A court in Germany fined Facebook $109,330 for its refusal to follow an order regarding an intellectual property statement. Four years ago, the court found that site's terms and condition failed to sufficiently tackle intellectual property concerns in the country.
The German court gave the ruling on March 1, just a week after Mark Zuckerberg visited Berlin to receive the pioneer Axel Springer Award. According to the regional court, the message on Facebook's revised intellectual property statement remained the same and failed to address the said issue.
A Facebook spokesperson said that the issue was more about the timing and not the message.
"We complied with the order to clarify a single provision in our terms concerning an IP license a while ago," said the Facebook spokesperson.
However, the German court felt that the message was not revised fast enough so they issued a fine, which the social media giant will pay.
On the other hand, the German court said it wasn't the speed by which the statement was revised. Rather, the ruling was based on the fact that the key message in the terms and conditions did not change.
The case focused on the revised clause that applied to German users last December. According to the terms, the users are permitted Facebook the following:
"[G]rant 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."
According to the German court, the key message in the supposedly revised clause was the same with the earlier version posted in 2012, saying it violates consumer rights. An appeals court in 2014 further affirmed that Facebook needed to revise the statement.
To date, Facebook removed the "royalty-free" and "in connection with" lines from the said clause for German users.
Facebook is dealing with a series of legal problems in other countries throughout Europe. Their facial recognition technology, wherein the user is prompted to "tag" another user in their photos, has also been under fire.
The FriendFinder feature also threw Facebook in a legal battle earlier this year. The District Court of Berlin ruled in 2012 that Facebook violated a user's right because of the feature.
The ruling was sustained in 2014 in a lower court. Last January 15, the same ruling was upheld in Germany.
Facebook is also in hot waters with the French when it suspended a teacher's account when the user uploaded a famous nude painting on social media.
Photo: Pascal Paukner | Flickr
