CNet is reporting that Facebook & Instagram have stirred up the Internet on Monday by announcing that they have the right to sell photographs taken with their application. People are in an uproar about this because they are not being compensated for this or being able to opt out of the service.
Come on people…
Instagram/Facebook is providing you with an application, webspace and bandwidth to share your photos with anyone on the Internets. How much did you have to pay for all of this? Oh right, this is a free program. This company is providing you with a free, easy method of sharing your pictures of food, duckface self-portraits and scenery feet pictures with a plethora of photo filters. Add on continued app support for the future and you’ll begin to understand that free apps have to bring in money somehow.
Some people have said that the photographers should get a percentage of the sales. Sure in a perfect situation, that would be great, but Instagram is already offering a free service. They don’t owe the photographers anything else. Sure, the photographer found that ‘perfect’ angle of their strawberry crepes & espresso this morning and published it, but so did hundreds of other people. Secondly, I imagine that Instagram doesn’t want to deal with treating all their millions of users as contract employees. That would be a paperwork nightmare.
Obviously, I am no fan of Instagram, but I think they are in the right to attempt to make revenue somehow. (Whether or not it will be successful, I don’t know) There is an opt-out option though. Simply stop using Instagram and delete the app and ALL of your photos from their servers well before January 16th. That includes your shares on Facebook as well. Unless the photographer is a shareholder, the person has no right or deserves anything back from Instagram and they agreed to such when using their app.
I know the Internet has this long standing feeling that things should be free, but the reality is that there has to be money made somewhere or the ‘free’ stuff will disappear.
Category Archives: PC
My Love/Hate relationship with Linux
Seeing as how I haven’t really had a computer challenge really since I came to Japan, when my friend asked for help getting an OS on an old laptop, I jumped at the opportunity to help. She said she wanted to put Linux on it since her old laptop, which was having charging problems from blunt force trauma, so naturally, I was like “Oh yea, this’ll be easy and awesome!” Boy, was I wrong! This is why I’m convinced that Linux is the devil… Continue reading
Beautify your Desktop with a shot from Shinjuku
This is a really beautiful shot from some random street in Shinjuku. While the background is a bit blurry and mostly unrecognizable, I can’t help but wonder if I have been through this area the last time I was in Tokyo. The downside is that the setup does require a few apps to organize everything, but I still plan on trying it out tonight.
Bloggitos - ブロッギトス 