Have you ever seen something cool posted on your Facebook
wall or Google+ stream, and reshared it with your friends and followers?
You could be guilty of violating intellectual property rights and not
even realize it.
Ever since reading Kim Lloyd’s thoughts on the
intent of SOPA, I’ve been thinking a lot about how often intellectual property
rights are violated on social media sites like Facebook and YouTube – and how
often the perpetrators don’t even realize they’re sharing something they
shouldn’t. I still don’t agree with SOPA because I believe in looking for
solutions via innovation and education rather than legislation. And, to be
honest, the thought of a government-regulated Internet bothers me for a ton of
different reasons. But, that’s a story for another day…
Even though I’m not a supporter of SOPA, PIPA or other similar
legislation, I do feel that theft of intellectual property is a very real
problem that continues to grow. Also, despite the rhetoric, big brands are not the only victims. In fact, it’s the little
guys – startup independent video producers, bloggers, photographers, etc. – who
are being hurt the most. I’ll talk more about that in a moment, but first I want
to take a quick look at the so-called pirates.
So, Are We All Just a
Bunch of Robbers and Thieves?
If you mention Internet or media piracy, a lot of people
conjure up images of seedy characters copying and burning CDs and DVDs in a dimly-lit
back room of some shop in the bad part of town. Or, you may picture someone in
Asia scouring the web, intentionally looking for content to scrape and reuse on
a short-term site to generate ad revenue. Basically, many of us assume that the
people involved know full well what they’re doing is wrong, but they just don’t
care.
In reality, the bulk of IP theft is committed by those who
don’t think they’re stealing or, at the very least, don’t think they’re doing
any harm.
Often it’s a case of ignorance. After all, usage
restrictions and copyright laws can be pretty confusing – especially when it
comes to what constitutes fair use. For instance, how often have you seen a
video of a television show posted on YouTube that was clearly recorded by
someone with no legal rights to do so with a note in the description saying, “I
do not own the rights to this video, and I’m posting it for entertainment
purposes only.”
Yes, there is a huge segment of the population that seems to
believe if they aren’t personally getting a paycheck as a result of the
infringement, they’ve done nothing wrong. They may even believe they’re doing a
public service – providing the material for free so others don’t have to pay
for it! They don’t stop to consider how others may be making or losing money
from their “good deeds.”
Social media outlets like Facebook compound the problem. One
person posts the video on YouTube, others share it on Facebook, and still
others reshare it on Facebook without even noticing the name of the user who
originally posted the video. As this sharing continues and grows, those doing
the sharing may even assume that the original poster actually had full legal
rights to the video.
YouTube, Facebook and
Others: Please Stop Fencing Stolen IP
When you allow digital media to be distributed via your web
site without worrying where that material came from as long as you’re somehow
profiting through the distribution, is that really much different from fencing
physical stolen goods? Rather than only deal with it when someone complains,
shouldn’t you take measures to try to prevent it from happening in the first
place?
The consensus among most of the big-name sites is that it’s
the media owner’s responsibility to notify the site if material is being used
without permission. These sites claim that other solutions would be too costly
and would severely limit users – and would even result in a stifling of
creativity.
Hey, you know what really stifles creativity? When you have
to spend hours a week scouring the Internet to see who might have ripped off
your old stuff instead of, you know, creating new stuff.
As I mentioned earlier, it’s the little guys who are getting
hurt the worst. Big media companies like Viacom have enough money to hire people
whose entire job consists of tracking down IP theft and copyright violations. I’m
not saying they should have to do this, just that they have the ability to do
this – making it harder for others to profit from their work. Independents, on
the other hand, don’t have the time or the resources to spend and, as a result,
have a much tougher time protecting their IP.
What’s the Solution?
I fully admit that I don’t know of a perfect solution to
this problem, but I do think there are a lot of steps that sites like Facebook
and YouTube can take to help curb IP theft. For instance, what about asking a
few questions with each video or photo upload – things like “Do you have the
legal right to distribute this content?” and adding fields for users to cite
the original source of the material. Sure, this isn’t going to stop people who
are determined to share the content no matter what, but it will make a sizeable
percentage of the population stop and think before clicking the upload button.
In addition, simply having an FAQ page that outlines what
type of content is permissible and gives specific examples of common scenarios
would go a long way toward educating the general public about intellectual property
and usage rights. The trick here is to get away from the legalese and use plain
language that the average person can understand. For instance, the
creative-content subscription site PhotoSpin has a typical user agreement with
all the legal bells and whistles, but it also has an awesome
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly section that spells out in clear language what you can and can’t
do with the images you obtain from the site.
Would it really take too much effort and be too tough on the
end user to implement things like this on Facebook, YouTube and other social
media outlets? I don’t think so. Moreover, isn’t it better for these companies
to formulate a solid self-regulation plan before some other group (like the US
Government) tries to step in with its own method of regulation?
