Social media has become extremely prevalent in our society. Social media sites, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn (among others), have completely changed how we interact with friends and peers. As of the second quarter of 2015, Facebook had 1.49 billion users, each of those are users making connections (friends), creating original content and spreading content created by other users. Content is so easily distributed and replicated over social media platforms, the spread of information has been likened to a virus; hence the term, "going viral.” Social media users spend a lot of time customizing and adding to their respective media profiles, and many may feel attached to what they put online and the connections they make. This sense of attachment may lead to a sense of ownership, but to what extent do the users of a social media platform actually own the content that they interact with online?

Here, I will analyze and discuss a number of articles, all concerning property rights on the web. Specifically, I want to look at examples where people have tried to clarify who owns what in the murky water that is social media property rights. There are a few problems users arrive at when trying to figure out who owns what online.

First, how do you find the original creator of content after that content has gone viral and been reblogged and reposted numerous times? The unlicensed redistribution of someone's original content could be seen as a version of piracy, but there is no way for the original poster to receive credit for their creation. It is also very easy for companies to take advantage of online posters by using their content without their permission. Since it is very hard to identify the original posters, and likewise the first reposters, true justice is hard to find on the web.

Second, even though many users put a lot of time and effort into creating a personable profile, is the content and information they add to it the user's, or the website's? This problem becomes very prevalent when social media sites sell information from profiles to different data mining and advertisement companies. This definitely creates debates regarding privacy and how much of personal information can be considered private property. There have been many allegations on how this is an invasion of privacy, but is it an invasion of someone else's property?

The third problem is how the success of a social media account is supposed to be distributed when two different parties have an interest in it. These interests can come from gained connections (friends or followers) that come as a result of employment from a firm. These connections can come about in a number of ways, the most common being the connections people make over LinkedIn during networking events. Since connections with customers and resources made over social media can be valuable assets to companies, firms may be inclined to hold on to their employees' connections even after they are let go. Another problem arises when employees gain a following on social media because of the publicity of their employers. When a person acquires followers because they are employed as a news anchor or sports player, are those connections their's or their employer's? All these questions are addressed in the different articles I found concerning online property rights.

I read one article, “Cause for Concern: Intellectual Property Rights and Social Media,” by Matt Powers. This article has to do with a person's intellectual property rights on social media or lack thereof. One of the big points it talks about is how much you are signing away when you agree to a social media site’s “terms of services.” The article takes a few quotes out of Facebook’s terms of service agreement that pertain to any content (which can be viewed as intellectual property) you may post. When you agree to the terms of service, you are giving Facebook a “non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license” to use the content you post. It is easy to see how this could be detrimental to any artist or professional who has posted any original work that may be worth value on Facebook. The article does not go into detail on other social media sites’ terms of service, but it implies that many follow similar protocol to Facebook.

The article goes into detail about a case where a woman had some of her profile information used by an online ad company. While the woman’s husband was on Facebook, an ad boasting about “local singles in his area” popped up on the side bar, but the model that was in the ad was his wife! This happened after a third party ad site mined Facebook data and used his wife’s profile picture for their ad (at least that’s what the wife says). The ad was taken down after the husband wrote a complaint to Facebook. The article talks about how you can avoid incidents like this by watermarking your personal photos. Even though this does not count as a legal copyright, it’ll most likely scare anyone away from stealing your content.

It is my belief the author wrote this article to help inform people as to what they are actually signing up for when they make a social media account. Most people probably don’t read the terms of service every time they make one of these accounts (I know I don’t), so it is very easy to get taken advantage of by these social media sites. By writing this article, the author is trying to help people protect their intellectual property, and he is trying to show that some of these websites may be a little out of line. I agree with the author’s concept in this paper because I feel like I have a right to my image and information. When you put your information on the web, you are putting it out there for all to see, but I don’t want to be taken advantage of by some company without my consent. I also like to produce my own content in the form of videos and photos, and I don’t want some other person taking credit for my work.

The second article I read, “Social Media and Copyright Law in Conflict,” by Glenn Manishin, also deals with the gray area of “who owns what” on social media, but instead of looking at intellectual property rights broken by the sites themselves, it focuses on how third parties can take claim for your work. It argues that since content can be resubmitted very rapidly over a multitude of social media platforms, it becomes very difficult to track down the original poster. Third parties, such as news programs, routinely use information they collect on social media (in the form of tweets, photos and Facebook updates) in stories, all without consent. The article makes points about how this could be viewed as wrong but also admits it’s very hard to draw the line as to who owns what online. Should retweeting be counted as unlawful copyright infringement? Probably not, but where do you draw the line? The article also discusses how everyone has a right to own what they created, and if they went through the proper procedures, they theoretically could get any original content they put on their page copyrighted, but that would be silly.

I believe the author wrote this article in order to rant about how much they hate how easy content can spread over the web. Maybe the author had some content leaked and wanted to stop others from making the same mistake. Personally, I agree with the concept the author is trying to convey, but I think the author is going a little overboard with how they are portraying the concept. As I mentioned above, I like to put things I created on my social media, and I don’t want people using them without permission, but am I going to court over someone putting my tweet on air? Probably not. It is also very easy to protect your personal content from being reused without your permission by putting a watermark on it or embedding it. The article talks about how most photo-sharing social media has an option to deny copies being made of your material without your consent. I also believe if you are a professional photographer, you should not be banking on social media to make your money.

The third article I read, “When you and Employer Split, who gets your Friends and Followers?” was written in NBC’s "The Red Tape Chronicles." This article is a little different from the other two because it deals with what happens to a person’s social media accounts when their employer has an interest in it. With personal and professional lives starting to get more mingled, it is hard to decide who owns what after an employee leaves a company. If the employer was responsible for increased social media connections (in the form of friends and followers), are they the property of the employer? Apparently they are, according to a judge in Pennsylvania who stated that the connections the plaintiff made on LinkedIn were actually property of her former employer. This may sound strange, but apparently judges tend to side with the companies in cases like these. An employee for publication named PhoneDog lost is 17,000 Twitter followers to his old employer because if it were not for the employer, he would have never gotten them to begin with. This argument rings true for every company who gives their employees enough publicity to gain a heavy social media following.

In my opinion, I believe the author wrote this article because they thought people being sued over followers was both interesting and funny. The author seemed to be wanting to shine some light on this new problem we invented for ourselves in the digital age. I think the author wanted to put the information out, so employees can make informed decisions on using their personal accounts for work-related activities. Not only did I agree with the way this author presented this concept, but I also found it very interesting. When I first started looking up how people can specify who owns what on social media, I did not expect property rights to go this far. I can understand the cases the companies made when they sued, but I am surprised social media contacts where that important. The only social media contacts I see as being that important are those on Linkedin because they could be viewed as a customer list, and if an employee was able to keep them after they left their job, it could breach the no compete agreement.

All these articles show how fuzzy property rights can get in our digital age. The articles also show that there is a lighter side to property rights. In almost all of these cases, no one lost more than an advertisement or some followers. I believe these issues are going to start becoming more prevalent in the future since social media does not seem to be going anywhere soon. Maybe after enough cases, the judicial system will be enough to put together a solid code for protecting personal property on social media.