James R | On 01, Sep 2015

Facebook is working to improve its copyright protection measures for videos, following severe backlash from creators.

Facebook has been trying to establish itself as a video rival to YouTube, with its views rapidly increasing in the past year. Some of the methods the site uses to boost this growth, such as using a shorter timespan to determine what counts as a “view” and automatically playing videos in users’ timelines, have proven controversial among YouTube vloggers. Most controversial of all, though, has been the posting of other people’s YouTube videos by Facebook users, as if they were they own. Known as “freebooting”, the practice not only removes the credit and exposure due to the original film-makers, but also stops them from earning revenue for their content.

Facebook is already testing a way to generate income for video creators – an essential part of turning it into a viable platform for professional vloggers. But equally important is the demonstration that it cares about its users’ intellectual property, especially if it wants to woo them away from YouTube, which has already worked hard to foster a sense of community among vloggers.

After some high-profile complaints targeted at Facebook from Hank – brother of John “The Fault in Our Stars” – Green, the site has now responded with promises of improving its system.

“We have been exploring ways to enhance our rights management tools to better empower creators to control how their videos are shared on Facebook,” wrote the social network in a blog post, which emphasised the “established foundation” of its current Audible Magic technology and the ability of users to report videos, but also acknowledged these alone are not enough to effectively tackle the problem.

“We’re working with Audible Magic to enhance the way that system works with Facebook, including improving the intake of content intended to be blocked from our platform. And we’re making improvements to our existing procedures so that infringing content can be reported and removed more efficiently, and to keep repeat infringers off our service,” the site added.

“We have been building new video matching technology that will be available to a subset of creators. This technology is tailored to our platform, and will allow these creators to identify matches of their videos on Facebook across Pages, profiles, groups, and geographies. Our matching tool will evaluate millions of video uploads quickly and accurately, and when matches are surfaced, publishers will be able to report them to us for removal.”

The technology will be tested with a small group of partners, including MCNs, media companies and individual creators.

“This is just the beginning. In the long-term, our goal is to provide a comprehensive video management system that fits the needs of our partners,” continued Facebook. “This will take time, but we’re working on it, and we’re committed.”

What do you think? Are the steps Facebook is taking enough?

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