Instagram Selling Your Photos?

Unless you delete your Account by January 16th, Instagram says it has the right not only to display your photos, but also sell licenses to other companies to use them! 

So it seems a lot has changed since Instagram was purchased by Facebook and it seems that the company is looking to expand profitibility in any way it can, but what does this mean to you?

To me, as a photographer building his niche brand it means that I loose control of how my images are used and the messages they are sending.  As a business owner it means that Instragram can sell my promotional images to my competition loosing me any advantage my clients see in my products and services.  These not only limits the value of my marketing investment (Time & Money) it can hurt the brand we are working so hard to build.

As a person, I question my right to privacy.  Do I really want the hotel I stayed in using pictures of my family in their marketing?  The question of safety enters my mind often after last week's incident at Sandy Hook Elementary School.  To me, the easy of sharing your pictures with friends, family and clients just isn't worth the risk.

So what's the other choices?  According to a CNET article Google's Google+ and Picassa licenses do not allow your images to sell your images and Yahoo's Flickr allow you to set what they can do with your images.  In fact, Flickr parters with Getty Images to pay you for any picture you've allowed to be sold.

Some say it's nice to be in control.  When it comes to your privacy and your busines images - You Absolutly Must be in Control!