Social media and Intellectual Property

    One benefit of social media is that everyone can be a "produser," collaboratively producing value while using social media as a user. In an era of widespread social media use, with enhanced connectivity widely available across the internet, people can build connections, leverage their talents, and create value for personal ventures much more efficiently than ever before.

    Social media channels and platforms, which distribute information, form a new hive of information and communities distinct from traditional newspapers and local communities like a church. The value of this information hive is built by the wide connections among people, which supports collaboration over long processes to finally achieve valuable outcomes. However, it's more difficult to distinguish and allocate intellectual property for each "produser" in such a continuous creation process. It's therefore reasonable that many platforms require or encourage users to hand over their intellectual property rights to the platform. As Bruns (2008) mentioned, this also raises questions about platforms depriving "produsers" of the benefits from the hive.

    Absolutely, the importance of intellectual property (IP) is undeniable.

    Many products and innovations are accomplished collaboratively by different people, such as consultants and coders. Contributors who provide fundamental, theoretical contributions, and are not directly connected to commercial results, will find their benefits compromised if their intellectual property is deprived. While some platforms chase short-term earnings by depriving "produsers'" rights, the intensely competitive environment among platforms might help other platforms—those that provide better mechanisms for allocating intellectual property and protecting "produsers'" benefits—to grow and win in the market.

 

Reference:

Bruns, A. (2008). The future is user-led: The path towards widespread produsageLinks to an external site.. Fibreculture Journal, 11.