What Is Freebooting and How Can It Be Stopped?
Over the last few months, freebooting has become an incredibly hot topic. While content creators and those involved in online media have been grappling with the issue of freebooting for some time now, the issue finally got the media attention it deserved when Fullscreen’s CEO George Strompolos voiced his frustration on Twitter:
3) I now regularly see our videos with 50MM+ view counts that are stolen by individuals on FB… sometimes by other media cos
— George Strompolos (@gstrompolos) June 4, 2015
Since then, many other content creators have come forward to share their thoughts on the matter, including successful YouTube star Hank Green, who published Theft, Lies and Facebook Video — a post which quickly went viral.
What is freebooting?
Freebooting is a form of piracy — it’s essentially the act of downloading media created by someone else and re-uploading it as if it were your own. The term is usually used to describe the act of downloading popular videos (typically from YouTube or Vine) and re-uploading them under one’s own account — typically via a Facebook fan page.
Content piracy and copyright violations have been an issue since the dawn of the internet. In the early days, typically translated to traditional plagiarism, or using the written works of others. In the early aughts, P2P file sharing networks made it easier to share digital media files, resulting in the rise of pirated movies and music. Once social media was introduced, people began downloading images from others — some innocently, others intentionally, as we’ve seen on the TV show Catfish. As one form of online content skyrockets in popularity, content misuse is sure to follow, and over the last few years, the most popular form of online media has been video.
If content piracy has always happened, why is freebooting such an issue?
These days there are an increasing number of individuals who make their living via the internet: writers, artists, photographers, and yes — even YouTube stars. Their income depends upon revenue generated from their work. The majority of video content creators earn their income via ads placed on their videos. Thus, when their videos are taken and published elsewhere, they are robbed of potential ad revenue.
To this, some people may simply have the response of, “Too bad — go get a real job!” — however, for those who earn a living from YouTube, creating content is a real job. In fact, the vast majority of people who have built a career around their YouTube content are people that have invested countless hours of their time, energy, creativity, and even money into their work. Hank Green, for example, is so successful that he built a profitable business with a team of 30 individuals helping him to produce content for his YouTube channels. Unfortunately, freebooting is become a very real threat to the success of his business.
To get a better perspective on just how much freebooting can impact content creators, check out this quick video by Destin Sandlin — the genius behind popular YouTube channel SmarterEveryDay. In this video, he perfectly describes freebooting and why it’s such an issue.
Is freebooting really happening that often?
Yes. In fact, Ogilvy recently found that a whopping 72.5% the top 1,000 videos on Facebook were found to be freebooted from YouTube. Even worse — the freebooted videos accounted for 17 billion views last quarter alone. In fact, many content creators are finding that because of the way Facebook’s algorithm favors native video uploads, the stolen versions of their videos are getting millions more views than their version. In speaking to Slate, Grant Thompson of The King of Random recalls an instance where a freebooted version of his video garnered over 10 million views on Facebook. He states:
“Some of these videos I’ve been working on for years. It makes me wonder why I want to keep doing this.”
So why aren’t creators uploading their own videos to Facebook?
As Destin points out in his video, currently, the only party that benefits from videos being uploaded to Facebook… is Facebook. YouTube shares ad revenue with their content creators, while Facebook is still working on a revenue-sharing program.
If that’s the case, then why does anyone upload videos to Facebook? After all, if you’re a regular user of Facebook, you’ve likely noticed a massive increase in the amount of videos posted. Simple: video uploads are currently the best way for brands to actually get engagement.
Recent changes to Facebook’s algorithm have made it incredibly difficult to get engagement on page posts without spending money on ads, with video uploads being somewhat of an exception. On average, videos uploaded directly to Facebook will reach 35% of a Fan Page’s audience, whereas images only reach 14% and text updates a meager 4%. In fact, uploading videos to Facebook is so successful, that there are many pages that appear to use that as their sole growth strategy.
That being said, many of the people who share freebooted videos on Facebook don’t have malicious intentions. In fact, many are likely unaware that what they’re doing is a form of piracy. Unlike traditional plagiarism (which most of us are educated about and warned against in school), most people aren’t educated on the difference between sharing and piracy.
The screenshot below is a perfect example. This page uploaded the hilarious (and frequently freebooted) video “Jennifer is a Party Pooper”, and used the description to cite the source, encouraging people to check out Flula’s YouTube channel.
While there’s no way to know for certain, the chances are good that the page owner is under the impression that it’s OK to upload such videos as long as they credit the original source.
What can be done to stop freebooting?
In a perfect world, Facebook would take down freebooted videos before they garner millions of views. However, as Destin Sandlin pointed out in his video, getting freebooted videos removed from the site isn’t a quick process, and by the time Facebook pulls the offending video, the damage has already been done. While Facebook recently announced the development of a tool that helps track freebooted videos, it’s currently only been made available to a few select partners.
Pexeso, has created a tool that is able to quickly and accurately track down copies of videos across the internet. In fact, our technology is so powerful, that it can even identify videos that have been heavily edited or altered (click here for examples). This allows content creators and copyright holders to locate freebooted videos and take immediate action.
To learn more about Pexeso or to sign up for early access to our tool, visit www.pexe.so.
Originally published at blog.pexe.so.
Stewart Irvine
