Instagram will not sell user photos

Yesterday it became known that the photo service for Instagram mobile devices unilaterally changed the terms of service use. The greatest attention of users was attracted by the change of the license of the content transferred from the limited to the transferred with the right of sublicensing, which was regarded as the organization of a photo bank with the sale of user images to third parties without paying royalties.

The new user agreement contains a line that says that another organization can redeem the display of photos in connection with paid or sponsored content or action without any compensation for their author. Changes in the terms of service will come in 30 days from the date of their publication.

Assumptions about the organization of the photobank instantly caused widespread discussion among users and numerous complaints. Distribution received hastily compiled instructions for uploading your photos from Instagram and deleting your account, which caused a certain kind of effect: the Instaport photo import service (IP: 54.246.82.151 ), as if created for the case of such a stab in the back, is experiencing significant loads and asks to try to download photos tomorrow or in a few days.
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However, a post appeared in the company's official blog, in which service representatives assured that Instagram is not going to sell user-generated content.

In the “Thank you, we are listening to you” post, Instagram co-founder Kevin Sistrom said that the version of the user agreement and confidentiality agreement published yesterday only clarifies how user data will be processed. Kevin explained that documents of this kind are easily misunderstood and that the service does not declare the rights to own photos of its users.

To ensure the revenue and profitability of the business, it is planned to use advertising and some of its new types, for targeting which, apparently, user data will be used (activity, subscribers, etc.), but there is no intention to sell photos of users.

For example, users will see which of their friends are already watching for updates of a certain promotional page, but photos will not be used as an integral part of advertising banners. The user still owns all of his photos, and Instagram respects his property rights and privacy. If the account type is set to “private”, the service will show photos only to people from the list of confirmed subscribers.

Due to the wide response on the Web, legal documents will be modified to make them more understandable to the end user. Thus ended the new chapter of the story “We allowed our lawyers to write our user agreements, and the Internet was very scared”, as Slashdot users ironically notice .