Instagram Owns Your Artwork Now?

Instagram’s new terms of service are very controversial (IG is owned by Facebook). I’m curious what other artists think about this. If Instagram owns your work, and they can “redistribute” or copy and modify your work, then distribute it in other countries without paying you, then do you actually own your work? Why should artists give Instagram their work for free in the form of videos and images, when Instagram has the ability to profit off of you? It’s been bothering me more and more since I read their terms on November 19th, this last Thursday morning.

The language used in their new terms is a dire sign of the direction most platforms are moving towards. They’re all censoring and telling people who is allowed to speak. Then they tell you that anything you post on their platform no longer belongs to you. In their terms they make it clear you cannot legally take action against Instagram: You forfeit your rights when you sign up for their free platform, because it’s free. There isn’t even an option. Big brother is telling how to speak, when we can speak, and that we have to rely on them for honesty, our rights, and out intellectual property.

The worst part about this whole thing is they only give you the option to delete your account if you disagree. If there were an option, I might have taken it. It clearly states they can use your images, information, and pictures in other countries for research or for sale. Does that mean my information could go to China? In fact, the latest article says, experimental advertising. Here’s the problem: when you have a free platform, the platform has to find a way to sustain through making money. They can only do that by selling us ad space or by the users paying directly for the service. It’s an unfortunate reality we are facing.

There’s only one answer: either stay on the platform and give away your art for free, or find an alternative platform to share you work on. Currently there are 15 million users on 500px.com. I signed up yesterday, so you probably already know what I’ll be doing about this. If you’d like to find me over there, I’d love to connect.

https://500px.com/p/dreamincolor

I also created a video for the platforms I have done research on since I’ll be considering building my presence on a different platform. You can watch that video here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTcS3VV7LKg&t=2s