Podcast

ethan

Welcome to the social media lawcast. I am your host social media attorney Ethan Wall and with me is my friend and co-host Sean DePasquale what's going on Sean.

Shawn

Hello not too much man I Ah I've just been um on strike and hoping that it ends. And it's been my life since this writer strike started I just wanted to be over.

ethan

I wanted to be over for you to I'm also on strike from watching football because my New York Giants lost 40 to 0 in the opening game of the season and and it was supposed to be a 3 point game.

Shawn

40 to 0 geez louise.

ethan

I just finished crying four days later and now I'm ready for them to likely lose again on Sunday but yay sports.

Shawn

You know I know nothing about sports I don't care I have no interest I've tried I've watched all of the sports at least 1 time. I'm not a very competitive person by nature. So I think there's an element of it that just is missing for me because like I don't care I don't care you know like who wins like it doesn't I don't get like a oh I need my team to win or like it just doesn't impact me so I have a hard time being invested. So I've never really been a sports guy. Um, but I love gossip I love hot some sweet hot goss. Um, and ah I love following along as ah, terrible people are exposed for being. Terrible so I was very excited this week when sports and my love of watching terrible people be exposed to being kind of shitty um, collided with my love of hot goss. Ah.

ethan

I.

Shawn

In this amazing daily beast article written by Robert Silverman um the article is called how bar stool built an empire by swiping sports highlights. Are you familiar with barstool sports.

ethan

Yeah, they're probably like 1 of the biggest social media sports related accounts. That's out there.

Shawn

Yeah, yeah, guy Dave Portnoy owns them. He's ah you know fine I guess um I'm pretty sure he got his start eating pizza in New York and like reviewing it and and and then that somehow got him.

Shawn

Ah, it ah now he's a billionaire I don't really know he seems like maybe not the best person on the planet. Ah but whatever so sure and then turning that into barstol sports. However.

ethan

Good for him for making an empire out of eating pizza though. So.

Shawn

Um, barsel sports over the years has been accused of a variety of things from ah employees saying that it's a toxic work environment to female employees saying that it's a you know a harassing toxic work environment. Um, um. But they also were accused about four years ago of stealing a comedian's video without permission right? Um, and. This was like oh people started to pay attention. Hey, it's weird this company kind of uses. You know as you mentioned they're a ah social media company primarily although they they don't really, it's it's It's interesting because they claim to be bigger than that. But if you really look at their business model. Everything is just like their social media accounts they have millions and millions of social media followers across all of the platforms. Um, and and that's really where their bread and butter is made but we'll get into that. So this article starts off talking about how barstool operated um this these anonymous Twitter accounts right? And what they have been doing essentially is they are using anonymous Twitter accounts.

Shawn

That are not technically related to barstool sports to repost content from other places and by doing this. They're using these anonymous accounts to essentially shield themselves. Ah.

Shawn

On their official account from any kind of ah copyright infringement so they're essentially using these fake accounts to launder videos and content to the barstollls sports. So here's how it'll work. Ah, ah Espn post a sports highlight.

Shawn

Barstool will then using a a puppet account steal that highlight and go hey I posted this highlight then barstool official finds that random Twitter account that has this random video on it. And they go oh look how convenient it's the exact clip that we're hoping to use they retweet that thus I guess protecting themselves I don't I don't really I mean we we got to get into the legalities of it but are you following so far.

ethan

Yeah, following exactly what's going on here. So so in essence it seems like barstool is afraid that if they go directly to Espn's account take that video and upload it on their platform. They're likely going to be committing copyright infringement and knowingly committing copyright infringement. So instead. They're taking these videos from random unknown accounts who are likely not going to prosecute them but that it's alleged that barstool is somehow using somebody to create these anonymous accounts for purposes of being that intermediary between the Espn account and barstools.

Shawn

Are.

Shawn

Yeah, yeah, and and the way the daily beast kind of got onto this is it seems like um they started to do some digging of their own and then found one of these anonymous Twitter accounts had an email address connected back to barstool.

ethan

A 9 a.

