I reposted something that has been circulating the independent comedy world online over the last week. It’s about the art of content curation and how the concept has gotten a bit overhand.
This specific Instagram post was from @fahimanwar, a hilarious upcoming standup comedian.
Simultaneously, I’ve been hearing similar conversations in the general online marketing space surrounding copyright and streaming platforms like Periscope and Meerkat. The problems lie in the thousands of kids that stream live events, movies, and concerts to their thousands of followers online. That then becomes a free event for many – and one that the streamer gets credit for – not the actual entertainer or art being performed.
We’ve reached an unprecedented time in human development where technological capabilities are directly conflicting with unique and protected content as well as general business ethics.
But realistically speaking, we are all guilty of sharing content online. In fact, as publishers, we encourage such an action from our readers. We layer our blog posts and videos with as many share buttons as we possibly can, hoping for that precious retweet or virality in a Reddit thread.
But a share isn’t the problem. It’s HOW the content gets shared.
And this is what happens when we share too much. The greedy plagiarize and take credit for shared content and now we’re seeing online celebrities being created from this – simply through their own content discovery and good timing.
Everyone can and should borrow others’ ideas. That’s healthy and natural. But I think we’re far from coming up with a solution to ensuring that creators are always the sole individuals representing their unique content and getting the credit they deserve for the value they create.
The rich and the famous don’t need to worry about this paradigm as much as those that are struggling to make it by constantly creating original (stolen) content. This rant is for them. Let’s create more awareness on this issue and start seeking ways to uncover the origins of shared content online.