RefreshWeb » user generated content http://www.refreshweb.com/blog Successful Search Marketing Tue, 24 Aug 2010 22:24:14 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 IP and UGC–where’s the line between right and wrong? http://www.refreshweb.com/blog/2008/02/25/ip-and-ugc-wheres-the-line-between-right-and-wrong/ http://www.refreshweb.com/blog/2008/02/25/ip-and-ugc-wheres-the-line-between-right-and-wrong/#comments Mon, 25 Feb 2008 23:53:33 +0000 Sara Rasco http://www.refreshweb.com/blog/2008/02/25/ip-and-ugc-wheres-the-line-between-right-and-wrong/ Cory Doctorow’s article in the Guardian, “‘Intellectual Property’ is a silly euphemism” is a good talking point on the noodley world we content crafters inhabit. There’s a friend I go around and around with on IP law and acceptable usage of things like, say, a photo of a famous work of art. If I’m writing about color theory and illustrate my post by putting in Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” and something from Picasso’s blue period–even though we’ve all seen the images before–she says I have stolen art. Not Picasso’s art, mind you. The photograph is someone’s art that I have stolen and should be paying for. The art may be public domain, but images of it aren’t somehow? That’s just silly. It’s an impossibly fine distinction.

Maybe it’s generational. There’s never been a time in my life where anyone couldn’t record something and share it–mix tapes, movies on TV. I remember sitting up late with my boom box in middle school to record the hip hop music on the radio my parents wouldn’t let me buy. It’s not malicious. If I post a 30-second video clip of my dog on my blog and put it to (credited) music that I didn’t write, record, and edit myself, have I committed a crime? Have I harmed album sales? Most people under a certain age would instantly say, “No, of course not! It’s like free promotion!” Have you ever bought music someone else used in this villainous manner? I have, and a lot of it. Music I wouldn’t have known about otherwise.

Yes people flat-out pirate, and we all know it’s wrong. That’s not what we’re talking about here. Media is the most accessible way to talk about this because it’s a lot easier than trying to explain someone owning a theory or concept. But as internet marketers, content creators, and people that are in the forefront of emergent forms of media and content, we run into this constantly. We’re out there making mashups and homages to products we love, but a lot of the people whose titles start with a C aren’t happy about it at all. Some companies embrace it, like Apple, who went ahead and used a customer-created iPod ad. That’s the good. Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba talk about fan-created content a lot in their book Citizen Marketers, and they make some excellent points for marketers and corporations to consider when they’re deciding what to do about this loss of control over the message.

The bad is more like blogs populated by bots that post scraped content. Or outright plagiarism. Some people think that just because it’s on the internet, you can take it and use it however you like, without attribution. For me there are two main questions to be answered in determining if it’s right or wrong: is there profit involved? are you attributing the source of what you’re using? Where do you think the line is between what constitutes fair use and thievery?

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