Doomsday for Instagram?

Instagram has made an announcement that made many Instagrammers fuming mad. Three months after Instagram has been bought over by Facebook, the first announcement sure made heads turned. The new Privacy Policy and Terms of Service will be effective as of 16th January 2013, so we still have some time to see what they are going to do.

Credits to Mr. Aik Beng Chia for this image

Personally, I feel violated (in terms of intellectual property) by Instagram's announcement. In short, what bother me are as follow:

1. Instagram does not claim ownership of any Content that you post on or through the Service. Instead, you hereby grant to Instagram a non-exclusive, fully paid and royalty-free, transferable, sub-licensable, worldwide license to use the Content that you post on or through the Service, except that you can control who can view certain of your Content and activities on the Service as described in the Service's Privacy Policy, available here: http://instagram.com/legal/privacy/

In short, what I understand from this point is that Instagram can use my images (yes, I know my images may not be used) without them paying me in terms of credits/monetary values since Instagram will have the license to use my images.

2. To help us deliver interesting paid or sponsored content or promotions, you agree that a business or other entity may pay us to display your username, likeness, photos (along with any associated metadata), and/or actions you take, in connection with paid or sponsored content or promotions, without any compensation to you.

Instagram gets paid for using my images, but back to Point 1, I will not be paid or credited.

3. You acknowledge that we may not always identify paid services, sponsored content, or commercial communications as such.

What?! You're such a huge company and you may not always identify such services, content and communications?!! 

4. ...you agree to pay for all royalties, fees, and any other monies owed by reason of Content you post on or through the Service

You mean I still have to pay Instagram?!!!

5. You (and also any third party for whom you operate an account or activity on the Service) agree to defend (at Instagram's request), indemnify and hold the Instagram Parties harmless from and against any claims, liabilities, damages, losses, and expenses, including without limitation, reasonable attorney's fees and costs, arising out of or in any way connected with any of the following (including as a result of your direct activities on the Service or those conducted on your behalf)

So if my images are used and Instagram is paid and I am not, I still have to defend Instagram as harmless from and against any claims, damages, losses and liabilities?

I am no attorney/lawyer and my interpretations may be wrong, but this is just way too ridiculous, Instagram! You use my images, you get paid for it and yet I have to pay and defend you in any cases without any form of credit/reimbursement to me! This is worse than being a whore! At least they get paid.

I'm waiting out to see what other bullshits Instagram/Facebook is/are coming up. They just released a clarification/apology earlier this morning (Singapore time) to say they won't sell our images. I'm skeptical. In this post, they said that they're sorry and they will remove the 'language' that confuses users. What I understand from this is that they are only removing the language, not the content. Hence, I suspect that they may come up with a more confusing 'language' that mask the earlier intent.

As such, I will not be posting any new images onto Instagram until they sort out this crap they created together with Facebook.

In the meantime, I have signed up EyeEm. You can look me up at the same nick or by my name . I may go onto Flickr, depending on how easy it is to sign up. I previously had one with a Yahoo account, but I am more into Google. See if they accept Gmail account as the registering email since in the past, only Yahoo user can use Flickr.