Shawn

And so they so they they flagged that to Twitter and Twitter suspended that account. So um, it looks like this is a huge thing. So basically this investigation that that daily bees did um. Kind of uncovered this network of anonymous accounts that by their estimation have garnered billions of views over the last four years um ah building what what daily beast alleges is basically a system of organized copyrighted infringement. Um, there's a guy mentioned there an expert in copyright law this guy Matthew Sag who's mentioned in the article and he says you know. Basically what you're saying right? that that because they're doing this. It actually makes it. It does kind of shield them. It makes it difficult. For Dcmas which are digital digital millennium copyright act. Yeah so takedown notices expense essentially so ah, this guy sag is basically saying that um that that their tactic tactics make it very difficult for Dcm a notices.

ethan

Letium Copyright act like downs.

Shawn

To function as intended because who do you send it to right? You can't send it to barstool because Barsol's gonna say well we we didn't do anything. We just retweeted to some other guy's tweets. So I guess send it to that guy whom we don't know.

ethan

Interest, yeah, interesting. There's a bunch of secret copyright ninja accounts that have nothing to do with barstool sports. Although one of them just happened to be coming from a Barstol Sports email address and they're using that as a system of ah.

Shawn

Ah.

ethan

Ways to take other people's content and create that barrier make it more difficult for people to come after barstool.

Shawn

Yeah, yeah, and and ah you know the article kind of goes into how social media matters that and digital media executives that they spoke to were like genuinely baffled. They were like this is. An insane strategy and especially because like in my example with the Espn clips that's real or ah, but it was Nfl right? It was directly from the Nfl and so one of the things they point out is like it's. Crazy because barstool has partnerships with these leagues and then they're using this this this ah you know, um, laundering method essentially to steal content from the companies that they're partnering with to make more money. A.

Shawn

it's it's it's pretty wild. So a couple of things though to to break down right? Ah like about barstool first. Okay, so barstool says that they have they reach one third of all 18 to thirty four year olds in the United States that's their claim they reach one third of all

ethan

Sure.

Shawn

All 18 to 34 irty four year olds um but the article points out that they have like an unconventional approach to how they calculate their audience size um compared to other media companies and and that is because essentially. They're just counting like followers on social media. They're not really counting like what's their traffic does their website. Get how long are people engaged with their content. They're just like ah we we reach everybody on the whole planet look so that's weird. Um. They have like other stuff though that they do right? They've got like ah frozen pizzas and bar like actual brick and mortar bars and a sports book and you know they so they have all these other kind of interests. Um, but.

Shawn

Their social reach right? which they say surpasses like yeah Espn and the Washington post maybe ah that is where they make their money right? because that's how they attract their advertisers. So even though they have all these other things they are more than just like a. Digital media company. They're like ah a collective of content creators and influencers who are able to use this impressive social reach to secure major advertising dollars now. It's a problem. Because if this is all based on this right on on this amazing reach that they have and that reach is bolstered by so content stolen from other places that they're just retweeting it puts all of this into question right.

ethan

I Guess I mean really from like a legal standpoint it kind of sounds like the question of whether or not barstool is being misleading and their advertising or their representations to potential advertisers about what their reach actually is um I don't know yet.

Shawn

Of her.

ethan

I don't know if we as kind of consumers have any standing to say Barcel is doing something legal but that potentially in this situation. There are truth and advertising laws is somebody just being puffery where the best pie with best account in the world or they making a statement of fact that we reach. 1 third of this particular audience on social media when they're really not doing it that could potentially create a legal claim between potentially barstool and the advertisers that they're dealing with if the advertisers are like wait a minute we didn't get the bang for our buck. You said we reached this audience.

Shawn

Right.

ethan

But we're reaching a lot smaller audience because you're using a algorithm or explanation that doesn't really add up. Yeah.

