Intellectual Property Theft and Digital Empires

Intellectual Property theft is the foundation of the internet.

It’s the lowest common denominator of all online success stories.

Jump back a decade and Youtube was founded on video theft. The idea literally came to Jawed Karim (co-founder of Youtube) when Janet Jackson’s boob was exposed at the Super Bowl and he couldn’t find clips of the incident online (He wasn’t the only one digging through the internet for a picture of a boob, guilty as charged). However, that was content that was legally property CBS, regardless of how much he or I felt entitled to seeing a boob.

As history goes, Youtube is now a very legitimate and ubiquitous part of the internet, they go through great lengths to protect themselves and Intellectual Property (IP) owners from lawsuits and theft respectively.

Youtube would never had achieved critical success had they not started out erring on the side of intellectual theft. The web has no patience for that, we want our content, we want it fast, we want it free, and we are mad when anyone gets in our way.

To gain an audience in the digital era requires undivided dedication to giving them the content they want. That applies to EVERY successful online entertainment entrepreneur.

Youtubers cover famous songs trying to get discovered for their musical prowess.

Video platforms (Youtube, Facebook, Dubsmash) rely on copyrighted content to create videos worth sharing to attain a market share.

Periscope got a ton of new users and media coverage during the Mayweather v Pacquiao fight.

Buzzfeed and countless others “aggregate” online content and redistribute it as their own. Blogs even repost other sites aggregated content to steal views.

If you want an audience online, you need to give them content as fast as they can consume it, and it needs to be good!

There’s an old saying; “Good, fast, and cheap. Pick two out of three.” Online, you need to be all three. Free and fast are basically the two pillars of the internet. So to be successful you also need to be good, the problem is, “Good” isn’t defined by originality; it’s easily stolen and reproduced, viewed by consumers, and passed along or thrown away based on if they LIKED it. The internet doesn’t care who MADE it.

If you haven’t stolen something, maybe that’s why you aren’t successful?

Now we get to @FATJEW.

So far he’s established he’s unoriginal, intentionally abrasive, and his best content is always stolen.

You’re mad that he got representation based on his stolen content?

That just means he’s hit that point of ubiquity where he needs to go “mainstream” like so many online “brands” before him. He’ll either adapt or disappear. End of story.

If he’s as much of a hack and untalented as the indignant and vocal minority believe, then this is actually the beginning of the end and you should relax, sit back and have some popcorn.

But what if he’s actually funny?

If he’s actually funny and can create original content worth a damn, then good for him!

Fake it ‘til you make it!

He’s the poster boy for the, “fake it ‘til you make it” slogan. Everyone has that pit of self doubt that we aren’t good enough. We bite off more than we can chew and tried to keep our head above water and look like we know what we are doing while we are secretly shitting our pants.

I welcome him into the deep water where he can’t lift himself up on other people’s words. It’s time to sink or swim, good luck @FATJEW!

Focus on yourself, just because someone else attained success doesn’t mean they are holding you back.

Justin Bieber went from covering songs on Youtube to topping the charts.

Youtube went from rebellious home of stolen video content to Google’s biggest darling child and friend to movie studios and old and new media content creators.

Dubsmash partnered with Universal Pictures to do an official Furious 7 soundboard with premium placement on their app.

Everyone “takes inspiration” or “borrows” from others. If you’re focused on what everyone else is doing, you aren’t doing anything to make yourself better.

Steal, borrow, cheat. It’s the norm, you don’t have to like it, but rather than worry about others doing it, worry about what you’re doing. The focus is on them now, but when the focus is on you, are you going to have anything worth saying?