Instagram's official response • Hacker News Board

Re: Instagram's official response

#111

Post by w1ntermute » Tue, Dec 18, 2012, 11:42 PM UTC

declan wrote: post #104

w1ntermute wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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...

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.…

> Here's another take that disagrees with their blog post -- and this one is from an actual practicing intellectual property attorney

FWIW, the author of the Verge post I linked, managing editor Nilay Patel, also holds a law degree, and previously worked as a copyright attorney.

Re: Instagram's official response

#112

Post by cube13 » Tue, Dec 18, 2012, 11:43 PM UTC

marshray wrote: post #98

ryguytilidie wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

But most likely it wouldn't make the user experince worse. If anything, it would allow them to avoid banner ads and make the experience better. That said, sounds like people aren't willing to "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…

If someone's directly using my content and getting paid for it, I want a cut. It's really that simple.

Re: Instagram's official response

#113

Post by gcmartinelli » Tue, Dec 18, 2012, 11:44 PM UTC

blhack wrote: post #38

jonknee wrote: post #21

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 Faceboo…

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.

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

Re: Instagram's official response

#114

Post by gcmartinelli » Tue, Dec 18, 2012, 11:46 PM UTC

marshray wrote: post #98

ryguytilidie wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

But most likely it wouldn't make the user experince worse. If anything, it would allow them to avoid banner ads and make the experience better. That said, sounds like people aren't willing to "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…

So, make them pay for the open source they use...

Re: Instagram's official response

#115

Post by nokcha » Tue, Dec 18, 2012, 11:48 PM UTC

23david wrote: post #70

blhack wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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-reac…

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

Who would impose such a requirement of licensure? Certainly not the government --- that would be a prior restraint on freedom of speech/press and therefore unconstitutional.

Re: Instagram's official response

#116

Post by larrys » Tue, Dec 18, 2012, 11:51 PM UTC

shabble wrote: post #74

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…

"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.

Re: Instagram's official response

#117

Post by rauljara » Tue, Dec 18, 2012, 11:51 PM UTC

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.

Re: Instagram's official response

#118

Post by clarky07 » Tue, Dec 18, 2012, 11:53 PM UTC

mirkules wrote: post #23

kurtvarner wrote: post #8

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?

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.

>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.

Re: Instagram's official response

#119

Post by _delirium » Tue, Dec 18, 2012, 11:53 PM UTC

kurtvarner wrote: post #8

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?

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.

Re: Instagram's official response

#120

Post by mnicole » Tue, Dec 18, 2012, 11:54 PM UTC

w1ntermute wrote: post #110

mnicole wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His misinterpretation is getting it handed to him and the conflict of interest stuff re: The Verge and Instagram is something else to consider. I wouldn't trust a news outlet with so many close ties to companies like this.

> the conflict of interest stuff re: The Verge and Instagram is something else to consider. I wouldn't trust a news outlet with so many close ties to companies like this. What are you talking about? Have you read their ethics statement[0] yet? In the world of journalism, that's a very serious accusation to be making without any evidence. 0: http://www.theverge.com/ethics-statement

> What are you talking about?

You might want to read the link you posted.