Shawn

Yeah, so the way that that this article says that this works and I think this will be important for the next part of our discussion which is like are they breaking laws. Are they. Copyright infringing. So here's the example that they provided basically um, barstools got this guy Portnoy right? The the main guy and then he's got like this other dude I forget I forget the other guy's name is not important so they're doing a show an Nfl gambling show together. And they play you can't touch this in the background mc hammers. You can't touch this right of their recording now immediately. That's gonna get flagged right? Empty hammers song is owned by somebody. There's gonna be copyright issues so when they upload this episode to their. Social channels and all over the place. Someone could potentially be like hey did you clear using mc hammers you can't touch this in your episode that you're making a bunch of money off of so apparently someone out loud in this video says put this on a burner. Which is how the author of this article even kind of got key to all of this because sure enough a much smaller Twitter account that was technically unrelated to barstool posted this clip from barstool's show.

Shawn

Before the show went on the air which is also insane seems like the dumbest planning ever If you're going to commit a crime. Um, but basically this all all of a sudden this other account popped up with hey this is a cool clip.

ethan

Um, to.

ethan

But.

Shawn

And then bar stool Sure enough goes ha this fan. Loved this clip from this episode. They retweet the clip now I have a question about this right? because because because that that I don't here's what I don't get.

ethan

Okay, here we go.

Shawn

If The smaller account is tweeting out a clip of bar stool using Mc Hammers You can't touch this right it and then the main bar stool retweets. It. How are they actually sidestepping a direct copyright infringement when the song is still in their show.

ethan

Yeah I thought you were going to kind of ask me about whether this is illegal or not um what they're kind of doing but we can. Okay, yeah yeah.

Shawn

Know well well, well that's what I meant I mean ah both right? It's all of the questions. It's like how how does this even protect them in the first place and is it technically illegal.

ethan

Yeah, all right? Let's start there because I think the answer is no, it's probably not legal. So let's talk about this all right? So we are responsible for the things that we do in life and we're also responsible for the activities of our agents all right? So for example, if I've got the social media law firm. 1 of my.

Shawn

Her.

ethan

My right hand one of my w 2 employees they defraud somebody in advertising the law firm I or the law firm could still be responsible for the acts of my agents same thing if I hired an independent contractor to go out and pitch our law firm on our behalf to media agencies and they lie in making those pitches.

Shawn

Oh.

ethan

It's possible that I also or my firm could be liable through both actual and apparent Authority meaning these people are my agents and they're doing things for me and so I could technically be responsible and so if this is true. This is an actual concerted business strategy.

Shawn

Right.

ethan

Where Barstol knowingly is creating these accounts by their employees or through other people for the purpose of taking other people's content so that barttool can repost theirs that they don't get caught for for copyright infringement. Of course they could be legally liable.

Shawn

Interesting.

ethan

What they're doing is playing that shell game where you're trying to hide where the ball is amongst the shell as it moves around and make it more difficult for people to be able to find you So I think that in a court of law if this was an entirely different situation.

Shawn

Um.

ethan

If barrsols sports just happened to retweet somebody else's Twitter post that included copyright material and people came after barstoll I think it's a pretty reasonable defense to be like look. We didn't know we retweeted this. We thought it was a popular clip.

Shawn

Right? I'm sure.

ethan

You know you're really going to sue us after this like go fly a kite and I think it's different Once you get into a lawsuit where someone isn't able to conduct a discovery find out who that email address is from get the Ip address take de depositions find out what's going on here and if they uncover this entire giant web of.

Shawn

Right.

ethan

Copyright infringement through hiding it through these accounts I don't think that barstol sports or really anybody in that situation is going to be able to say we didn't infringe. It was these accounts like I think that there there's no way that if these allegations are true that this is not.

Shawn

Um, yeah.

ethan

A intentional way for the company to be able to use other people's content to grow their audiences and not try to be at the ire or at the aim of of copyright infringement claims.

Shawn

Um, yeah, So it's a terrible strategy is what you're saying like like if this is really what they're doing. It's. Moronic because it doesn't actually cover them legally at all and if anything it gets them into more trouble.

ethan

Yeah I mean look it's incredibly risky if this is the case and you know so look if this has happened. Okay.

