Anyone who’s in the publishing industry would have a love-hate relationship with Facebook.
Firstly, online publishers can’t deny that Facebook was the stepping stone for most of them. Soon after, the social media giant explicitly lowered the organic reach of publishers and have the “Boost Post” button peppered everywhere.
But that’s like old news. The decline has been ongoing for years, with many publishers closing down due to the drastic drop in traffic.
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The reason why online publishers are having an issue with Facebook?
Their support for publishers—if any.
I mean, if a Facebook executive has allegedly said this to publishers, you can bet that Facebook really DGAF about publishers: “We are not interested in talking to you about your traffic and referrals anymore. That is the old world and there is no going back – Mark wouldn’t agree to this.”
Which is understandable, because it’s all business.
But what if someone in Facebook stole your contents, posted if as if it’s his, and you’re flagged for infringement?
That’s allegedly what happened to Epic Asian, a Facebook-er / YouTuber from Malaysia, though you might want to finish the article for a better idea of what could have conspired.
Epic Asian, The Malaysian Whose Voice Alone Can Make You Laugh
If you’re like me, you’d have come across the talented young dude from this video, whereby he summarized the plot of Crazy Rich Asians in his trademark…erm, I-don’t-know-how-to-explain English.
The man behind the videos, medical student Lee Pin Ming from Malaysia, would substitute certain words and create an English dialect that’s uniquely his. I’m actually quite shocked that people outside of Singapore and Malaysia can understand his jokes, since words like “ninama” (your mother) or “evil boss” (seems like a play on “boss from video games, the final bad guy) are used primarily in Singapore / Malaysia.
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But anyways.
In two short years, the channel has garnered quite a bit of fans, and it’s not surprising: every video is unique, relevant and most importantly, hilarious AF.
However, a few days ago, it turned out that he’s become a victim of “freebooting”.
Freebooting
So, what is freebooting? Basically, a person took Epic Asian’s video without permission and reuploaded the video onto his page, as if it’s done by that person.
That person would gain likes, views and even revenue.
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Epic Asian obviously isn’t happy, so he made a video about it.
You’d have thought that Facebook would kick the freebooter’s ass and say sorry to Epic Asian.
But it didn’t work out the way Epic Asian had expected.
In fact, it went the other way around.
Facebook Flagged Epic Asian Instead
According to Epic Asian, he tried to apply for Rights Manager on Facebook so that he could copyright his work but was rejected.
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He then reported the freebooter to Facebook, but nothing was done.
Instead, soon after, his Facebook Page got flagged instead…for “Limited Originality of Content”:
If you can’t read, here’s what is written: “Epic Asian shared content that was unoriginal or repurposed content from other sources with limited added value.”
Epic Asian then argued that it could have been that the freebooter, whose views are more than Epic Asian’s original video, had more views, Facebook determined that the freebooter’s video is original and not Epic Asian’s one.
Of course Epic Asian appealed, but anyone who’s tried to appeal with Facebook before would be familiar with this: “Decision is final.”
Epic Asian’s argument is that the videos he made are like those “response” videos by PewDiePie, and therefore footages from the trailers can be used for “fair use”. He had corresponded with YouTube and they agreed on that.
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Epic Asian then told his fans to subscribe to his YouTube channel instead, and claimed that Facebook hates Asian (pretty sure he’s just joking).
So, is Facebook the baddy guy here?
Well.
Could be Due to The Contents
While we’re not Facebook, it’s clear that most Epic Asian’s videos are footages from movie trailers or commercials, and voiced over with tight editing.
That is very common in YouTube: just look like popular YouTube channels like CinemaSins and WatchMojo: they all comprised footages from other sources that are voiced over.
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Therefore, there’s a possibility that Facebook flagged Epic Asian due to the lack of original footage / content.
Well, we’ll never know because Facebook is often tight-lipped about their system in order to prevent bad actors from abusing the system.
However, it’s certainly not because Epic Asian is Asian lah. We also Asians and haven’t kena flagged by them leh.
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