Pointless legal guff on Facebook

OK a post on something that has reared its head over on Facebook again, and again in September 15 and again in August 17.

I’ve seen a number of people posting something along the lines of the following legal statement on their Facebook page:

Today, [todays date], in response to the new guidelines Facebook and under articles L.111, 112 and 113 of the code of intellectual property, I declare that my rights are attached to all my personal data, drawings, paintings, photos, texts etc… published on my profile. For commercial use of the foregoing my written consent is required at all times! People reading this text can copy it and paste it on their Facebook wall. This will allow them to place them under the protection of copyright.

By this release, I tell Facebook that it is strictly forbidden to disclose, copy, distribute, broadcast, or to take any other action against me on the basis of this profile and/or its contents. The actions mentioned above apply equally to employees, students, agents and/or other staff under the direction of Facebook. The contents of my profile includes private information. The violation of my privacy is punished by the law (UCC 1 1-308 – 308 1 – 103 and the Rome Statute).

Update 28 September 2015, the latest incarnation of this hoax is

Better safe than sorry is right. Channel 13 News was just talking about this change in Facebook’s privacy policy. Better safe than sorry. As of September 25th , 2015 at 12:09 a.m. Eastern standard time, I do not give Facebook or any entities associated with Facebook permission to use my pictures, information, or posts, both past and future. By this statement, I give notice to Facebook it is strictly forbidden to disclose, copy, distribute, or take any other action against me based on this profile and/or its contents. The content of this profile is private and confidential information. The violation of privacy can be punished by law (UCC 1-308- 1 1 308-103 and the Rome Statute). NOTE: Facebook is now a public entity. All members must post a note like this. If you prefer, you can copy and paste this version. If you do not publish a statement at least once it will be tactically allowing the use of your photos, as well as the information contained in the profile status updates. DO NOT SHARE. You MUST copy and paste

Update 2 August 2017

Due to the fact that Facebook has chosen to use software that will allow the theft of my personal information, I do declare the following: on this day, 30th July, 2017, in response to the new Facebook guidelines and under articles L.111, 112 and 113 of the code of intellectual property, I declare that my rights are attached to all my personal data, drawings, paintings, photos, texts etc… published on my profile since the day I opened my account. For commercial use of the foregoing my written consent is required at all times.
Those reading this text can copy it and paste it on their Facebook wall. This will allow them to place themselves under the protection of copyright. By this release, I tell Facebook that it is strictly forbidden to disclose, copy, distribute, broadcast, or to take any other action against me on the basis of this profile and/or its contents. The actions mentioned above apply equally to employees, students, agents and/or other staff under the direction of Facebook.
The contents of my profile include private information. The violation of my privacy is punished by the law (UCC 1 1-308 – 308 1 -103 and the Rome Statute).

People are posting this under some misguided idea that it is going to stop Facebook from doing various things with stuff you post to you account.

It won’t, in short it is a pile of crap with no legal basis.

So how do I know this?

Well for one, if you sign up to T&C’s on a website you are bound by them, the same way that you sign up for your phone line, a bank card, your cable or satellite TV. Contracts are generally not variable, you can’t pick and choose which clauses you want to be bound by and certainly not by making a status update. Facebook may have many problems but I’m sure that in general their T&Cs are pretty water-tight, that’s not to say they don’t get them wrong from time to time, but on the whole you can expect them to be upheld in a court of law.

Now copyright, everyone gets uptight about copyright, me included. There have been some issues with services trying to write in to T&Cs about being able to use your images in marketing, Instagram (owned by Facebook) being one of the most famous.

For any sharing service, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook et-al to work you must give that service permission to share your content. This isn’t taking your copyright this is you giving the service permission to share it. If they don’t have this permission then the service becomes pointless and valueless for you. If you forbid a sharing service or social network from sharing your status, whether that be words, photos, videos or sound, then you may as well write it on a piece of paper and leave it face down on your desk so nobody can see it, that is what you are allowing the service to do by forbidding sharing of your content.

Obviously when it comes to sharing content, read up on the applicable terms. You do need to give services permission to share your content with people you allow, but make sure that it also doesn’t mean they can share publicly (if your preferences forbid this) or to promote a product or service.

https://www.facebook.com/settings?tab=privacy is your friend, check it and the permissions contained in it, regularly, Facebook do like to change things from time to time.

Finally the law used in the status update.

articles L.111, 112 and 113 of the code of intellectual property

Articles L.111, 112 and 113 of the code of intellectual property are French law as far as I can see, so unless you are French they are unlikely to help you.

UCC 1 1-308 – 308 1 – 103

UCC 1 1-308 – 308 1 – 103 is an American law, Uniform Commercial Code. Uniform Commercial Code is all to do with commercial transaction in the United States, so unless you are

A – American
B – Being paid for your status updates

then this isn’t really going to help you very much at all.

the Rome Statute

The Rome Statute, save the best until last. The Rome Statute is all to do with the International Criminal Court. Once the ICC starts to sit in 2017 its purpose will be to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression.

Now if you can get Facebook in front of the ICC for any of these crimes, then I’m there, popcorn in hand, to see the show.

So to sum up, someone has taken a few legal terms and laws, tried to make them sound really important and then got someone to believe that they are real, one of your friends was taken in because one of their friends thought it was real. So do your friends a favour and don’t repost pointless crap making them think it is real and thus keeping it on peoples timelines. The sooner people stop sharing this, the sooner it will go away (doubtless it will return in some different guise).

Feel free to point people to this post if you wish.

Usual disclaimer when it comes to legal stuff (or in this case not so legal stuff), if in doubt consult a qualified legal advisor in what ever part of the world you live. Or maybe just ask your favourite search engine to tell you about the quoted laws in anything like this and use common sense to see if they are applicable.

Google – Rome Statute Facebook