social · Microsoft
You’re creating on LinkedIn, which means…
You own your posts, and LinkedIn is one of the few platforms whose licence you can actually end — by deleting. What you can’t end is what Microsoft and anyone already sub-licensed are still holding.
What they own
Nothing you wrote. LinkedIn says it in the header of the clause: “You own all of your original content that you provide to us, but you also grant us a non-exclusive license to it.” The licence they take is non-exclusive, which is the whole reason the ownership line means anything.
What you own
The copyright, and a licence that is non-exclusive, so you keep every other use. The contract spells it out: because their rights are non-exclusive, “you may choose to make it available to others, including under the terms of a Creative Commons license”. Post it elsewhere, sell it, license it.
What you don’t
The copies that already left. Deleting a post or closing your account ends the licence — but the clause carves out four things, not three: content other members “copied, re-shared it or stored it”, content LinkedIn “had already sublicensed others prior to your content removal”, anything “we are required by law to retain or share it with others”, and backups. The grant also runs to “our Affiliates”, which the contract defines as including Microsoft Corporation and its subsidiaries. And the off switch is written against “this license” only — the same section contains a second permission, to “access, store, process, and use any information” you provide, and nothing in this contract says deleting ends that one.
What they can do with it
“use, copy, modify, distribute, publicly perform and display, host, and process” it — worldwide, transferable, sublicensable, and “without any further consent, notice and/or compensation to you or others.” If you post to “Anyone on or off LinkedIn”, they may also make it available off LinkedIn and enable “search tools to make that public content findable”.
The clauses
The grant
LinkedIn User Agreement — 3.1 Your License to LinkedIn ↗
As between you and LinkedIn, you own your original content that you submit or post to the Services.
You grant LinkedIn and our Affiliates the following non-exclusive license to the content and other information you provide (e.g., share, post, upload, and/or otherwise submit) to our Services:
A worldwide, transferable and sublicensable right to use, copy, modify, distribute, publicly perform and display, host, and process your content and other information without any further consent, notice and/or compensation to you or others.
…
Because you own your original content and we only have non-exclusive rights to it, you may choose to make it available to others, including under the terms of a Creative Commons license
Direction of the grant
The word “grant” appears twice in this agreement and both times it runs from you to LinkedIn — there is no clause anywhere granting you anything back. It is not the only permission you hand over, though: the feedback clause below is a second one, and the contract’s definition of Content includes “feedback”.
And other information
The licence is not limited to posts. It covers “the content and other information you provide”, and the contract defines Content as including “feed posts, feedback, comments, profiles, articles (and contributions), group posts, job postings, messages (including InMails), videos, photos, audio, and/or PDFs.”
No further consent, notice or compensation
The words royalty-free appear nowhere in this agreement. This phrase does the same job: they do not have to ask you, tell you, or pay you.
Sublicensable
They can pass the right on to someone else. That matters most in the deletion clause below, where anything already passed on is carved out of your right to take it back.
Non-exclusive, and it counts
Because their rights are non-exclusive, the same post can be sold, syndicated or Creative Commons-licensed by you at the same time. This is the sentence the “what you own” line rests on.
Who “we” turns out to be
LinkedIn User Agreement — 1.1 LinkedIn and other Key Terms ↗
Affiliates are companies controlling, controlled by or under common control with us, including, for example, LinkedIn Ireland, LinkedIn Corporation, LinkedIn Singapore and Microsoft Corporation or any of its subsidiaries (e.g., Github, Inc.).
The grant is to a group
You are not licensing LinkedIn. You are licensing LinkedIn and every company under common control with it, and the contract names Microsoft and GitHub as examples.
It can be sold on
The general terms add that LinkedIn “may assign this Contract to its affiliates or a party that buys it without your consent”, while you may not assign yours without theirs.
How the licence ends — and where it doesn’t
LinkedIn User Agreement — 3.1 Your License to LinkedIn (limits, and the second permission) ↗
You can end this license for specific content by deleting such content from the Services, or generally by closing your account, except (a) to the extent you (1) shared it with others as part of the Services and they copied, re-shared it or stored it, (2) we had already sublicensed others prior to your content removal or closing of your account, or (3) we are required by law to retain or share it with others, and (b) for the reasonable time it takes to remove the content you delete from backup and other systems.
