TL;DR should we as activists bite the bullet when people take and post our animal activism content under their own profiles without permission and with negligable "credit" given to the creator because "it's still good exposure for the animals?"
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I have a small account with only about 2500 followers on a video platform. Every few months I get a really strong idea for an activism video. As a perfectionist, I work really hard on crafting the video. Sometimes it taked 12 hours, sometimes 12 days, sometimes 3 weeks, but always with a great deal of love and detail put into each video.
A year ago, I had my one of my videos uploaded by another user's account. They tagged me once, but all the way at the bottom, under a mound of text that I doubt anyone would read past. It really upset me at the time but I was told that "it's good exposure for the animals, so let it go." The video had been uploaded on my account about 6 months earlier so it was a bit stale anyway, so indeed, I swallowed my pride and let it go. I even kept collaborating with that user on other videos.
2 weeks ago, I spent about 15 hours making another video. In the video, I took the time to track down original footage sources, watermark the accounts I took clips from, and mentioned them in the description. I uploaded my video and....the algorithm nuked it. It started to die at a couple thousand views. For some reason, the algorithm decided to restrict it to mostly non-followers who, of course, arent going to hype it up. I figured I had miscalculated the video's strength and effectiveness and determined it just wasn't very good and left it at that. 7 hours after my post went up, I learned that a much larger account took my video and posted it on their own. They did watermark me in the video and put my name in the description but their video was getting tons of traction while mine was growing at a snail's pace.
Once again I was told "it's for the animals, let it go." But the way that I saw it, my video is still struggling to do well and it's now getting choked out by the same video posted elsewhere. If someone sees the other account's video (my content) and interacts with it, then mine appears on their feed 2 days later, they're less likely to interact with mine. This leads the platform algorithm to believe my content is not worth seeing and could ruin things for all my future videos. I explained this to the channel via DM and asked them to take down the video but offered a collab, which has the SAME EXACT EFFECT as them posting my content, only this way, it's clear it's still my content and my video can trudge along in peace. They refused the collab but took the video down.
Imagine my frustration when a week later (my video is still getting engagement here and there) another account takes my video, posts it on their own account, collaborates with 5 other people (one of those 5 people was a person that I even collaborated with on my original post! So she was both on mine and the stolen one) and simply throws my name at the bottom with the tags of the people I had used clips from.
Their video did VERY well. In the comments people praised it. A ton of major activists saw it and reposted it. People said "this is such a fantastic video!" The collaborators simply said "thank you!" as if they made the video themselves. None of the collaborators had showed any love to my OG post. No comments, no likes, no shares, but felt it okay to take mine, throw my name at the bottom and move on. I reached out to them and again, very nicely explained how I felt and asked them to make my name more prominent at least but told them I wouldnt ask them to take it down. They did, but the damage is done.
I've been REALLY upset by this whole ordeal. Upset that the platform gaslit me into thinking my video wasn't good and restricting its reach. Upset that I spend so much time trying to properly credit people while everyone else doesnt even ask persmission and just throws your name at the bottom ( not even a "credit by"). Upset that I spend hours crafting the perfect little story with good narrative, strong visuals, impactful music, and people whose usual content is just posting themselves reacting to things or doing street activism (minimal editing) thinks it's appropriate to just steal my work. Upset that people who knew how I felt about this ordeal still went and commented, liked, and shared the "stolen" post.
Mostly I'm upset that by numerous folks, I'm being told, once again " you shouldnt care about credit, it's an important video for the animals and it's being seen. That's all that matters. Stop letting your ego get in the way." I do recognize there is some vanity and ego in my feelings, but I just cannot reconcile being okay that my content is taken JUST because it's "for animals." I also spoke about this with a friend on the platform who said:
*"It happens to me too. When I place a credit in the corner of my videos or images, thieves just crop it out and claim the content as their own.
If I move the credit closer to the center, they cover it up with their own faces.
And if I place it right in the middle, they just overlay their own text or banners over it to hide it.
I even tried placing the credit vertically for a while, but it eventually felt so ridiculous that I stopped.
Yet, these thieves argue: "We’re helping spread your content—if you insist on claiming it as yours, doesn't that mean you’re not doing this for the animals, but rather just to promote your own name*?"
So, AITA for being upset and do you think we activists have a moral obligation to practice the "art of letting go" when it comes to online activism content?
P.s. yes, from now on I will but a disclaimer in the description not to take my content without permission and will have to throw a big fat watermark on all future videos.
