From Bork to Instagram in 7 steps

Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork's video rentals affected this week's Instagram controversy. We connect the dots.Judge Robert Bork, who died this week, has unlikely connection to digital mediaAfter a reporter outed Bork's video-rental history, Congress made doing so illegalThat law shut down a Facebook sharing feature and helped prompt long terms-of-serviceAn Instagram TOS update spurred this week's user revolt

(CNN) -- If you read the headlines this week about the the death of Judge Robert Bork, you probably took away that he will be remembered for his conservative judicial philosophy and losing a very contentious Supreme Court confirmation battle.

You probably didn't read about the impact he made on modern media, and maybe even on the debate the Internet had about Instagram this week. But that's part of his legacy, too. Let's connect the dots from Bork to Instagram, shall we?

1. The Bork Tapes

President Ronald Reagan nominated Bork for the U.S. Supreme Court in 1987. During his confirmation hearings, an enterprising reporter found a list of the movies he'd rented at his local video rental store.

You might imagine the reporter was looking for something among the rentals that could shed new light on the man. What turned up was a pretty ho-hum list of movies including lots and lots of Cary Grant and at least one middling Danny DeVito comedy. (The reporter's own back story on what he was looking for in procuring that rental list is slightly more nuanced -- it's a good read, which you can find here.)

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Perhaps the biggest controversy about Bork's rental list was how deadly dull it was. But, who knows? Maybe some of those lawmakers had something to hide? Within a few short months of the hearings, the U.S. Congress passed the Video Privacy Protection Act -- VPPA for short -- a law that was written to keep video rental records private, but which still governs parts of our digital-media world.

3. Class action catnip

The crux of the law, and of the lawsuits that followed, is something called a "private right of action" and a tidy penalty for violating it. The VPPA allows individuals whose viewing history was shared to sue for $2,500 a pop. That's litigation catnip for class-action attorneys, who make a living collecting large groups of allegedly wronged people with something to gain from saying so.

It was a clever way for lawmakers to ensure that people would abide by the law. (Now you really want to see those Congress-folks' lists, right?)

4. Goodbye, Beacon

The VPPA was the law that was used to shut down Facebook's controversial "Beacon" program in 2009. Beacon was a feature that powered messages in your news feed about your activities on other websites, a la "Sean just bought a diamond ring on Overstock.com!"

Too bad it was an engagement ring, and Facebook spoiled the secret.

Facebook relented after a class-action lawsuit involving exactly that kind of story -- a Facebook-foiled marriage proposal. The site first provided a way to opt out and eventually shut Beacon down altogether and coughed up a $9.5 million settlement.

Beacon became a target because among the activities being shared was video viewing (in addition to diamond buying and lots of other things).

More recent VPPA suits involve Netflix, Best Buy and Redbox.

5. Enter Netflix

Since then, as social networks have exploded in popularity and social media sharing has become de rigueur, just about any of us could flip open Facebook and see a stream of all the music our friends are listening to right this second. But because of the VPPA, you couldn't see the same thing for the movies they're watching.

Companies like Netflix have been pushing hard to change that. Telling your friends what you're up to is, after all, the modern equivalent of word-of-mouth advertising.

Netflix says its users want to be able to share which movies they're watching online with their friends, and has lobbied Congress to amend the law. This week, the U.S. House of Representatives approved an amendment to the VPPA that would allow individuals to opt in to sharing their online viewing habits.

The Senate recently passed something similar, and all signs point to a change in the weeks ahead.

OK -- bear with me here. We're almost to Instagram.

6. Looooong privacy policies

The amendment the House passed says explicitly that it is, indeed, possible to give your consent to share information about your video viewing via the Internet. Great. What it doesn't necessarily make clear, though, is exactly how to do that, and how a company that is sharing your information can make certain that you understand what you are agreeing to.

What that means in practical terms is that most terms of use for social and digital media services are very long and exhaustive. It's in companies' best interest to tell you everything they possibly can about what you're consenting to, so they can't be penalized the way Facebook was in the Beacon debacle.

7. The Instagram revolt

Which is where Instagram comes in. The company announced Monday that it would be updating its terms of service to include new ways it could share and treat your personal information and content. Immediately, people began speculating about why Instagram might need these new disclosures, and what on earth it could be planning.

Was it going to sell photos of your kids to advertisers, without even telling you about it? Yikes.

Founder Kevin Systrom responded to the frenzy by saying, "We've heard loud and clear that many users are confused and upset about what the changes mean," and then tried to get more clear about what the legal documents mean. The language that most concerned users (apparently granting permission to sell images without notifying or paying the user) would be removed, he said.

BONUS: What now?

OK, so what does this mean for us? It looks as though the law may change, and soon enough you may be able to click a button and tell your friends what you're watching on Netflix. But it also means that terms and privacy policies for digital services may get longer and even more complicated as a result.