Shawn

Yeah.

ethan

Boy have they reaped incredible results out of this barstol sports has become a household name for these types of things and even if there we have one third of this demographic is not true. It's still a gigantic freaking demographic like an empire on social media and so.

Shawn

Right.

Shawn

Huge, ah.

ethan

From a business perspective. They probably made millions of dollars if not billions of of dollars and all these different relationships through having accounts that people want to be able to follow so from their perspective from a business perspective. It's been wildly, successful. And even though this strategy might be incredibly risky and they might get caught.

Shawn

Right.

ethan

It is going to be potentially a difficult web to be able to Untangle to say what profits have they made off of all of this illegal you know types of activity. So they're making it incredibly difficult and kind of hiding the ball here if this is what that they're they're doing to make things.

Shawn

Oh.

ethan

Certainly difficult.

Shawn

Well, that was gonna be my next question is like so okay, let's say they're let's say this hypothetically this is all true. Okay, and ah law enforcement gets involved and investigates and finds that this is true right. Or a lawyer gets involved and finds out. You know this? ah 1 of their advertisers even is like hey I read this daily beast article what the hell now I'm going to sue you right? because that's probably how it would go but but an advertiser who feels lied to.

ethan

Yes I don't think the police are going to come after you for copyright infringement.

Shawn

Could um or a partner whose content you've stolen and profited off of could so my question is what you mentioned it being a difficult. Ah you know so. Thread to untangle of like well what was made wear and and all of this but but but if I'm on the on the advertising end or on the content creator end. You know I'm I'm with the Nhl or Nfl or ah or I'm an advertiser with barstool.

Shawn

What could if you're my attorney. What could I be looking for or trying to get to ah feel like I'm made whole and to feel like they have felt some kind of consequence for this.

ethan

Right? Because this looks like if again if this a situation is true. This is one of those death by a thousand cuts. The thing is that Thousand cuts might be coming from a thousand different type of accounts and so each individual accounts that had their their content stolen. Has had such a minimal degree of harm that it's going to make things logistically more difficult now. So what would I do if this is a situation where an account is stealing from multiple big content providers these big content providers can come together. And collectively Sue and say you have stolen collectively all of our accounts and while we're harmed in in different ways. That's one way that that this could go down second way that this can go down, especially let's say that there is a great copyright attorney that's out there that is.

Shawn

Ah.

Shawn

Her.

ethan

Willing to make a name for themselves make an investment and take on this media giant. They may be able to file a class action lawsuit saying right now we know of this group of people who are harmed a representative sample which we call a class and there's going to be a few named class plaintiffs.

Shawn

Are.

ethan

Saying like plaintive a b c d and e have had their content stolen through one of these alleged burner accounts that were connected to this barstool.com email address and we believe that through discovery we are going to identify hundreds thousands of other potential plaintiffs. In a similar situation where each one of them may not have a big enough legal claim in and of itself. But it is highlighting. Um, collectively yes, so this is and this is exactly what class action lawsuits are are for.

Shawn

Collectively yeah.

Shawn

So it's funny. You mentioned that because the the article ah mentions that so far there was a lawsuit filed by 17 music publishers together but they filed the lawsuit against Twitter for failing to enforce copyright policies.

ethan

Okay.

Shawn

What the article points out though is that this is very similar infringement that that Twitter is being sued for to what Barstol's doing so ah these 17 publishers could just as easily turn around or you know or 17 other collective groups that are. Feel like they've been infringed could turn around and do file a similar lawsuit against barstool directly and the article ah reporter found 40 other accounts Twitter accounts Dummy accounts with similar characteristics. To the ones that they've confirmed tie back to Barr Stool's emails um implying that this could be a very long ongoing campaign that Barstool's been running for for quite some time.

ethan

Yeah, look and if the internet is good at 1 thing it's picking up a paper trail and untangling this web and so I think this is the the the trappings of this but why they had potentially sued Twitter in the first place could be a couple different reasons. First reason could be Twitter is a big pocket.

