As of September 5th Facebook has modified its Terms of Use to allow the company to sell virtually anything that is uploaded to the site, including all your photos, your identity and your data. Facebook has explicitly removed the privacy protection from the commercialization rights.
According to ASMP’s legal opinion this means that any photos uploaded to Facebook may be sold, distributed or otherwise commercialized with no compensation to the photographer.
The most important language. (Strikethrough indicates language that is being removed. Bold text is used to indicate the new additions.)
You can use your privacy settings to limit how your name and profile picture may be associated with commercial, sponsored, or related content (such as a brand you like) served or enhanced by us. You give us permission to use your name, and profile picture, content, and information in connection with commercial, sponsored, or related that content (such as a brand you like) served or enhanced by us, subject to the limits you place. This means, for example, that you permit a business or other entity to pay us to display your name and/or profile picture with your content or information, without any compensation to you. If you have selected a specific audience for your content or information, we will respect your choice when we use it.
If you wish to provide feedback to the company, you can contact them
here. ASMP will continue to work to modify the terms of use to be more favorable to photographers.
Here is a
link to a short Q & A on Facebook’s commercial use of your photographs.