For example, did you know that your Google + profile image will be downloaded to all the smartphones that download your contact info? I didn't either.

Dear Google, I like your services, I even drafted this post in Google docs, so I’m into it. Just don’t be that guy.

When Google + launched it’s beta version a few months ago, I decided to research  what kind of licensing rights users were signing away when posting photos on Google +.  In addition to scoping out the shot for personal empowerment as a photographer, I also wondered: as a brand, what kind of copyright considerations should you consider before launching a user generated content (UGC) campaign?

Long story short, you shouldn’t post any photos you don’t ever want to see on the front page of some other website, as Google + grabs worldwide rights in perpetuity to use and sub-license your photos. As an artist, I find it alarming that Google would be so brazen to just grab the IP of everyone who participates in their show. By doing so, Google is basically creating a huge royalty-free database of sub-licensable images that they can do whatever they want with, whenever and however they want, forever.

For context and comparison’s sake, I’ve outlined and explained a few licensing agreements from some major social networks:

Facebook:

“You grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any IP content that you post on or in connection with Facebook (“IP License”). This IP License ends when you delete your IP content or your account unless your content has been shared with others, and they have not deleted it.”

Tumblr:
“Subscriber shall own all Subscriber Content that Subscriber contributes to the Site, but hereby grants and agrees to grant Tumblr a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free, transferable right and license (with the right to sublicense), to use, copy, cache, publish, display, distribute, modify, create derivative works and store such Subscriber Content and to allow others to do so (“Content License”) in order to provide the Services”

Google +:
“By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services.

You agree that this license includes a right for Google to make such Content available to other companies, organizations or individuals with whom Google has relationships for the provision of syndicated services, and to use such Content in connection with the provision of those services.

You understand that Google, in performing the required technical steps to provide the Services to our users, may (a) transmit or distribute your Content over various public networks and in various media; and (b) make such changes to your Content as are necessary to conform and adapt that Content to the technical requirements of connecting networks, devices, services or media. You agree that this license shall permit Google to take these actions.”

However, there is a grey area because they also say:
“11.1 …This license is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the Services and may be revoked for certain Services as defined in the Additional Terms of those Services.”

What it means: Facebook can use your photos as long as you have them posted up, but they cannot sell or license them to third parties or do whatever they want with them in perpetuity. With Google + and Tumblr, however, they own the rights of your photos whether you still have your images up or not.

Mark Zuckerburg posted a response to the outcry over the terms of service, where he explained: “Our philosophy is that people own their information and control who they share it with. When a person shares information on Facebook, they first need to grant Facebook a license to use that information so that we can show it to the other people they’ve asked us to share it with. Without this license, we couldn’t help people share that information.”

What does this mean for brands?

From a brand perspective, this licensing is something to consider and pay attention to. If you are running a campaign culling UGC and user involvement, remember that unless you have specific fine print, you don’t have rights to the content either. If your users are active on social media sites, it’s safe to say that they’ve accepted the fact that they have given up their licensing rights to Facebook, but keep in mind that there might be the slight off chance that someone will learn about the fine print for the first time and get annoyed.

Take a look at one example of a brand that addressed this issue. Beer brand Stella Artois worked in additional language that ensures they can use UGC images and content freely in the future without penalization. This is smart on their behalf, but as a user, would you want to sign this?

“By submitting Content to this site, you: … (b) grant Anheuser-Busch an unlimited, perpetual, royalty-free, sub-licensable, transferable and irrevocable license to use, modify, or adapt the Content for any purpose whatsoever, including but not limited to incorporating the submission into content copyrighted by Anheuser-Busch, whether or not such Anheuser-Busch content is commercial in nature…”

Personally, I think if more people read the fine print, there’d be less photos being shared on popular social networks and UGC campaigns.  Let’s face it though – in the grand scheme of things, social networks command our attention and focus. If you aim to impress friends and garner user involvement and UGC, post away! As an artist and photographer, if your goal is to promote your own fine art photography with the intention of later selling those photos, be forewarned that those images could very well be used, regardless of your consent, feelings, and creative ownership.  Keep in mind that once you upload an image, granting any of these social networks non-exclusive use, you can no longer license that same image for exclusive use with anyone else.

While there is certainly a benefit in getting your photography out there and shared through social media, just remember: uploader, beware!

Client Name

Solution Type — Digital Promotion

Objective — Promote the release of Chrysler’s 2012 Jeep Call-of-Duty edition Wrangler through an immersive, social-driven consumer promotion within Facebook around Activision’s much-anticipated release of Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3.

Activation — Jeep Ops, an immersive Facebook sweepstakes game, asked fans of Jeep to play the game, mimicking the in-game Call of Duty story to earn entries into the contest by completing Missions in order to win the first-off-the-line 2012 Jeep Wrangler COD version.

Results
•       453,842 Visits | 940,964 Page views
•       51,569 Total submissions | 46,592 Playing the game
•       2,435,164 total ballot entries

Campaigns/Initiatives

Engage users by creating a Call-of-Duty themed virtual scavenger hunt on Facebook that highlights both the capabilities of the new Wrangler Call-of-Duty MW3 Edition and the game locations.  Users earn “ballots” for participation, solving clues, and referring friends that result in additional chances to win.

Services Provided

•       Social Media Sweepstakes
•       Social Media Monitoring
•       Technical execution of Facebook Application

Notes
This effort was a highly technical one, executed under a tight timeline. Affinitive, as a Facebook Preferred Developer Consultant (PDC), leveraged its extensive expertise with Facebook Platform among a collaborative team of several other creative and media agencies, including Sapient Nitro.

How it Works

Once a user has "Liked" the Jeep Facebook page, they are directed to a Call-of-Duty-esque commander module where they receive instructions on the game.

