Open Tiktok (or your trusted short videos platform) and the following appears: a clip extracted from a podcast uploaded by random account @user97567, a video on a split screen with a talk up and parkour in Minecraft below and a compilation of cat videos that upload @funnycatslolhaha. What do all these clips have in common? That none is proper. All that content has been stolen to its original creators and the problem is that no platform seems to know how to solve it.
Context. When you go up to the Internet, controlling its distribution is extremely complicated. In the same way that no one can prevent you from copying and hitting this text on a blog, preventing someone from downloading a YouTube video, a Tiktok, a reel, a content in general, it is not an easy thing. On many occasions the platform itself allows and, if not, it is possible to resort to third -party tools that sometimes can even remove the water brand.
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So that. Profiles that rectify content of other users do not do so for love of art. They do it with two possible objectives: monetize the account using dedicated platform funds or inflate the figures to sell them. Surely the names Babronazi or PostureoEspañol make the bell sound. It is also possible that it is a fans account, in which case the reason may be more innocent. Be that as it may, these accounts are promoted based on stealing content from other users and republicing it after a slight modification (if any).
The typical “for you”: Memes accounts, cat videos and accounts with zero units of own content | Captures: WorldOfSoftware
In fact, there are profiles and courses specialized in what is normally known as “network automation”. Roughthis system consists of combining AI tools, videos of other creators and fast editing templates to generate a huge volume of videos and monetize the account. It is one of those practices to “generate passive income”, in quotes, how strong they usually hit in a certain segment of the population.
The reality, however, is much more complex.
Solutions. Few, unfortunately. Some users have found to embed a water mark within the video itself a way that, if any discharge tool can eliminate what generates the platform, that remains. However, the reality is that social platforms have failed to stop the distribution of original content by third parties.
Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Tiktok are full of that content. The algorithm mixes it with the original content and serves it to users, which consume it. To all purposes, the platform is gaining because its objective (increase retention) is achieved. The creator, although it can be relatively benefited in terms of exposure, loses the gain that, potentially, could have had his profile of having published said content.


Image | WorldOfSoftware
What are platforms doing. Given this situation, some platforms have tried to take measures with greater or lesser success.
- YouTube has it well tied. Although it is possible to continue up and monetizing “reused content”, that is, the typical video reacting to the new song of X or the video of another creator, the platform does not allow monetizing what it considers “non -authentic content” (mass made videos) or clips extracted from a podcast that is not yours. This applies to both long videos and shorts.
- Instagram allows to raise third parties and does not put paste. Now, if you detect that someone has uploaded a video of another person, you will automatically add an “original content of” content and link it to your profile. Politics, however, is … complex. The material edited materially, see “a person appears in a superimposed video and adds new information, such as comments”, is allowed and distributed as normally.
- Facebook has been more permissive (to the point of allowing direct monetization of videos with non -original content), so far. The Meta platform has announced that it will adopt in its reels a policy similar to that of Instagram. However, there are no mechanisms to prevent a reused content page.
- Tiktok has guides that, on paper, exclude from ‘for you’ the “reproduced or non -original content that does not incorporate new or creative changes.” The reality, however, is that it is enough to add subtitles or make some edition for the video to be distributed as normally.
Another issue is intellectual property. This is a swampy terrain and the platforms usually cover their backs in their policies prohibiting it, directly. When we upload a video to Tiktok or Instagram we grant a global license so that this video is exploited, but the rights of said video remain ours. We could, in theory, put a copy of Copyright to all the accounts that we see to use our content, but that is an intense job and, speaking in silver, putting doors to the field.
We can find the same in other sectors. For example, models uploaded to 3D printing repositories are, unless it is marked, for personal use. That a Makerworld model is downloaded has no commercial license to exploit it in your Etsy store. However, this a practice known and persecuted by the community, but against which it is difficult to fight.
In summary. The accounts that use third parties will not disappear and combat this practice does not seem easy. That is a full -fledged paradox, since the platforms encourage users to raise original content, but at the same time they do not protect it completely. And not only that, but the user does not care in excess because, after all, they go to these platforms to entertain themselves. It is indifferent if that entertainment comes from the most worked video in the world, a compilation of funny babies, the nth iteration of Tung Tung Tung Sahur or a video of a boy dancing on a kayak.
Cover image | WorldOfSoftware