Facebook “Copyright” Warning is a Hoax

Since this has been going viral again, I wanted to take a minute to remind you that the Facebook "copyright" warning is a hoax.

In response to the new Facebook guidelines, I hereby declare that my copyright is attached to all of my personal details, illustrations, comics, paintings, professional photos and videos, etc. (as a result of the Berner Convention). For commercial use of the above my written consent is needed at all times!

If you've posted the message above into a status on Facebook, you've probably done so because you wanted to make sure that you would be placed "under protection of copyright laws," right?

It's easy to be freaked out and to think that if you don't post that status that Facebook will own the statuses, photos or videos you share, but the bottom line is that this is a complete hoax. Facebook doesn't own anything you post. Oh, and there's no such thing as the Berner Convention.

If you take a look at the Facebook legal terms, you'll see that by using the site you give Facebook permission to "use, distribute, and share the things you post, subject to the terms and applicable privacy settings." Brad Shear, a Washington-area attorney and blogger who is an expert on social media, sat down with ABC News and explained that  "when you agree to Facebook's terms of use you provide Facebook a "non-exclusive, transferable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any content you post. You do not need to make any declarations about copyright issues since the law already protects you.  The privacy declaration [in this message] is worthless and does not mean anything."

Have you ever heard of Snopes? Snopes is a website dedicated to clearing up rumors on the internet and they back up what Shear stated. According to Snopes:

In any case, Facebook users cannot retroactively negate any of the privacy or copyright terms they agreed to when they signed up for their accounts, nor can they unilaterally alter or contradict any new privacy or copyright terms instituted by Facebook, simply by posting a contrary legal notice on their Facebook walls. Moreover, the fact that Facebook is now a publicly traded company (i.e., a company that has issued stocks which are traded on the open market) or an "open capital entity" has nothing to do with copyright protection or privacy rights. Any copyright or privacy agreements users of Facebook have entered into with that company prior to its becoming a publicly traded company or changing its policies remain in effect: they are neither diminished nor enhanced by Facebook's public status.

So what's the moral of the story? Don't bother copying, pasting and posting the Facebook "copyright" warning because it's a hoax.