Content Claiming - How Greed Is Crushing Creativity

Taking "Nickle and Diming" to a whole new level

It's amazing to think how fast we as a species have evolved technologically in the last century. 100 years ago, we didn't have colour TV, internet, smart phones, and many more modern conveniences that sometimes get taken for granted. If you were to try and explain to someone in the 1920s what a TikTok video was and why you spend hours at a time watching them (I know at least one of you out there is that person) they would probably be confused. TikTok not your thing? Maybe you're a YouTube person. Maybe you get your fix on Reddit. Maybe it's Instagram or Facebook.

There is no shortage of mediums to find creative content (you're on one right now reading this). Between all the different sources and all the people creating content out there, we generate a lot of stuff to distract and entertain ourselves. How we take in our entertainment constantly shifts and evolves, but it appears that in today's day and age the video reigns supreme. YouTube alone sees 720,000 hours of content added to it's collection on a daily basis. Best part of it all is that you don't need to be a professional to get into content creation! All you need is yourself and the tools to save and upload that content. Yes, you are playing in the sandbox with literal companies when it comes to creating content regardless of the medium, but that hasn't stopped individuals from holding the crown when it comes to popularity. The chance to rise to the top is there if you are both skilled and lucky enough.

With new technology comes other less interesting stuff like laws. Thing is... technology moves fast and law doesn't. That means that the old rules of how technology is governed end up being in place long after technology has moved about two or three leaps ahead. This doesn't necessarily mean that it's a complete free for all though, and we have plenty of systems and rules in place to prevent things such as plagiarism or theft from occurring.

Ok, so we have a bunch of creative people being creative. Who cares? Well, if there's enough people in one place, there's bound to be advertisements. Ads mean there's revenue being generated and money changing hands. As with most things that involve money, the discussion quickly turns to "How do I grab as much as possible". Follow the money trail.

Lots of content these days is monetized by the owner or creator. Many make a living off these spaces and ads are a massive factor in this income stream. Content often does not exist in a bubble however, and unless you're pumping out 100% original content, you have used something that someone else made. It can be a video or sound clip in a video or a small icon from a visual library. This site uses images from Unsplash (with proper licensing of course) because without them all you would get from here are text dumps with blurry photos of whatever I find lying around in my kitchen for content.

This is all great. You have creative people helping others create things. But again, there's money to be made, and there are a lot of entities and individuals that don't like seeing others make money using their content. What's the recourse? They claim that content, rightfully or not, as their own and collect the cheque. As a content creator, it makes a minefield out of the creative process and sucks the life out of what could be otherwise amazing stuff.

So how does the content claiming process work? What methods can be used to get around content claiming practices without being shady or breaking any laws? And what industries will suffer if content claiming is not reigned in?

Photo by Hao Rui on Unsplash

Mine!

So before we go further, I just want to put in here that I fully support a person or business calling someone out if their work has actually been proper stolen. There's a difference between drawing inspiration from or using some form of source material and full scale ripping off someone else's work.

That being said, it's time to address how a content creator's work is placed under the microscope to determine if it has been... well... proper stolen. For anyone who has not dabbled in any form of content creation, the closest you'll have naturally come to the content claiming process and knowing not to plagiarize is what they told you in school and maybe your workplace. The difference here is that the stakes are much higher; In school you stood to lose some grades, but in the real world, it could be money or a job.

Generally, content claiming is a process that can be used by a creator to identify that a work is theirs. It will look different depending on the medium and the platform, but typically it follows a similar pattern...

Step 1: Discovery

The content's original creator may find that their video, article, or artwork has been uploaded to another website (or the same website) by someone who is not them. This can be by chance or by someone tipping them off. Usually, this is done in an effort to either monetize the content or build a content base with stuff that's not theirs.

Step 2: Reporting

If the content was not posted with some degree of permission, it can be reported as a violation. This can include not having a license to use the content, being identified by Content ID systems (basically bots that scan for footage or images automatically) and content that violates Fair Use.

Step 3: Appeal or Back Down

If the person who posted the content is reported, they have the option to either appeal the report and claim they posted it with permission or under proper guidelines. Otherwise, they will be forced to back down which results in the content getting removed.

Optional Step 4: The Nasty Bit

This is the part where both parties insist the other is wrong and a court gets involved to determine who owns the content. This involved lawyers, time, and lots of money, meaning most people or companies don't like going this far.

And that's content claiming in a nutshell!

Photo by Leon Bublitz on Unsplash

So where does the greed come in exactly? This seems fine.

You'll notice I glossed over the money part in that last section. Yes, that content that was monetized... it doesn't go away. That revenue is typically up for grabs and awarded to the "proper" owner on a claim being concluded. For someone's small time page on a platform, it's a minor annoyance. However, major pages with tons of views (and ad revenue as a result) can generate a decent size pile of cash.

Where we start to enter the grey area is when content creators work with another company or person's intellectual property. You can create anything you want, but if it resembles or is someone else's stuff, then it's not really yours. This becomes a major issue for anyone wanting to do anything creatively unique within these spaces. Heck, it's a major reason we don't see crossovers between TV shows and movies! No one wants to give anyone else the licenses!

So how is greed weaponized? That very same content claiming system. You see, technology has outpaced legal practice by a mile in this area and it's made for a system that heavily favors reporters over creators. This is often done to ensure that the reporter is heard, but it means that false reporting goes largely ungoverned and unpunished. Many platforms will just blanket follow the wishes of the reporter while doing little to support the creator. For instances of false reporting, this really makes it a burden to be the creator.

