The Woes of Attribution
After viewing/listening to this week's Voice Thread on intellectual property, I got to thinking about attribution on the web and how claims over intellectual property are often met with a shrug (or worse). When I interned in the journalism field, I would often log on to Twitter or Facebook to monitor social media for work and find that a user had either quoted an article by me/my colleagues or posted a photo of ours without any attribution. This became so common that it would happen more multiple times per day.
In the beginning it didn't bother me. I was a rookie in the field and still thought it impossibly cool that someone on the internet thought enough of words I had written or a photo I took to post it on their social media. But as I learned and grew and eventually began to take more pride and ownership of the content I created, it started to bug me. I had no problem with users posting quotes to my story if they also linked to the story (same goes for photos). What I had a problem with was a user doing the same without linking to a story or crediting a source for the photo.
What really struck me as odd about it was I followed these users, meaning they felt that what they had done was no big deal to the extent that they were not bothered by the fact that surely I would notice their new cover photo was a picture I took of a football game the weekend prior. (This happened.) The reason this particular scenario led me to engage with the user was that when they tweeted the photo (which was one I was very proud of, capturing a mid-air touchdown), it attracted a lot of engagement, getting more retweets than it had even when I posted it for work. While not a big deal in the scheme of things, it irked me that something I had created had, in essence, slipped away from me, especially because it was the feature photo in a lead story my boss had worked hard on, and by only seeing a credit-less photo, other users wouldn't have the opportunity to read the story.
I messaged the user and kept a friendly tone, telling them I was glad they liked the photo, but would they mind attributing it to our site, as it was the header photo to a particularly good story written by my boss. The user's response boiled down to a few choice four letter words telling me to "take it as a compliment." I was surprised by such a vitriolic response to a fairly mundane message asking for a quick word of attribution. I spoke to several colleagues and they had all experience similar levels of disdain when they approached users for attribution.
I'm not sure if it comes down to instant gratification or a general sense of entitlement, but these reactions fascinate me. I believe part of it might be down to the prosumer culture of Web 2.0, which I generally view as positive. But in this case, I wonder if having the fairly unchecked ability to constantly produce and consume content has given some users ideas of grandeur/made them forget where ethical lines are drawn? Does prosumer culture make thieving others' creative efforts easier and less frowned upon than ever? (And that said, do most people even consider it thieving on the web?) Has anyone run into issues when requesting credit? Have potential reactions scared you out of it? (Lots of questions!)
In the beginning it didn't bother me. I was a rookie in the field and still thought it impossibly cool that someone on the internet thought enough of words I had written or a photo I took to post it on their social media. But as I learned and grew and eventually began to take more pride and ownership of the content I created, it started to bug me. I had no problem with users posting quotes to my story if they also linked to the story (same goes for photos). What I had a problem with was a user doing the same without linking to a story or crediting a source for the photo.
What really struck me as odd about it was I followed these users, meaning they felt that what they had done was no big deal to the extent that they were not bothered by the fact that surely I would notice their new cover photo was a picture I took of a football game the weekend prior. (This happened.) The reason this particular scenario led me to engage with the user was that when they tweeted the photo (which was one I was very proud of, capturing a mid-air touchdown), it attracted a lot of engagement, getting more retweets than it had even when I posted it for work. While not a big deal in the scheme of things, it irked me that something I had created had, in essence, slipped away from me, especially because it was the feature photo in a lead story my boss had worked hard on, and by only seeing a credit-less photo, other users wouldn't have the opportunity to read the story.
I messaged the user and kept a friendly tone, telling them I was glad they liked the photo, but would they mind attributing it to our site, as it was the header photo to a particularly good story written by my boss. The user's response boiled down to a few choice four letter words telling me to "take it as a compliment." I was surprised by such a vitriolic response to a fairly mundane message asking for a quick word of attribution. I spoke to several colleagues and they had all experience similar levels of disdain when they approached users for attribution.
I'm not sure if it comes down to instant gratification or a general sense of entitlement, but these reactions fascinate me. I believe part of it might be down to the prosumer culture of Web 2.0, which I generally view as positive. But in this case, I wonder if having the fairly unchecked ability to constantly produce and consume content has given some users ideas of grandeur/made them forget where ethical lines are drawn? Does prosumer culture make thieving others' creative efforts easier and less frowned upon than ever? (And that said, do most people even consider it thieving on the web?) Has anyone run into issues when requesting credit? Have potential reactions scared you out of it? (Lots of questions!)
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