After all of the great times we’ve had with Instagram, the
latest news might be the end of the popular app. Starting mid-January,
Instagram, which was recently purchased by Facebook, has the rights to use any
photos posted on the app. They can even use the photos for the purposes of
advertising their product or selling photos without even giving any credit to
the person who took the photo. What’s up with that?
This is a perfect example of how social media can create
change in a company. People have about a month to start bombarding Instagram
with angry messages about how they want their photos to belong to them and not
to be used or sold without compensation.
Recent updates have given more options to the Instagram app.
They added another photo style and changed the look of the program. This is
supposed to make it more attractive to users. But the idea of the program
selling photos without compensating or even acknowledging their users seems a
bit unfair. There are plenty of other companies, like Hipstimatic, will be
happy to have new users switch to their product.
I noticed that a few of my Facebook friends posted that they
closed their Instagram accounts today. National Geographic has suspended
posting photos as of this evening. I have a friend who is a photographer for
them and he makes crazy money on each photo. Knowing that Instragram can use
photos for free that after they pay tons of money to their photographers is
going to keep them from posting anything. Their pictures were honestly the most
amazing things I’ve seen on Instagram [not including family stuff].
This situation is quite a big deal in the realm of social
media. A lot of people promote their businesses by using this app, but are not
going to give Instagram free access to photos they pay to use themselves.
You have until January 16, 2013 to quit using the app or
accept the fact that your photos are no longer your own. There are other, not
as popular photo apps, that can be used instead. Whether Instagram changes
their policy may depend on complaints and whether or not people jump ship and stop using this
app.
Wow, this is truly amazing. I don't use instagram at all in my marketing efforts, not even for my personal use and I definitely wont start to now. I agree, I think it's rather unfair for them to take away the ownership of users photos. Was this before or after Facebook bought them out? Either way, they should seriously reconsider this, or else they'll loose a TON of users, money and will eventually become extinct. Thanks for sharing this on BizSugar.com.
ReplyDeleteTi
Thanks for your input!
ReplyDeleteI don't use Instagram for business much, mostly just for personal amusement. But when I saw last night that National Geographic is going to stop using it, I started to think about it.
Maybe if there is enough pressure, they will change their policies. This happened after Facebook bought them because it doesn't take effect until next month.