Facebook has a massive video theft problem
Many of the videos uploaded to Facebook are stolen, meaning the video content creators lose out on ad revenue. Data from startup NewsWhip, showed that some of Facebook's most successful video publishers were using 'borrowed' content. With the release of Facebook's 'Suggested videos' feature, which will enable content creators to accrue revenue from ads on the social media site, this is likely to become an increasingly important issue.
Updated: 7/8/2015 4:03 P.M. EST

Destin Sandlin simply can't issue takedown notices fast enough for the times his videos are stolen and uploaded to Facebook. And those are only the ones he finds or is notified about.

Sandlin runs the educational series Smarter Every Day(opens in a new tab), which has accrued more than 2.8 million fans on YouTube. He says that his videos are routinely uploaded to Facebook without his consent, and it's costing him. He said a recent popular video about riding a bicycle backward had amassed many more views than the YouTube version had before he forced Facebook to take it down.

Sandlin is one of the many video creators that have been publicly critical of Facebook and its allowance of stolen content. While the problem of video theft on Facebook had been recognized, it wasn't until last week that the extent of the problem was revealed.

[seealso slug=http://mashable.com/2014/08/02/facebook-viral-video-problem/]

Data from social data startup NewsWhip(opens in a new tab) published last week showed that some of Facebook's most successful video publishers are relying on content that is the best case borrowed and in the worst case outright stolen.

Among the list are mainstream digital media outlets including BuzzFeed, the Huffington Post and Al Jazeera that are publishing their own video. Many others, however, are aggregation-based websites that have been grabbing popular videos from across the Internet, often without permission.

Destin Sandlin, who makes videos in the Smarter Every Day series, in a video about riding bikes backwards. He said the video initially received more views on Facebook than YouTube after it was illegally uploaded. Credit: Smarter Every Day

Among the biggest offenders is -- and yes we know this is going to sound weird -- Tyrese Gibson. His celebrity page, which has soared in popularity recently(opens in a new tab), logged the fifth-most shares (more than 2.6 million). The page is littered with promos for his new album, but also viral videos culled from across the Internet. Here's one of a cat scaring away a bear(opens in a new tab) that accrued more than 1.8 million views. Mashable first reported on stolen videos on Gibson's page in August. Coming in sixth on Newswhip's list is Viral Thread. Among its recent hits is a clip from "Sesame Street"(opens in a new tab) that has logged around 3.9 million views.

Two spots later is The LAD Bible, which had a hit with this video of a sleeping dog(opens in a new tab) that has accrued 4.9 million views. The original version, uploaded to YouTube, has 162 views(opens in a new tab). That video, however, was submitted by the video owner, highlighting how it may not be readily apparent what videos are legitimately uploaded and which have been ripped off from other sites.

Mimi Turner, marketing director for the LAD Bible, said that the site gets up to 1,500 content submissions per day, and that the site takes down anything that it is asked to.

However, shortly after first publishing this piece, Who Steals What(opens in a new tab) pointed Mashable to numerous examples of video theft from the LAD Bible and Pretty 52, its sister site. It was not immediately clear if the LAD Bible had purposefully stolen those videos or accepted submissions from other people who had ripped them from other sites.

Credit: Who Steals What

In response, Turner said that Facebook video is "an evolving area and the environment is changing fast."

"We have taken a proactive position to put procedures in place that cover our content and ensure that we are crediting contributors and have the right permissions. We get over 1500 content submissions a day which underlines the strength of our approach and the trust our audience have in us," she told Mashable in an email.

A representative for Tyrese Gibson did not return a request for comment. Viral Thread also did not return press inquiries.

In a matter of months, Facebook has become a major player in online video, but some of its most successful uploaders are relying on stolen content to attract eyeballs and rise to the top of news feeds.

Video creators have been complaining for months that Facebook has become a hotbed of stolen video content, a particularly difficult to police problem as the social network is not an open, searchable platform like YouTube. The realization that some of Facebook's biggest video publishers have been at beast cheating the system and at worst skirting the law comes as the company begins to introduce video advertising.

It might seem like a few stolen videos don't matter much in the grand scheme of things, but in the competitive world of digital media, that content -- and the subsequent Facebook attention it attracts -- is extremely valuable. Companies are marking major investments in the hopes of taking advantage of Facebook's new-found love of video and boosting their fan bases and reach in the News Feed.

While there's clearly a benefit for the media outlets and individuals that are stealing content, there's also legitimate questions about whether Facebook would necessarily want to prevent this practice. Stolen video content is clearly gaining massive traction on Facebook, something the company wants as it looks to overtake YouTube and eventually introduce lucrative video ads.

When asked for comment, a Facebook spokesperson pointed to the platform's "audible Magic" system that is mean to prevent the upload of unauthorized video as well as its reporting tools that allow copyright holders to file takedown requests. The spokesperson also said the site suspends accounts for repeated violations.

No so, claimed Who Steals What, which said that more than 200 notices had been sent to Facebook about an account called Meetville, which is still active.

@JasonAbbruzzese(opens in a new tab) biggest issue after sending 200+ notices this year: FB does zip to penalize repeat offenders. see: https://t.co/F12edDvOp8(opens in a new tab)— Who Steals (@WhoStoleWhat) July 8, 2015(opens in a new tab)

Facebook acknowledged that this is still a work in progress.

"As video continues to grow on Facebook, we're actively exploring further solutions to help IP owners identify and manage potential infringing content, tailored for our unique platform and ecosystem," the spokesperson said.

Those measures have not done much to quiet critics and video producers who lay much of the blame on the social network. George Stompolos, CEO of Fullscreen, published a tweetstorm in June bringing fresh attention to the issue:

3) I now regularly see our videos with 50MM+ view counts that are stolen by individuals on FB... sometimes by other media cos— George Strompolos (@gstrompolos) June 4, 2015(opens in a new tab)

Facebook is not the first company to deal with this problem. YouTube had serious questions starting early in its history about copyrighted work that had been uploaded to its site. The company began to employ cutting-edge technology(opens in a new tab) to identify audio and video that violated the site's terms.

Sandline said he doesn't buy that Facebook can't fix this issue with that kind of technology.

"They've designed the system to be cumbersome," he said. "You're talking about the people that made social media facial recognition software. They have the computing power."

Fixing this, however, is just about entirely up to Facebook. Jason Schultz, a professor and director of New York University's Technology Law & Policy Clinic, said broader legal efforts -- such as the Stop Online Privacy Act -- to give copyright holders more power had been met by strong opposition from much of the Internet.

Existing copyright laws tend to err on the side of free exchange of content, especially when it comes to intermediaries like Facebook.

Schultz said that these issues are far from being resolved.