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Plagiarism Is Rampant On Instagram And Nobody Seems to Care
Bad enough that platforms get rich off our free content — now brands do too?
If you feel like Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, and TikTok are all just places where people share screenshots of funny things other people have said on other platforms, you’re not alone. Instagram is so famous for this that the official Twitter Instagram account posted a joke about it.
The problem arises when you begin to follow the money.
One of the cat accounts I follow, @pawsomecouture, posted a screenshot of a funny cat tweet on their account. In the caption, they’d credited the Twitter account that had originally posted it. But they hadn’t linked to her account, or tagged her Instagram account. My first thought was that it was hard to find, but when I spent 5 seconds checking, I learned it was the exact same handle as her Twitter account.
This brand took a tweet, posted it on their own account to get engagement, and then hadn’t even done the bare minimum to at least make sure the creator got a few Instagram follows out of it.
In what other profession would it be acceptable to take something someone else had made and post it to a profitable brand account page without some kind of recompense?
Creators Have Been Happy With “Exposure” for Way Too Long
The internet is a tough and wonderful place to create.
Wonderful, because anyone can find an audience, no matter how niche your passion is. I see folks selling jewelry, embroider patches, their own courses, feet pics.
But it’s tough because part of your audience will always expect you to give them stuff for free. And if you think to charge for it, you’ll be eviscerated.
I feel myself getting annoyed when I try to read an article online anywhere. Forbes’…