The biggest problem is that the false reports can often be leaned on as having a small element of truth. Did the creator use footage from a movie or a character from a novel in their drawing? Yes. Is that creator operating within what is defined as Fair Use to be able to use the content? Is the creator claiming that their work is original content not tied to the novel but existing inside it? It's likely they aren't acting in bad faith and are working within the guidelines, but they get hit all the same.

Worst of all, after the creator now has to fight for that money they've temporarily lost, they need to choose to appeal or back down. If your reporter is a major corporation with a massive legal team, what are the chances you're fighting that claim in court? It means that the corporations can automatically scan and claim content that's being used properly regardless of context to make a quick buck off the grey area of Fair Use. And yes, it's very flawed.

Do they need the extra few hundred dollars? Probably not, but they'll take it if they can. It absolutely smashes any incentive to be truly creative. Why bother making something special if it'll be unfairly claimed by someone else?

Photo by Alexander Shatov on Unsplash

Taking back control

At this point, you can't really blame creators for wanting to throw their hands up in the air and throw in the towel. Being creative is great, but is it worth the legal and financial hoops that need to be jumped through? Fortunately, there are measures that creators can take that puts some amount of control back in their hands. I've focused on only the legal methods here, but for some of the options there is a downside...

Proper Licensing

I'll start with an obvious one. Ensuring you are using content that is properly licensed is a good first step to making sure a legal team won't come for your content. This is especially true when it comes to mediums that use stock images (like the one you're reading now). Even vector images (stuff like icons or emojis) need to be licensed properly. If you have those in place, the chances of a valid content claim against you will drop. Besides, this is just something a creator should be doing in the first place.

Partnership Programs

This typically involves striking a deal with a company or entity wherein you get to use any of their content in exchange for the company getting all the revenue. The company then pays out a portion to you as the creator. It's a decent way to get permission, but the downside is that you are beholden to whatever you are given as compensation and have little control over your income should you choose to go that way. (By the way, there are a lot of them and they are very easy to find).

Demonetization

If you don't want to attract content claims, you can make content that is "Not advertiser friendly" (and that will vary between platforms and mediums). Basically, you make the content not attractive to a company or make the content low quality to prevent them from bothering with a claim. The main problem here is that you will have the same struggle ahead of you.

Don't Use Anything Other Than Your Own Content

Though it seems obvious, don't use any content other than your own. While seemingly easy, this is actually very difficult. For videos, the footage, the music, the visuals, and everything else needs to be yours and only yours. And on top of it, you can't make any of your stuff too similar to another person's or you're getting a content claim anyway. Though it is effective, pulling it off is a lot of work.

Photo by Sebastian Herrmann on Unsplash

It's all the same

With the threat of content claims around every corner and the piles of money to be made, who stands to suffer in the long run as efforts to police content amp up? It's easy to see that the creators themselves will be affected negatively, but what about the people watching the content? Many people have a preferred source of entertainment (YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Blogs, etc) and are expecting that new content will fill that feed daily. If new and creative content is shown to be ineffective at getting past content claims, who is going to make it? The answer is no one, and we will forever be doomed to 15 seconds short clips of whatever with that annoying auto-robot voice laid on top (you know the one and no, nobody likes that voice).

On top of that, there are algorithms in place that "recommend" content attached to many of the big entertainment hubs. It's the same as the ones that push ad recommendations; They look at your content consumption and push certain content. If you are a creator and you know that your content is going to only be recommended if you do things a certain way, there is zero incentive to actually be creative other than your own personal satisfaction. If you want to make money off your content, you often have to play by the algorithm's rules. It means lots of content that looks the same is pushed to the top of the pile (where it gets seen and watched by a bunch of people) then... SURPRISE! Look at how popular it is! Everyone must love it! Here's more!

Businesses also stand to suffer from all this as well. It means they can't lean on each other without extremely lengthy legal contracts. Who gets the revenue from the video? What's the split? Couple that with the algorithms and it makes for a frustrating landscape for any company to navigate (it's not enough to post a photo and a caption anymore). It means any company that does not invest in an extremely savvy marketing team or individual will never get their content seen and will never keep it in a place where it will be seen. This affects every industry that markets through content creation and will continue to get worse without any substantial change made.

Photo by KAL VISUALS on Unsplash

Creating change

Many people get into content creation as a passion project. Some want to augment their income and monetize their craft. A few will climb the ladder and make it to the top, turning a casual venture into a full time thing. It takes a good amount of creativity at any level to do this, and people mostly just want to be creative and do what they love. Content claiming gets in the way of doing just that in the name of a few extra dollars in a massive bank account somewhere. Yes, it catches bad actors or people who want to profit off others, but it also drains the life out of the content landscape.

Creators need to be given back their ability to create. Changes to search algorithms to promote content need to be tooled to breathe life back into these spaces, else we be condemned to more of just the same. There are plenty of amazing creators out there that have small followings and I encourage you to seek them out and support them. This helps push new faces to the top and goes a long way to making a content scene that is healthier in the long run. Bigger isn't always better, but it does mean that they've likely had a huge headache along the way dodging all the content traps. Support them in their efforts and push for more content freedom where possible. More freedom to create means we all win in the end.

~IR

Are you a content creator? Have you found any ways to avoid getting false or borderline content claims on your content? Or maybe you just have a comment to add? Check out the Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or LinkedIn page and let everyone know. Don't forget to follow or like the page for updates! And share this article if you feel others should give it a read!

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