Next, users were led through four different "missions", where they were given clues about a specific location they that they must solve—by any means necessary—to locate various parts of the vehicle.

Completed missions earn achievement badges and bonus ballots for the sweepstakes to win the first-off-the-line 2012 Jeep Wrangler Call of Duty: MW3 Edition. The farher along users advance through the four stages of training, the greater the number of ballots earned.

Ballots will be tallied after midnight on December 31, 2011 and the winner will be drawn at random for the new Jeep Wrangler, Call of Duty: MW3 edition.

In its purest form media is simply communication. In years past this included primarily newspapers, magazines and vinyl.  When the barrier to entry for media was at its highest—when you had to buy a printing press in order to spread the word—media moguls saw this as an opportunity to control the hearts and minds of the public.  At least that’s how Gail Wynad thought in Ayn Rand’s classic novel, The Fountainhead.  But look at ole Gail Wynad against our real life media baron, Rupert Murdock, it seems to be an accurate depiction.  It has been widely known for ages that “the pen is mightier than the sword”.

Now in the age of the Internet, there has been a philosophical jail-break of ideas and opinions through the ever-widening channels of social media.  Suddenly the hearts and minds are not forced into reading the daily newspaper and watching the evening news where the adage “if it bleeds it leads” is still painfully true.

Looking at the cause and effect nature of media, a massive shift also occurred.  Back in the day of printing presses, it would take many hours to broadcast the news from that day, no matter how gigantic.  That all changed with the advent of social media.  As documented by Dan Gilmor in We the Media, the day that it changed was on March 26, 2002 when Qwest CEO Joe Nacchio was answering questions during a press conference when someone in the audience, keeping track of the social stream on their mobile device, noticed that Mr. Nacchio had just sold $200 Million in shares in the company.  Contradicting what Joe was saying to the conference, this reporter raised his hand and called Joe on the carpet and asked him about the nefarious stock trade.

Media ceased to simply report events, and began to actually affect events.

Now we see that every day as Facebook brings together old friends—friends that would not have reconnected without the friend recommendation.  So, what is next?  Where is the media industry going now?  We’re like a snow globe all shook up.

Philosophically if News Corp loses its grip on us, and we are no longer force-fed the worst news the pundits can dig up, maybe we’ll start to see that the glass is half full.  If the public doesn’t have to take the incessant bad news, maybe this is a way to make the world a better place.  I have personally gone on a news fast and I feel great ever since.

I’m optimistic that although all this havoc is making it very difficult to make money in the media industry, there are many good things to come.  We don’t pick up the paper any more for front page headlines about murder, rape, political turmoil, religious warfare, cultural intolerance and greed—all because all of us have the power to generate content.  And if the concept of mind-over-matter has any glimmer of truth, just the avoidance of horrible headlines will bring more positivity to our world.  Time to stop and smell the virtual roses.

Talk about trending up!

Unfortunately, I have work to accomplish. And well, if I don’t get this left brain humming, that universe of opportunity will do me no good!

With Facebook, Tweets, IMs, SMSs, emails and good ole telephone calls, a constant barrage of information can consume our day leaving us myriad half-done tasks and unchecked to-dos. Here are a few ways of making sure you are being efficient and effective with your time, while keeping your finger on the pulse of the matrix:

1. Stop Multitasking – I know we always ask our prospective employees to be good at multitasking, but unfortunately it really is less productive.Want some research to support that? It’s out there.  I thought this quote nicely sums it up:“In a recent study, a group of Microsoft workers took, on average, 15 minutes to return to serious mental tasks, like writing reports or computer code, after responding to incoming e-mail or instant messages.” Fifteen minutes for a 30 second email. The moral of the story is, when you start something, finish it before you jump off to that new notification on your status bar.
2. Mind the Pareto Principle, a.k.a. the 80/20 Rule: 80 percent of the benefit comes from 20 percent of the causes. Going through your work day ask yourself, is this the most important thing I can be doing right now? Am I spending my time wisely? Don’t feel the need to be busy just to be busy, bring your focus to the 20 percent that is giving you the greatest return. Deciding what not to do may be the most important decision you can make.
3. Remember Parkinson’s Law? We learned it in college: work expands to the time available. I don’t know about you but I waited all semester to write my paper then banged it out on a caffeine-inspired all-nighter only to receive high marks. Take a look at your to-do list, what can you knock off in the matter of an hour? Do it! Then go outside and take a walk around the block to reward yourself for your hard work, and think about what you can do to capitalize on that 20 percent when you go back into the office. (A hint: if you shut off your Tweetdeck and email for that hour, you will be amazed at how much you get done.)
4. Protect the critical chain – In every process there is a set of steps that represent the minimum lead time it will take to finish a project. As you prioritize your day, keep in mind especially how your tasks affect your projects. The rule is: one minute lost for the critical chain is a minute lost for the entire system.

Last weekend, some good friends and I put this theory to work. We knew the first coat would need to dry before we applied the second coat of charismatic purple paint to the walls of my friends’ new nursery. We decided that despite the fact that we were in the middle of installing the headboard, we should stop and get the critical chain rolling…and brushing, and masking. And we finished the headboard while the paint dried, adding no net time to our day of chores. Well done team.

As you tread the river of updates, be aware of your own effectiveness. Manage your multitasking by not checking your Tweetdeck every time a post comes in. Decide when to be involved with social river and when to focus on leveraging that social river. How can we tap that top 20 percent for a bigger piece of the pie?

Please, keep me posted.

Related Links:

Why Multitasking Doesn’t Work, by Mark McGuinness

The 4-Hour Workweek, by Timothy Ferriss