[KnowItAll]

What do you think about this?

Have SCMP gone one step too far with this?

The headline ...

Sole survivor of NZ car crash in stable condition

Condolences and words of support from friends of the family and people they had never met flooded Flora Ng's internet blog.

She had posted her final words on the blog a day before the family left for New Zealand on Wednesday.

She was in a mixed mood - looking forward to the trip but seemingly troubled by deep frustrations at work.

According to the blog, Flora was a designer who worked for a garment retailer and had formally quit on the day she left for New Zealand.

Her elder sister, Clara, had married Wilson Ha in January. Her Facebook entry is loaded with their wedding pictures.

They have then gone as far as taking some photos from her facebook entry and publishing them on SCMP.Com ...

Is everything you publish on sites like Facebook fair game for newspapers and other media?

[thromsturmond]

KIA: I can only answer from an American newspaper standpoint.
If Facebook gave them permission to use the picture, then yes, it can be used. Once you post something to most web sites, they can give permission for usage. If they got ahold of a Facebook rep and got permission to use the picture, that's fine. But just grabbing the picture off the web, without permission from the person who posted it or the web site hosting it is a no-no, at least under American newspaper practices. You can take a screen shot of a page, but not pilfer its content without permission.
But that's American newspaper practice. The SCMP is a whole different ballgame.

[timklip]

its all here in the Terms of Use in Facebook:

When you post User Content to the Site, you authorize and direct us to make such copies thereof as we deem necessary in order to facilitate the posting and storage of the User Content on the Site. By posting User Content to any part of the Site, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to the Company an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such User Content for any purpose, commercial, advertising, or otherwise, on or in connection with the Site or the promotion thereof, to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such User Content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing. You may remove your User Content from the Site at any time. If you choose to remove your User Content, the license granted above will automatically expire, however you acknowledge that the Company may retain archived copies of your User Content. Facebook does not assert any ownership over your User Content; rather, as between us and you, subject to the rights granted to us in these Terms, you retain full ownership of all of your User Content and any intellectual property rights or other proprietary rights associated with your User Content.

[KnowItAll]

ok, terms and conditions aside (didnt see a clause about waiving all copyrights) isnt it a low point for a publication to be using facebook and publishing things like she was unhappy with her job, just for the purpose of creating a story?

[PDLM]

Nope I think this is fair - once you choose to publish something then newspapers can make fair use of it and I think this qualifies as fair use. If the material in question had been in a "friends only" area then that's a different matter but if it's accessible to anyone with a Facebook (or whatever) account then I'd say it's OK. What exactly are newspapers to use to base their stories on if it isn't published material? If you don't want people to know stuff about you then don't publish it.

This is separate from the granting of copyright to Facebook - I would be very surprised if the SCMP asked them for permission to use since under Hong Kong law (and I believe US law actually) reporting as they did would constitute "fair use" of published material regardless of who owns the copyright.

Having said that, I think that clause in the Facebook T&Cs is unacceptable - it's one of a number of reasons why I don't have an account there.

The relevant clause of Hong Kong law is Cap.528 s.39 which says:

(2) Fair dealing with a work for the purpose of reporting current events, if {...} it is accompanied by a sufficient acknowledgement, does not infringe any copyright in the work.

The SCMP used the material truthfully and acknowledged the copyright owner (Facebook) so no legal offence was committed.

[KnowItAll]

Facebook is another story. Try getting them to delete every piece of info they have about you.

[PDLM]

Originally Posted by KnowItAll

Facebook is another story. Try getting them to delete every piece of info they have about you.

The T&Cs you agreed to above say they they maintain the right to preserve an archive.

Again, just don't go there - it's far, far too intrusive for my liking.

[KnowItAll]

PDLM : Those T&Cs are illegal in several countries and even states in the US. Just because you agreed to something does not mean that it is legal.

I agree, its a bit of a privacy nightmare.

We have some sample applications which show how much can be figured out about a person, if you add an external application to your facebook page.

[tsuiwah]

Well, a few years ago, I authored a restricted-access research report for a former company and several photos in the report (that I personally took) were lifted by SCMP for an article. I am pretty certain my former company didn't grant permission for re-publication.

[thromsturmond]

The stuff that is printed on Facebook - the words - are fair game for reporting, as long as it's publicly accessible. If someone hacked into an account or misrepresented themselves to get it, that's another thing, but publicly accessible information is fair game for reporting. Heck, that's what reporting is, digging up info.
But it's only part of the reporting, and not all of it. It's the same reason everyone should be careful of what they blog about, because if it's publicly available, it could come back to bite you in the ass one day. It doesn't take a reporter long to dig up stuff someone has posted, if they did so under a real name.
But the pictures again are usually different. It might seem like splitting hairs, but you can report on what they said, but not lift and use their pictures. Why? You can rewrite what they posted on their blog, with a "they said on their Facebook account that ...." in your own words. Can't do that with their picture, unless you get down and recreate every pixel.