The HOAX about giving Facebook a notice declaring rights over all personal data, drawings, paintings, photos, texts etc… and telling Facebook that it is strictly forbidden to disclose, copy, distribute, broadcast, etc… has again resurfaced and became viral.

The said notice that people have been sharing on their timelines cites Articles L.111, 112 and 113 of the “code of intellectual property,” but code of which country? The said provisions may be referring to the Intellectual Property Code of France (http://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/…/…/version/3/file/Code_35.pdf), so how can such a domestic French statute protect you? It also invokes UCC 1 1-308 – 308 1 – 103, which may be referring to the Uniform Commercial Code of the U.S., but said provisions of the UCC do not deal with intellectual property rights. You can check the wordings of the said provisions at www.law.cornell.edu/ucc/1. If the UCC refers to the Universal Copyright Convention, adopted in 1952, said Convention does not contain those article or provision numbers. You can check out the UCC at http://bit.ly/UNESCO_UCC.

Lastly, to scare the hell out of Mark Zuckerberg, the notice also cites the Rome Statute, which established the International Criminal Court. However, said statute only deals with the crimes of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and the crime of aggression. Here is the full text of the Rome Statute http://www.icc-cpi.int/…/ea9aeff…/0/rome_statute_english.pdf.

I think the best way to protect the privacy and ownership of your personal data, photos, writings, etc. against Facebook is simply not to use Facebook. When one signs up for a Facebook account, you agree on its terms and conditions. In case you did not actually read them before clicking “I agree,” paragraph 2 of the Facebook Statement of Rights and Responsibilities states that: “You own all of the content and information you post on Facebook, and you can control how it is shared through your privacy and application settings.” However, paragraph 2.4 also adds that: “When you publish content or information using the Public setting, it means that you are allowing everyone, including people off of Facebook, to access and use that information, and to associate it with you (i.e., your name and profile picture), and as to ownership of your intellectual properties, paragraph 2.1 provides that: “For content that is covered by intellectual property rights, like photos and videos (IP content), you specifically give us the following permission, subject to your privacy and application settings: 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.”

For the complete Facebook terms and conditions, please check outwww.facebook.com/legal/terms. If you think you may have mistakenly agreed with them, you simply have to delete your Facebook account to immediately terminate the IP License you’ve given Facebook over all the data, photos, videos, texts, and other information you have posted.

Posting the said notice, however, does nothing at all to protect your privacy rights and the ownership of the things you have posted on Facebook.