The Internet and copyright policy have had a bit of a rocky relationship in the past. From Napster in the early 2000s to YouTube not long after, the idea of “owning” something that has been put online seemed impossible. Now, the two seem to be playing nicely together: YouTube has its “Content ID” system which prevents previously copyrighted material from being uploaded to the site, and Spotify and other streaming services have given access to music to many who would otherwise have stolen it (although that’s an article for another day). Of course, there is still a ton of online theft that happens every day, but we’ve certainly come a long way since the creator of file-sharing hub MegaUpload was arrested in 2012.
With all of these strides toward a better Internet, it’s surprising to see a huge online fixture like Facebook take strides in the opposite direction. At a time when it seems as if every site is becoming more creator-friendly, Facebook bypasses that idea entirely in order to line its pockets.
I’m referring, of course, to the phenomenon known as “freebooting:” a process by which content — mostly videos, but also memes and pictures — are stolen from the original creator and re-uploaded without giving proper credit to the creator. This is incredibly detrimental to those who spend hours making the content, and whose livelihoods depend on people seeing it.
Take, for example, the YouTube channel “In a Nutshell,” which makes gorgeous educational videos. They recently uploaded a video to their channel explaining how a video of theirs was ripped from YouTube, uploaded to Facebook’s video player and subsequently viewed 3.2 million times. On the contrary, when In a Nutshell posted a YouTube video on their Facebook page, it only reached 100,000 people.
This discrepancy in viewership is by design. Facebook’s algorithms greatly favor content uploaded natively as opposed to links to other places on the web. For this reason, a picture uploaded directly to Facebook will appear in more of your friends’ timelines than a link to Imgur. While Facebook has every right to do this, it doesn’t change the fact that they are actively supporting those who steal content from others.
This practice isn’t limited to Facebook, either. It’s also rampant on Instagram, a platform Facebook coincidentally owns. Users like Josh Ostrovsky, “The Fat Jew,” have made names for themselves by taking memes and tweets found online and reposting them on their pages. This has given the Fat Jew upward of 6.6 million followers on the social media site and a modeling contract, a book deal and his own brand of white wine.
What his millions of followers do not seem to realize is that every stolen image is a comedian’s product, something they use to launch a career and build a fan base. Established comedians use the space to test out material before using it in standup acts, while upstarts use it to gain exposure. Either way, stealing jokes and profiting off of others work is borderline criminal.
Thankfully, there is a light at the end of this tunnel. Comedians like Kumail Nanjiani, Nick Thune and others have spoken out against the Fat Jew and accounts like his. As such, the Fat Jew himself has begun to realize the severity of the matter — many of his recent posts have a source attributed to them and his Instagram bio features an email you can reach if you think he’s stolen some of your jokes. It’s a nice gesture, but doesn’t help the root cause of the problem, which is stealing other people’s stuff.
Let’s be honest here: a lot of the Internet wouldn’t exist if it hadn’t been built on theft. YouTube wouldn’t have gotten big enough to be bought out by Google if it hadn’t first been an aggregate for “Family Guy” clips and Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up.” We can excuse the misdeeds done during the Internet’s “Wild West” phase, but profiting off stolen content is downright inexcusable in the current online landscape.
