"...unless your content has been shared with others, AND [not 'or'] they have not deleted it."
But wait. What if another person's privacy settings preclude one's ability to know if people have shared my content or not, and/or whether those people deleted it?
Doesn't that place Facebook in a realm of ultimate deniability with respect to whether or not they are still in lawful possession of this implicit IP License?
Case in point:
1. I upload a scandalous and controversial image, accidentally.
2. I have a friend, who can see the album that contains the
image. [thus it is "shared"]
3. This "friend" immediately shares it. [satisfying the
requisite logical AND whereby it is simultaneously both
shared and not yet deleted by them]
4. The friend UNFRIENDS me (OH NOES!), and locks me out of
viewing anything related to their account.
5. I delete the image, believing that I am revoking the
implicit IP License.
6. Unbeknownst to me, Facebook retains an IP License by virtue
of the fact that someone else has not deleted the image.
7. Due to Facebook's policy, they are bound by their own
privacy obligations to the other user, to withhold from me
information regarding WHO still possesses the image, and
will not tell me HOW they are able to claim lawful
possession of an IP License for the image I am trying to
revoke.
8. I am stuck in the very limbo that OP is complaining about,
whereby Facebook claims to have an implicit License to
publish content, but will refuse to disclose the evidence
of who has yet to delete the image, as prove that their own
license is derived by the actions of another.
9. In theory, this other user might very well "forget" their
Facebook password (whoopsie! but innocently, and certainly
not as revenge...) and lock themselves out of their own
account. In this manner Facebook now entitles themselves to
the IP rights of this image in perpetuity, without the
potential for revocation, because thei refuse to unlock the
sharer's account without adequate proof.
So when you "share with others" (whatever that might specifically mean, according to how they've defined their user interface at that particular moment), that very action is potentially bestowing onto Facebook potentially eternal IP rights to distribute that content forever.
Like, simply by virtue of sharing, any person who then accesses the content and then re-shares it and refuses to delete it, is then acting as the de-facto rights holder from which all of Facebook's privileges are derived.
But by letting another Facebook user access your shared content, as a peer, it's not immediately clear where that peer truly derives their eternal permission to forever re-share everything they ever had access to as your friend. Why does that person possess eternal rights to share YOUR content on Facebook, simply by being listed as your friend? Where does that part come from? Isn't that behavior enabled by Facebook? And doesn't Facebook reserve the right to redefine how things are "shared" at will? So then, doesn't that mean that Facebook is enabling itself?
Doesn't it seem like there is strong potential for a conflict of interest between Facebook and the other two parties involved?
> 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.
It says that their license to display the image is subject to your privacy settings. Simply setting the image to Only You doesn't remove the image, but would ensure no one can see it. It effectively revokes Facebook's license to show the image to all your friends. If none of your friends can view it, they cannot share it, and it should remove any of their previous shares. Then you can delete it.
EDIT: Come to think of it, I have a feeling that "unless your content has been shared with others" behaves more narrowly in practice than it could by reading the text. Probably, it would apply to edges cases beyond Facebook's reasonable control - like a notification of a picture to a phone. The app only checks for updates every so often, and it may be out of service for a while, but a thumbnail is sent. You could delete the image, but until they check Facebook's servers, the person has effective control over the thumbnail, which is a derivative work of your copyrighted image, legally. Facebook is just covering their bases there.
In my experience, a share is just a reference to the original post/image/whatever. The share may still exist, but I think anyone trying to access it will get an error saying that post doesn't exist, or they do not permission to view it.
Understand that no dialog is necessary for such an idea to be implemented at all.
Observe:
<noscript>
The webpage you are viewing may
not work correctly because the following
options differ from their default values:
1. Enable automatic loading of images.
2. Enable JavaScript.
These features of Firefox are essential
for most webpages to run properly. If the
webpage you are trying to access is behaving
strangely or appears to be working incorrectly,
<a href="">click here</a> to load the page
with the default browser configuration.
</noscript>
1. who would insert that fragment in a page (and where, but let's ignore that)? I don't think you can expect sites to do it to make their site work with users who have JavaScript disabled (target audience is too small), so the browser must do it. How is the browser going to figure out whether to insert it?
Also: how is that not a dialog? It presents a message to the user, and waits for a reply.
I still think 'no JavaScript' is a niche feature that is best delegated to an extension that sports a whitelist or a blacklist of scripts to allow/forbid. A variation on Adblock would work fine (maybe, Adblock already can be used to blacklist JavaScript. If so, it is a matter of tweaking its UI)
But wait. What if another person's privacy settings preclude one's ability to know if people have shared my content or not, and/or whether those people deleted it?
Doesn't that place Facebook in a realm of ultimate deniability with respect to whether or not they are still in lawful possession of this implicit IP License?
Case in point:
So when you "share with others" (whatever that might specifically mean, according to how they've defined their user interface at that particular moment), that very action is potentially bestowing onto Facebook potentially eternal IP rights to distribute that content forever.Like, simply by virtue of sharing, any person who then accesses the content and then re-shares it and refuses to delete it, is then acting as the de-facto rights holder from which all of Facebook's privileges are derived.
But by letting another Facebook user access your shared content, as a peer, it's not immediately clear where that peer truly derives their eternal permission to forever re-share everything they ever had access to as your friend. Why does that person possess eternal rights to share YOUR content on Facebook, simply by being listed as your friend? Where does that part come from? Isn't that behavior enabled by Facebook? And doesn't Facebook reserve the right to redefine how things are "shared" at will? So then, doesn't that mean that Facebook is enabling itself?
Doesn't it seem like there is strong potential for a conflict of interest between Facebook and the other two parties involved?