Shawn

Yeah, um.

ethan

Twitter They might be not saying that Twitter should be responsible for the activities of barstool sports but they might be claiming this lawsuit is that Twitter is responsible for not having or enforcing effectively. Their digital millennium copyright act safe harbor provisions because usually what the dmca says and we talked about this on a prior podcast episode is that an internet service provider like Twitter is not going to be held responsible for the activities of its users if they're infringing on copyrights so long as they maintain a specific process for people to report. That their content has been fringed on and and take the necessary takedown provisions. So 1 thing that's lost. It might be saying is you are not enforcing this correctly and you're allowing this to happen by not having the appropriate types of procedures.

Shawn

Ah.

Shawn

Right? And I would imagine it's probably not exclusive to barstool this lawsuit I would imagine that this is more like hey Twitter our music is showing up on your platform in a lot of places and you're not working hard enough to get it off.

ethan

Yeah, and I think this probably happened to Youtube in the past and Youtube now had to both. They probably first started of paying people then they had to build tools or algorithms to um to scan content for music and so now when you upload something like so sad.

Shawn

Yep.

Shawn

Yes.

ethan

Ah, you know my my mom read the pass away a couple years ago know a year or so before she had passed or 2 years I created like the story of her life and took like all old photo albums scan like photographs from every like part of her life and set it to like Tim Mcgraw's remember when song real.

Shawn

Sure.

ethan

Tugging at the hearttrings like here's a story of your life I uploaded it onto Instagram happy birthday mom and Instagram flagged it saying we're not going to let you do this because you're violating somebody else's copyright because we've scanned it I found it. That's but copyrighted music.

Shawn

It's funny I did the same thing for my mom only I used Frankie goes to hollywood's relax as the song.

ethan

Yes, same similar heartfelt sentiment slightly different portrayal of how how we've done. Ah, um, so this has happened before where Youtube has now changed their practices as a result of these different copyright plates.

Shawn

Earth exactly.

Shawn

Um, right? Yeah um.

ethan

Second thing that might be happening here and this is going way back to like 20121 of the first times I was interviewed as a social media law expert was people were suing Twitter. Because Twitter wouldn't identify who was the user or the ip address behind certain types of handles and so Twitter kind of took the stance at that time like hey unless this is law enforcement coming after me that I have to turn this over.

Shawn

Right.

ethan

I'm not giving away the identity of our account holders because it's not our responsibility to do so and so 1 thing that might be happening here through this lawsuit is that these companies may have gone to Twitter and been like tell us who the owner of these accounts are twitters like go fly a kite I don't have to and. They are now suing Twitter and as part of that discovery they are trying to get the identities of these accounts which might not be the direct reason for the lawsuit because that might not be a great reason to do it. They might be saying Twitter you are liable and I need the discovery for this and once I did get the discovery for this. Be able to verify some of their claims that these things are coming from barstool sports or agents of barstool sports that that they're virtually working with.

Shawn

Sure so okay, let's let's go through some stuff does does something like this does it mean that the dcma is less effective in today's digital landscape.

ethan

In a rear. It's It's hard to say Okay, why technology advances so much faster in the law can adapt. You know to get a law through congress takes years. Okay.

Shawn

Like does it need to be rewritten or um, yeah, um.

ethan

And so to keep having to shift and change what the laws are and rewrite them because there's a new technology that allows people to do things differently. We would never be able to craft the law that's going to be able to keep up. It's just a reality and that's why we got to take these old laws. They're like circles.

Shawn

Right.

ethan

Try to cram them into a square peg to able to to enforce this and so part of it might be the updating of the Dmc or it might be judicial interpretation saying look technology is now changed the intent of this law was to stop this and so we're now going to capture this type of of harm.

Shawn

Ah.

ethan

So I think 1 thing might be. We're just dealing with a law from ten fifteen years ago that's trying to keep up with these new technologies second thing and we talked about this again on a prior episode some people like having their content infringed technically by people sharing it the purpose of social media. Is to be able to retweet reshare take someone else's audio use it for your own real It's kind of like part of the terms and conditions is saying like you know you want people to share this stuff if it's online and so.

