I found an interesting article in TIME magazine discussing a court case that dealt with the issue of copyright on twitter. The case appeared in 2010, when rules regarding twitter and copyright were still relatively unclear to the public. The case centered around the idea of an individual giving up ownership of tweets when posting on twitter. The court eventually ruled that “publishing something on twitter is not the same as relinquishing ownership”. I think that this ruling was a rather obvious one, and that just because someone decides to tweet something shouldn’t mean that they are giving up the ownership of that tweet. This case reminded me of something I remember hearing regarding instagram, which is apparently changing their terms of use to state the complete opposite. Their terms of use were to be changed to state that photos taken on the app could be used for commercial use and are consequently not owned by the photographer, but by instagram instead. I remember my mom showing me this article and being completely shocked by it, even with the little knowledge on copyright I had possessed at the time.
The idea that my photos on Instagram can be used for commercial use is kind of scary especially because very people know this information. I think a huge problem with all these social media sites is that they never actually fully open up information to the people who use them so they understand what they are signing up for.