Copyright Laws on Social Media Content

Ethics and law have always been a challenge for journalists, but what was once black and white has become far more grey with the introduction of digital journalism. The internet is the biggest source of information on the planet, with more than two billion people using it every day and social media pages such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn ranking in the top ten for most frequently visited sites. 

For journalists the internet is a gold mine of information making the curation, publishing and promotion of their work far easier. However, social media sites, such as the ones listed above, fall into the category of both public and private information, so what happens when journalists start using "public" information from a "private" account? Do intellectual property rights actually stand for anything when it comes to social media? 

Here is what Facebook "Terms of Service" says about IP licenses: 

"For content that is covered by intellectual property rights, such as photos and videos (IP content), you specifically give us the following permission, subject to your privacy and application settings: you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide licence to use any IP content that you post on or in connection with Facebook (IP Licence). This IP Licence ends when you delete your IP content or your account, unless your content has been shared with others and they have not deleted it."

Now this is basically saying that although anything you post on your Facebook page does belong to you, you relinquish almost all rights to it when you put it on Facebook as the site itself is considered Public Domain. However, certain privacy restrictions are put in place by each individual user and Journalists must take note of this when considering using the content. 

A person who creates the image, video or audio retains the copyright when they post it on social media, so no matter where you find the image, either on a public Facebook page or a private one; it is ethically and legally correct to contact the creator before use. Although according to Journalism.co.uk 95% of copyright social media cases have no repercussions on the journalist, as it is often very difficult to draw the line between private and public. 

So when searching for images for an article keep in mind copyright infringement and stay out of trouble by contacting the owner before you use it.