Instagram Licensing Your Photos? Here are Some They Can Use Now

Instagram, the popular app for making your crappy mobile photos look like, well, slightly less crappy photos, has the Internet up in arms with its recent announced change to its Terms of Service. In January, Instagram will begin reserving the right to license and profit from any of the photos you upload to Instagram and make money selling them for ads. No royalties for you, no permission asked, not even an opt-in.

Amateur crap-tographers are understandably upset. While Instagram has always been suspiciously bereft of any form of rights licensing to uploaded works – unlike, say, Flickr – this has seemed to make social media savants so angry that their iPhone shots are blurrier than usual as their hands shake from anger.

I, however, embrace this. What right have I to expect that things I upload should be treated with respect by the service? After all, it’s free and I don’t own the platform. My precious images, and any content I publish elsewhere, should be free for plunder and profit to all but me.

In that spirit, I thought I would pick a few images from my own Instagram account and suggest brands that could use them in some super ads:

This is an extreme close-up of my hand. If any soap company (Dove? Irish Spring?) would like to use this, I’ll be happy to pretend I use it to keep them looking like this.

That’s a sausage. Jimmy Dean, all yours.

Old El Paso? Tostitos? Ortega? Salsa brands, it’s first come first serve for this muy caliente photo.

Jeep or Honda? Based on the parking skills on display, I’d say Honda.

Toastmasters – recruiting? Here you go.

And of course, sports physical therapists from all over the country will want to grab this one. I’m assuming the NBA and the NBA Players’ Association have also relinquished their rights.