…
You and LinkedIn agree that we may access, store, process, and use any information (including content and/or personal data) that you provide in accordance with the terms of the Privacy Policy and your choices (including settings).
This is the unusual part
The words perpetual, irrevocable and royalty-free appear zero times in this agreement. Most platform licences have no off switch; this one does, and deleting is how you press it.
Four carve-outs, not three
Two of them are about copies someone else took — re-shares and backups. The other two are not: a sublicensee need never have taken a copy, and the legal-retention carve-out lets LinkedIn judge for itself that it must keep or hand over your content.
You are not told who, or when
You cannot find out whether LinkedIn sub-licensed a given post before you deleted it, or whether it has retained one under the legal carve-out. Neither limb carries a notice right or a list.
The switch says “this license”
The ending sentence is written against the non-exclusive grant above it. The second sentence here is a separate permission to access, store, process and use anything you provide, and nothing in this contract says deleting ends it — it routes to a Privacy Policy that is not part of this agreement.
“Anyone on or off LinkedIn” means off LinkedIn
LinkedIn User Agreement — 3.1 Your License to LinkedIn (audience choices) ↗
We will honor the audience choices for shared content (e.g., “Connections only”). For example, if you choose to share your post to "Anyone on or off LinkedIn” (or similar): (a) we may make it available off LinkedIn; (b) we may enable others to publicly share onto third-party services (e.g., a Member embedding your post on a third party service); and/or (c) we may enable search tools to make that public content findable though their services.
The audience setting is the control
This is a real lever in the agreement. Choosing the wider audience is what authorises republication off the platform and the “search tools” that make it findable; choosing “Connections only” is what LinkedIn promises to honour instead.
Embedding is permanent in practice
Once a member has embedded your post on another site, deleting it on LinkedIn runs straight into the carve-out for content others “copied, re-shared it or stored it”.
Your name and photo, and ads
LinkedIn User Agreement — 3.1 Your License to LinkedIn (advertising) ↗
We will not include your content in advertisements for the products and services of third parties to others without your separate consent (including sponsored content). However, without compensation to you or others, ads may be served near your content and other information, and your social actions may be visible and included with ads, as noted in the Privacy Policy. If you use a Service feature, we may mention that with your name or photo to promote that feature within our Services, subject to your settings.
The limit is real, and narrow
Third-party ads need your separate consent — that is a genuine restriction, and stricter than most platforms of this size. It does not cover LinkedIn promoting its own features.
Your likes are ad material
The contract defines Social Action as “Actions that members take on our services such as likes, comments, follows, sharing content.” Those can appear inside an ad without payment to you.
No likeness clause
Unlike many creator platforms, this agreement never uses the word “likeness”. Your name and photo appear only here, and only to promote LinkedIn’s own features, subject to settings.
What survives when you leave
LinkedIn User Agreement — 5. Termination ↗
Both you and LinkedIn may terminate this Contract at any time with notice to the other. On termination, you lose the right to access or use the Services. The following shall survive termination:
Our rights to use and disclose your feedback;
Section 3 (subject to 3.1.1);
Sections 4, 6, 7, and 8.2 of this Contract
…
Section 3 survives
Section 3 is the licence section, and it outlives your leaving “subject to 3.1.1”. Read as the deletion limits quoted above, closing the account triggers those limits rather than switching the section off — but that reading is an inference about numbering: the string 3.1.1 appears exactly once in this document, here, and the text carries no heading numbered 3.1.1 to confirm what it points at.
Feedback is separate and forever
Elsewhere the contract says LinkedIn “can use and share (but does not have to) such feedback for any purpose without compensation to you.” That permission has no deletion clause at all, and it is listed first among the survivors.
Nothing is kept for you
The agreement states plainly that “LinkedIn is not a storage service” and that it has no obligation to store or provide you a copy of anything you posted. Export before you close.
Due Dilly reads the paperwork and reports what it says. This is not legal advice.