says that everything you post, Instagram will have a license or have royalty-free (and transferable) use of the content.

..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..

That, in my opinion, is telling me that Instagram can use my pictures for any purpose and I can’t do anything at all. In the blog post, they mentioned:

To be clear: it is not our intention to sell your photos. We are working on updated language in the terms to make sure this is clear.

Actually, it is clear that Instagram is not going to sell your pictures like iStock. Instead, they might use them whenever, however they like without paying you. Some might like it (instant stardom?) but based on community “noise” level, many do not like it (maybe, they might be thinking Instagram is selling the pictures?).

Click Here to read Instagram Blog Post

Instagram says they are listening to the community and the “stories” in the Press. I suggest you read through their explanation and also read through the new ToS. For me, it is clear.

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Stay on, nothing will happen. You still own the rights to your pictures but Instagram will have royalty-free access to them. Your pictures might appear somewhere, someday. Instagram might be paid for it but you will not get any “compensation”, and nobody needs to inform you.

If you are ok with it, continue to “enjoy” Instagram.
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