Shawn

Right? But but the line crossed is when you start profiting off of of that in in it they like yeah I'm an artist I would love people to share my picture on the internet. So more people see my picture if someone shares my picture and makes $5000000 off of it I'm gonna be pissed. That was not my intent. Yeah.

ethan

Ah, hundred percent ingo and that's why we talked about in a prior episode. How Tiktok allows people to use copyrighted music for personal accounts but not for business accounts because they want to be able to find that balance and I remember I got a call from a an influencer a couple years ago and they were like look I'm using copyrighted music and my videos and people love them. But I don't want to get flight and I just speed up the song so that the thing doesn't pick it up and I'm like you could do that. But you're probably going to get caught eventually if you're if you're gaming the system. And that's exactly what you talked about? That's what it sounds like this article is alleging is that barstool sports is is allegedly gaming the system by saying we're not infringing. We're just taking it from these random accounts go after them.

Shawn

Command.

ethan

But these accounts are not so random. They might be an arm's length transaction and I think that this is a story that's going to unfold and I think now that this is out in the media. It's either going to be revealed. Nope This was a one off Incident. You're taking this out of context you're trying to piece a story together. That's really not there and making us look bad or. People are going to keep coming after this particular story nude details are going to come to light and eventually you know it's all going to come out in the wash.

Shawn

Can barstol use an argument that their use of other people's content falls under like a fair use thing. Are there limits to this doctrine.

ethan

Yeah, fair use is freaking tough man to deal with okay I have you know at the social media law firm. We get people that reach out to us all the time and say I.

Shawn

Um, yeah.

ethan

I want you to watch my Youtube video where I have used certain types of clips or things and tell me is this fair use or not and usually we don't take these clients because it's so difficult for us to say here's the black and white line of what's fair use and what's not. It's such a.

Shawn

Right.

ethan

Difficult doctrine to apply and there are certain types of things that are pretty clear. You know one of the fair use factors is are you using it for profit. Are you not using it for profit. It's pretty easy if Toyota takes your song puts it on their commercial. That's probably not going to be fair use. But if someone took Mc Hammer's song and just took the clip. Don't touch this.

Shawn

Rep.

ethan

And that's it as like a one second soundbite and use it like as a button on a radio show you know, like exactly you know right? If like that was used in a commercial or use on a podcast where you're making money for advertising.

Shawn

The famous the famous line don't touch this from. You can't touch this.

Shawn

Me.

ethan

Becomes a much more difficult question and it's so hard to to divide that line. So fair use fair use is both designed to be the ah the exception to the rule for copyright. But it's so hard to apply because there's so many different factors and likely you can make a really strong legal argument one way or the other and until this gets in front of a judge.

Shawn

Brother.

ethan

And a decision and goes to an appellate court and has a written decision. We don't get more guidance on whether a specific instance might be fair use or not.

Shawn

Okay, what's the difference between what's legal and what's ethical in the context of content swiping in your opinion.

ethan

At man you just kind of walked through like the grayest of the gray areas. There's so many people out there that are like yeah man, you're Gandalf the gray over here.

Shawn

Yeah I'm I'm waiting in the gray. Yeah I'm I'm a I'm a famously large headed wide eyed at Gray Alien from from pop culture. Thank you, Thank you.

ethan

Yes, yeah, you're incredibly handsome. Ah, but um, yes, you hear that e.

Shawn

My wife says that too. Um, so.

ethan

But yeah, but yeah, no, the the legal ethical line is so hard to be able to find There's so many people all the time being like well this isn't legal so I can do it and I feel like if that's how you're gonna live life and if that's how you're going to use other people's content. Karma's.

Shawn

Ah.

