Making the rounds is a new web site called Terms of Service; Didn’t Read (which is somewhat similar to TOSSOS) that puts a rating from A to E (E being worst) on basically how bad you’re going to get f&#%#d concerning your content and activity on particular web sites.
I can save everyone the trouble of reading through any of those sites with a simple three-word phrease: You own nothing.
Here’s an example. I went into MS Paint and created this character, Spud Boy:
Spud Boy is copyright 2012 Rich Menga because, well, I say it is.
If I posted the above original artwork to certain photo sharing or social web sites, I basically lose a good amount of ownership, because that site can retransmit and share it all over the place (even for money) without my express permission because their TOS says they can. By actually uploading the artwork to said photo sharing/social site, that action in TOS legalese was my permission for them to do so.
For those who want to give themselves at least some assurance or proper content ownership, the only way to really do that is to not use sharing/social sites at all and to host your content yourself on your own web site. If you don’t, you’re basically “handing the keys” concerning ownership to whatever site you posted it to.
Yes, it’s true some TOSes are better than others (as you will see on the linked sites above), but you’re better off just assuming you own nothing the moment you post it to content sharing/social site.
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You don;t even own your private information. They can always change their privacy policy and sell your information to whoever they want.