Our Social Media Law Bulletin team has been contributing articles on legal issues in social media since 2012.
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A recent report by the Science and Technology Committee (a UK parliamentary select committee) on the Responsible Use of Data (the Report) concludes that online terms and conditions for the use of social media platforms are unnecessarily complex and may not serve their intended purpose of obtaining informed consent from a user for the right to process personal data.
You do (at least as between you and Instagram—your employer may have ownership rights in certain situations)! Instagram does not claim ownership of any content that you post.
You do grant Instagram very broad license rights: a non-exclusive, fully-paid and royalty-free, transferable, sub-licensable, worldwide license to use content that you post. This license grant means that you have given Instagram the right to use any of your photos for free, for any reason, anywhere in the world. Instagram can also give those rights to a third party.
Social media has changed the way we do business by connecting us online to buy goods and services from each other. This has resulted in the rise of “peer-to-peer” sharing apps and websites that connect people to share goods and services, such as transportation and accommodation, among other things. Companies that create these apps – such as Uber and Airbnb – have recently attracted considerable attention worldwide.
Just last month Uber reported a valuation of $40 billion, which is more than the current annual revenue of the taxi and limousine market. Airbnb’s reported valuation is expected to exceed $10 billion. It is no surprise that these high price tag “sharing economy” firms are gaining international recognition.
In addition to laws and regulations, as well as the terms and conditions posted by the social media sites themselves, regulators and trade associations sometimes offer companies guidance to help them comply with requirements, best practices, and principles.
Norton Rose
In Huon v. Breaking Media, LLC, the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois held that federal law protects internet publishers from defamation claims based on content posted by commenters to online news stories (See Memorandum Opinion and Order, No. 1:11-cv-03054 (Dec. 4, 2014)).
In Huon, the plaintiff sued the popular online legal blog Above the Law (among other internet publishers). Above the Law had posted an article concerning the plaintiff’s arrest and trial related to sexual assault charges. The article generated over 100 comments, some of which the plaintiff claimed were defamatory, and the plaintiff sought to hold Above the Law liable for publishing those comments.
Norton Rose Fulbright’s Social Media Law Bulletin is proud to offer a Glossary of Terms listing various terms attributed to social media issues. The Glossary includes links to our respective blog posts on the terms.
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