Shawn

Um, yeah.

ethan

Going to catch up with you and it might may not be today. It might not be until you're a giant media empire again I'm not putting a finger at barsol but just using that as an example like eventually people are going to figure out if you are skirting a line too far and I remember. I was a young lawyer I worked for a law firm called Richmond Greer and I learned how to practice law the right way from these really experienced attorneys and I remember someone saying like like pigs get fed hogs get slaughtered meaning like. Is that am I violating the pig theory am I going too much am I taking things too far and sometimes in the law where there's no black and white. The answer is what does your gut tell you if your gut tells you you're doing something wrong or it could be doing something wrong. Don't do it because eventually it's going to get caught and whether you say.

Shawn

Right.

ethan

This was legal. You're going to get reputational problems. You're going to get like fingers pointed at you and you're probably skirting the line for other things as well.

Shawn

So um, do you think that social media platforms should be held accountable for not adequately enforcing copyright laws. In in your opinion is that something that should just be part and parcel if you're gonna open up a social media platform you got to know that part of that's going to be. You got to enforce copyright law.

ethan

The answer is yes for sure. Um, you know I like to tell people if you you want to play the game then you got to follow the rules of the game and so if you want to be a social media company that's going to profit off of people using your system and being able to promote this to advertisers then you got to follow the rules. 1 of the rules is making sure that you are compliant from a copyright standpoint by following the safe harbor provisions of the digital lenmium copyright act to make sure that you're having an appropriate system where copyright owners can flag these things and that you can also. Ah. Listen to people's responses to these strikes and these takedowns as well and it sounds like that's the lawsuit with Twitter is that you are not doing what you're supposed to for copyright perspective and perhaps it is a situation again. I've no idea.

Shawn

Right.

ethan

But elon musk came in took over Twitter took over x fired a bunch of the workforce. It's possible that part of the people that would let go for financial reasons were in this area and that focused on the content moderation type. But now there's more infringement happening before and you're saying you were compliant under Jack Dorsey

Shawn

Um, of course. Ah.

ethan

Maybe not be making enough money but you are doing much better job at protecting copyright owners now not so much again I Know if that's the case but it seems reasonable with the different cuts that have happened from content moderation standpoints and other parts of the of the operations.

Shawn

For sure. Um, you know Obviously there's like technology. There's a technological solution to a lot of this right? We got machine learning Algorithms There should be more of an emphasis I think put on. Better detection for copyright infringement that seems like a no-brainer. Um, and you know I think that something like this if this is True. What is alleged. Um, these kind of tactics that barstool is employing sets. Ah, very dangerous precedent I think for other digital media companies because if this goes if this is true and it goes on um ah unaddressed right.

Shawn

Other people will do it and and that's a problem I think you know because if you're profiting off of someone else's creation. Um, that it's a problem.

ethan

Yeah, and that's a thing a lot of people lot of people don't They don't freaking care I'm not saying this is marsel situation but I work with creators all the time who have other accounts that take their content. They make a whole bunch of money.

Shawn

Yeah.

ethan

But just stealing my clients content and making these other types of channels and passing it off as them and they make a bunch of money for a while they get their account taken down and they go back and they do it again and.

Shawn

Yeah.

Shawn

Yep.

ethan

You know we had this discussion last week and it's really been brewing on me because our the discussions that's happening our Instagram account just keep heating up because we're talking about more of these issues and I'm like man some of these people out there are jerks they just say really mean things or they do really mean things all the time and I feel at.

Shawn

Ah.

Shawn

Ah, you guys you you heard it here first Ethan just realized that the internet is full of jerks it's ah like hold on it's ah one thirty six on ah thursday

ethan

Um, yeah, like um.

Shawn

Um, September Fourteenth twenty twenty three Ethan wall realizes. The internet is full of jerks. Ah yeah, it is it did monsters the the the the I liken the internet to Pandora's box um because I think that.

ethan

Yeah, man thought but.

Shawn

Ah, while it unleashed um all sorts of of new things to this world. Ah it. It also ah contains great evil and I and I think that that's true I think the anonymity of it is a big factor. You know you can call yourself whoever and not have a picture and go on Ethan's social media threat and say horrendous horrible things about whatever the topic is and there's no consequence. There's no social consequence even because no one knows who you are.

ethan

Yeah, and it's I was listening to like Billy Joel's ah built an old Billy Joel album and like easy money is the first track on it and he's kind of just like give you know give me the I'm here for the easy money and I think that that's what people are doing when they're still in this particular type of content and they they do it because they can get away with it.