So read those terms, folks. Especially if you think you might get tapped for the Supreme Court.

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Instagram backtracks after users revolt

NEW: Instagram backtracks on controversial privacy languageLanguage appeared to let the app sell users' images for advertisingFacebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's wedding photographer called it unfairNEW: Instagram co-founder: "It is not our intention to sell your photos"

(CNN) -- Faced with a loud and angry backlash from some of its most active users, photo-sharing app Instagram backtracked Tuesday on new language that appeared to give the company ownership of their images.

"The language we proposed ... raised question about whether your photos can be part of an advertisement," Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom wrote in a blog post. "We do not have plans for anything like this and because of that we're going to remove the language that raised the question."

An update Monday to Instagram's terms of service had stated that data collected through the app can be shared with Facebook. That's not a surprising move, considering Facebook paid an estimated $1 billion for the photo-sharing service earlier this year.

But the language that upset some of the app's more than 100 million users said that "a business or other entity may pay" Instagram for the use of user images and may do so "without any compensation to you."

That didn't sit well with some -- including Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's wedding photographer.

"Pro or not if a company wants to use your photos for advertising they need to TELL you and PAY you," Noah Kalina wrote Tuesday on Twitter.

Kalina stopped short of vowing to quit Instagram, saying he hopes that language will be deleted. The proposed changes are set to go into effect January 16.

Others weren't being so patient.

A popular Twitter feed associated with the hacker collective Anonymous was urging its more than 780,000 followers to dump the app Tuesday morning.

"Only way to opt out of @instagram selling your photos is deleting your account," wrote the person who runs the account. "Sounds good to us. #BoycottInstagram".

The feed posted image after image of screen shots from followers who had done just that. It claimed it was receiving thousands of such images -- too many to count.

Systrom wrote that the intent of the new terms was "to communicate that we'd like to experiment with innovative advertising that feels appropriate on Instagram."

"Instead it was interpreted by many that we were going to sell your photos to others without any compensation," he wrote. "This is not true and it is our mistake that this language is confusing. To be clear: it is not our intention to sell your photos. We are working on updated language in the terms to make sure this is clear."

The new terms appeared to significantly broaden what Instagram can do with users' content. Currently they say, "Instagram may place such advertising and promotions on the Instagram Services or on, about, or in conjunction with your Content."

Systrom's post came after a morning when social media and tech blogs lit up with complaints. #BoycottInstagram and #Instagram were top trending topics on Twitter for much of the day.

Wil Wheaton, who parlayed a child-actor stint on "Star Trek: The Next Generation" into becoming one of the Web's earliest star bloggers, wrote that he doesn't use Instagram. But he questions whether other "celebrities to some degree" could be exploited if they do.

"If someone Instagrams a photo of Seth Green walking through an Urban Outfitters, does that mean Urban Outfitters can take that image and use it to create an implied endorsement by Seth?" Wheaton wrote. "What if the picture is taken by a complete stranger? Who gets final say in how the image is used? The subject, the photographer, or Instagram?"

Even CNN's own Anderson Cooper was expressing some concern on the site.

"#Instagram will now be able to use anyone's photos in ads? Without consent?" he wrote on Twitter. "Come on! Is there another photo app people recommend?"

Cooper wasn't the only one considering his options.

"I have my fingers crossed that they, Instagram, will listen to the voice of the community and reverse the new terms of service, but I'm not holding my breath," wrote photojournalist Richard Koci Hernandez, who has more than 163,000 Instagram followers. He shared his thoughts Tuesday on Instagram, where he was posting blank black squares instead of his usual artful black-and-white images.

"I don't feel like debating the terms of service or being too nostalgic about the old days of Instagram, I feel that it's much better just to take our work and more importantly friendship and conversation to another place that respects our rights and ownership as creators," Hernandez added. "Let's move the party to a new location."

Bloggers also were spotlighting tools like Hipstamatic and Camera Awesome, as well as Twitter's own new photo service that includes Instagram-like filters.

A year-and-a-half-old blog post from photo-sharing site Flickr was also making the rounds. In it, Yahoo, which owns Flickr, uses language, perhaps aimed at Facebook, that says "(w)e feel very strongly that sharing online shouldn't mean giving up rights to your photos."

Systrom said Instagram agrees.

"Instagram users own their content and Instagram does not claim any ownership rights over your photos," he wrote. "Nothing about this has changed. We respect that there are creative artists and hobbyists alike that pour their heart into creating beautiful photos, and we respect that your photos are your photos. Period."

It is, of course, too early to know how many people were fleeing Instagram on Tuesday. But anecdotal evidence suggested a movement was afoot.

Instaport, a tool that lets users export and and download their Instagram images, was reporting overtaxed servers Tuesday morning.

"Our servers are very busy right now, so it may show you some errors," the company wrote to a user on its Twitter feed. "Please try again later or tomorrow."

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