Is Facebook’s ‘Doppelganger’ Craze is Illegal???
Yup, through the wonders of copyright law, the doppelgänger meme currently sweeping across Facebook is actually illegal and breaks the Facebook terms of service.
If you don’t use Facebook (??), or you haven’t logged in during the past week, the ‘doppelganger’ thing is all about replacing your profile photo with your celebrity look-alike. Harmless, you might think, but the Facebook TOS strictly forbids the uploading of copyrighted images and artwork that you don’t have permission to use.
Speaking to CNET, a spokeswoman from Facebook said: “Users are responsible for the content they post, but as always, Facebook will respond to requests for removal that it receives from copyright holders. In this case, we have received no such requests.” Curious — publishers and media outlets are usually all too zealous to stamp down on copyright infringement.
The copyright lords gave, and the copyright lords hath taken away…
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Actually, unless the image specifically states that it is copyright protected I don’t think it is illegal. AP images are freely available for use, I think you just have to give credit to whomever you got the image from. If you want to use a copyrighted image you will have to ask the owner for written permission before posting it.
i got my celebrity-look-alike at http://facebookceleblookalike.blogspot.com/ it worked really fast and gives up to 12 results