Press Council and copyright
I wonder if the Press Council are realizing that the old concept of Copyright is becoming obsolete? In their recent publication of the annual report for 2009, they write that information out from open Facebook profiles can be used freely:
"Information collected on an open profile are considered to be publicly available. Therefore, the media may use the content without asking the person behind the profile for permission first. "
The problem is that the Press Council mixed media ethics together with copyright. It is an ethical question whether it should be possible for the press to use private data a person protects against alien eyes. It's a copyright issue if it is allowed to publish a text or image. Flickr has an active collaboration with Creative Commons , which raises awareness about rights to the image.
Facebook , which perhaps has the world's largest collection of images that do not pay particular attention to the copyright of each picture. But in the "Statement of Rights & Responsibilities" star follows in section 2, paragraph. 4:
"When you publish content or information Using the" everyone "setting, it indebærer everyone, inklusive people off of Facebook, vil have two att access information and we kan groove having control over vad De do with it."
But already in section 2, paragraph 1, they have defined the right to be your own and Facebook (because it required them to publish your content to your friends).
"(..) You grant us a nonexclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use eventuelle IP content at du post on or in connection with Facebook ("IP License"). "
(And Facebook's rights obsolete the day you delete your content if you have any doubts. See same place).
Firstly, it is not up to the Press Council to determine whether material posted on Facebook can be used freely by the press.
Secondly, I think that their distinction between an open and a closed profile is not so simple. I allow, for example. friends of friends to see my pictures, but only my friends can follow the flow on my wall. My personal data are accessible to all, as these can be found anywhere else. Since, however, I've created myself on Friend Feed and Friend Feed use as live feed on my website you can see all my postings on my wall there.
But it can be Pressenævnet simply by relaxing at new times, where content from newspapers, not hiding behind a betalingsmur is freely usable by whom it may interest - unless it is used invasive of newspapers. Or to paraphrase another of the Press Council nice formulations:
Conversely, a user can come into possession of material from a payment newspaper that has so much public interest that public disclosure outweighs the interests of the article author. The material can be in such situations will be published without causing a breach of ethical rules.
Annual Report can be downloaded here: http://pressenaevnet.net.dynamicweb.dk/Files/Filer/pdf/Aarsberetning_2009.pdf