Shawn

Um, yeah.

ethan

For a spell and you know if you're going to be the type of person that says that's how I'm going to make my money. You know what do what? you're going to do but whether you're going to experience the legal consequences is 1 thing but karma exists.

Shawn

Yeah. Yeah.

ethan

You know whether you're super religious and there's a god out there. That's kind of judging you on what you're doing or whether you are a more spiritual side and say the universe and there's karma or whether you just have your own guiding values and guiding principles of how you want to go live your life. You can decide. Do I want to be the person that's going to steal other people's content so I can make a quick buck or am I going to create am I any type of person's going to create a fake account just so I could talk shit about people and not have it come back to me like at the end of the day that's you and that it's kind of comes to this reality check and unfortunately this world's got millions billions of people.

Shawn

Yeah.

ethan

And not everybody's going to be a Sean Deeppa squaly not everyone's going to be a social justice war and I I was going to be above board and you know what? not everybody has the same values and we just we just have to understand creators you got to understand it sucks. But it's also the world we live in so this doesn't mean.

Shawn

That's right.

ethan

Just be okay with people stealing your content because there are jerks out there. But I do think that when you said earlier should social media companies be responsible and I said if you're going to play social media. Gotta you gotta understand the rules of the game and I think it's also.

Shawn

Yeah.

ethan

Ah, um, a reality that if you're going to be on social media. People aren't going to be nice. They're going to say mean things and sometimes they're going to take your content and and oftentimes it won't be fair and that sucks but we can't focus on that too much and we got to focus on the good in the world and kind of keeping our.

Shawn

Yeah, yeah.

ethan

Our eyes on whatever the prize is for us and ultimately we can spend our attention getting down by these people or we could figure out. Are we going to be better. Are we going to are we going to do the right thing and I'm confident that with this article coming out. And more of these lawsuits if something. In fact, is going down that's wrong. It's going to be traceable what happens on the internet stays on the internet and people can find it and the truth is going to come out 1 way or the other ah good for barstol sports. Not so good for barstol sports I don't know but we got to wait and see.

Shawn

Oh I agree I agree. Um well great. This was a good conversation I think this was an interesting I so I read this article and my first thought was like oh we should do a whole episode on this because this is really it's like it's perfect cross section of of. What we talk about here all the time it was like all of the things. Um, and and yeah I mean I'm happy to watch barswell sports go down b I don't know why.

ethan

I'm happy to watch The New York Giants come back from a 40 s zero and there how much was to live in a world being a giants fan were like now you know what? I'm just gonna go with you not care about sports anymore.

Shawn

Yeah, guess what I live in a world. Um, and I it's fine. It's fine out here. It's all good every once in a while you see someone walking around with a t-shirt with a thing on it. You don't know what it is and it turns out it's just a sports team and you're not missing much. Um, so. We want to hear from ah the listeners on this topic. Ah because it's an interesting one. What are your thoughts. What are your feelings? Do you care? Do you not care. Are you like I am stealing this episode of this podcast right now to bolster my own thing ah in which case hi. Ah. We'd love to hear from you Ethan where can people tell us what they think.

ethan

Yeah, you could find us on social media by looking for the social media law firm feel free to jump into the comments defend people out there from your accounts and if you found this? ah this episode helpful and useful and interesting. Give us a follow on ah Spotify Apple podcasts and ah.

Shawn

Now.

ethan

So tune for the next episode.

Shawn

Yeah, that's right and you can find me at your local grocer because I'm always food shopping ah all right? Well, that's it for us this week Ethan we will be back. Ah next week with another exciting episode of.

ethan

Ah.

Shawn

Law and discussions and social media and jokes. But until then I bid you would do my friend and I will see you next time. Alright bye.

ethan

You got it see buddy.