Removing Millions of Pirated Content Proactively
Social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram are no different from search engines like Google and Bing regarding sharing unauthorized copyright materials. They all have to come up with new tools and innovative means to combat this issue for the sake of copyright holders. And Facebook does it too, as revealed in its latest transparency report. Transparency reports are helpful to learn how much-pirated content was being shared on the platforms and the efforts taken by moderators to thwart them. While Google does this regularly, like it explained how its Content ID system in YouTube helped contain copyright infringements, Facebook has just shared its part.
The social media giant’s latest transparency report tells that they have taken down millions of pirated content in the H2 of 2020. Their proactive measures have far exceeded the number of DMCA notices received from rights holders. Facebook talked about their automatic screener – Rights Manager tool in Facebook and Instagram, which helped for proactive actions. Alongside the Audible Magic tool, which spots and remove pirated music tracks, Facebook’s Rights Manager can look for pirated content in posts, photos, videos, and advertisements. On Facebook, this tool can dive into pages, groups, and events for killing unauthorized content. Revealing the actual numbers, Facebook said, “77.9% of all copyright-related removals were done proactively, accounting for 9,822,070 pieces of content. On Instagram, 59% of all copyright-related removals were done proactively, accounting for 2,170,529 pieces of content.” While much has been done proactively, Facebook and Instagram continue to receive takedown notices from rights holders as usual. These include removing 2.8 million pirated content from Facebook and 1.5 million of such from Instagram in the second half of 2020.
