New Facebook craze can violate terms of service
If you're one of Facebook's 350-million-plus members, you've probably noticed a handful of people on your friends list changing their profile photos to pictures of celebrities, cartoon characters, Muppets, and other notable figures recently.
That's because an unofficial viral craze called "Doppelganger Week" has arisen on the social network. To participate, you change your profile picture to a celebrity or otherwise notable figure whom you resemble (or like to think you resemble).
Nobody's really sure where Doppelganger Week came from or who started it. It's particularly funny considering the recent emergence of more photos from the set of "The Social Network," a movie based on the origins of Facebook in which the company's early executives are portrayed by, yes, celebrity doppelgangers.
The catch is, putting up a celebrity photo on your Facebook profile may not actually be kosher. In the company's terms of service, it says: "You will not post content or take any action on Facebook that infringes or violates someone else's rights or otherwise violates the law...We can remove any content or information you post on Facebook if we believe that it violates this Statement." So unless you took that celebrity photo yourself or bought the rights to it, it may be in violation.
Thankfully, for those Facebook users who want to let the world know that they think they look like George Clooney, it sounds like there hasn't been any impetus to pull Doppelganger Week photos.
"Users are responsible for the content they post, but as always, Facebook will respond to requests for removal that it receives from copyright holders," spokeswoman Brandee Barker said in an e-mail to CNET. "In this case, we have received no such requests."
Caroline McCarthy, a CNET News staff writer, is a downtown Manhattanite happily addicted to social-media tools and restaurant blogs. Her pre-CNET resume includes interning at an IT security firm and brewing cappuccinos. E-mail Caroline. 
I'm always like, "Says who?"
Lame. Get off my lawn.
Cody
Won't there be a lot of red faces!
Maybe you don't have a lot or friends or belong to any sort of community where it'd be useful, but they are hardly "lame" and there are plenty of reasons why one might register.
What is "lame" is when people feel the need to bash something as a result of it's popularity, which is where I feel most of the animosity towards facebook comes from.
It is an extremely useful tool for some people, and if you can't see that, you are just ignorant.
They present a security hazard to the users and the user's computer. They are unsafe. They all have back doors into you computer and will gather any and all personal information they can get from your computer and sell it off to the highest bidder. At the very least they are marking any trends they find and will sell that fact to advertisers. did you know that when you use one of these social networking sites or utilities from your cell phone, you are basically broadcasting your phone number over the air for anyone with the right equipment to see and use.
Just look at the example of the students in Syracuse NY that were all given detention, just because they logged into a facebook page that made fun of a teacher. The student that posted the page in the first place was suspended.
How did they get the names, of the visitors to the page, if these sites supposedly allow for privacy and anonymity?
Learn how to use your security and don't post stupid pictures of yourself. All it takes is some common sense.
As for the rest, take off the tinfoil hat. Facebook is not installing a backdoor into your computer. Sure they track which of their sites you visit, and what you do there, and then use directed marketing to earn money. It's a business, and if we aren't going to pay them, they have to make money somehow. How is that any different than an advertiser purchasing ad time to broadcast beer commercials during the superbowl, or commercials for toys during cartoons? They know that if you're watching the superbowl, there's a good chance that you like beer. They know that if you're watching cartoons, there's a good chance that you like toys. This is just better at it - now instead of using stereotyping to decide which ads to run, they can actually say "I see you're interested in this, are you aware of this over here?" It's not a perfect system, but it works well, and I've had a few ads that I've found that I actually appreciate because they provided information I didn't know about something that I was interested in.
And as for publishing your phone number where anyone can find it, there's a company that's been doing that for ages, and no one's complained so far. You might have heard of them - YellowPages.
Facebook would have *lots* of problems enforcing picture ToSes were photo ownership not vested with the photo-taker. If such were not the case, they'd have to take down EVERY picture someone posted that contained recognizable images of anyone other than themselves.
Or claim that it's fair use under parody, which it clearly is.
I've seen this doppelganger concept since bulletin board days without fuss, so I don't see a sudden fuss being made about it now.
Under US law it is 100% legal to post a picture of a celebrity under these circumstances.
From publaw.com:
"Since copyright law prohibits the substantial use of a copyrighted work without permission of the copyright owner, and because such permission is highly unlikely when the use is to create a parody, it may be necessary for the parodist to rely on the fair-use defense to forestall any liability for copyright infringement. However, the fair-use defense if successful will only be successful when the newly created work that purports itself to be parody is a valid parody. "
But my real take on this is, who the f*ck cares? People have been doing this for ages and with the massive amount of people who do this daily, and the ease of access to get a hold of these images (photobucket, anyone?) no one is going to lose their account over it. That would be ridiculous.
In addition, the person who wrote this article probably couldn't find something important to write about and felt it necessary to scare a bunch of little kids. C'mon, pull it together!
People have been using and twisting the heck out of trademarks and photos long before the Internet was created.
- by pokergirlru February 9, 2010 4:12 AM PST
- The users should use applications for facial recognition that have licenses for thier celebrity photos databases. I think that major web-services do have the license and users can post derivative works.
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(35 Comments)I used an iPhone app during the Doppelganger week. You can choose any. I recommend http://itunes.apple.com/ru/app/my-celebtwin/id353608595?mt=8