You may have seen this message on Facebook yesterday: "In response to the new Facebook guidelines, I hereby declare that my copyright is attached to all of my personal details, illustrations, comics, paintings, professional photos and videos, etc. (as a result of the Berner Convention). For commercial use of the above my written consent is needed at all times!"
And you may have posted it yourself.
Well, it was a hoax!
The message has been making the rounds on the social network. It asks people to copy and paste the text and post it on their own walls if they want to be placed "under protection of copyright laws." But here's the truth: Facebook doesn't own your media and there is no such thing as the Berner Convention.
A statement from Facebook said: "We have noticed some statements that suggest otherwise and we wanted to take a moment to remind you of the facts -- when you post things like photos to Facebook, we do not own them. Under our terms, you grant Facebook permission to use, distribute, and share the things you post, subject to the terms and applicable privacy settings."
Snopes.com is a site dedicated to clearing up fallacies on the Internet. It told Facebook users that they "cannot retroactively negate any of the privacy or copyright terms they agreed to when they signed up for their Facebook accounts nor can they unilaterally alter or contradict terms instituted by Facebook simply by posting a contrary legal notice on their Facebook walls."
