this isn’t a surprise since i think like pretty much every free service has this built into their contract. here, i will use my pretty blockquote to make simplify the rhetoric:

we own all of your submitted content… forever…

so next time you start flirting with someone your are not supposed to or you post a picture of your friend that makes her look fat to get back at her… it doesn’t go away. ever. and not to sound evil but if i was facebook i would do the exact same thing.

now most people would say gee whiz diggles… why the hell should i care?!? – great question. because really you shouldn’t care. the majority of people who participate in facebook lead very uninteresting and linear lives and would gladly hand over their content in exchange for the service of connecting with others. i love it and i can’t blame you. who the hell cares. but to all those that are creatives that are trying to leverage facebook for marketing or potential business leads beware. especially if your content is your leverage.

i am not a good example because as you can see on my blog there is virtually no way of me generating cash. shit, i have no social icons, text ads, or ploys… but i do sleep at night knowing that all of my images are hosted on my site, etc. however, a great example: i was recently approached by a creative agency that wanted to license the mrdiggles theme song. yes, i had a theme song i wrote for my blog a while back and this agency only wanted to use it for a commercial they were pitching to client. they offered me cold hard cash (well a business check) and all i had to say was sure. so cast your mind – let’s say that this agency was buddies with facebook through past business and they had created a way to comb facebook for content before going to the individual. so facebook (or myspace, they are evil too) would say here is access to some of the more popular songs in that genre and wham bam they find the mrdiggles theme song and pluck it away paying facebook for your content. the next thing you know you see a super bowl commercial screaming your ditty. and you say darn it to heck! pass the chips please.

think i am nuts? this shit happens all the time. you just don’t hear about it.

here is just a taste of their terms of use agreement:

You hereby grant Facebook an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to (a) use, copy, publish, stream, store, retain, publicly perform or display, transmit, scan, reformat, modify, edit, frame, translate, excerpt, adapt, create derivative works and distribute (through multiple tiers), any User Content you (i) Post on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof subject only to your privacy settings or (ii) enable a user to Post, including by offering a Share Link on your website and (b) to use your name, likeness and image for any purpose, including commercial or advertising, each of (a) and (b) on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof.

you can read the story here

my suggestion? start your own blog. regain all the time you are wasting connecting with friends you haven’t spoken to since the 2nd grade. in that environment every question is a loaded one – what have you been up to? – uh how do you answer that to someone you haven’t seen since the 2nd grade?

i guess it is your time and you can waste it anyway you want. i have no room to speak – have you even seen my trinkets section?!? who does that?

oh yeah and here is the mrdiggles theme song if you haven’t heard it. it is perfect for a commercial.

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update! there is a video on this!

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