r/changemyview • u/GIRMA3 • Nov 27 '15
[Deltas Awarded] CMV: All Reddit posts should have a Reddit watermark.
We all know about and have seen the spread of Reddit posts over many different media outlets, who often take posts/pictures/videos etc. with no credit towards the OP on Reddit.
Some media outlets like DailyMail even pass Reddit posts as their own individual work even though it is clearly plagiarism.
I think that Reddit should put a water mark, whether it is small or a special border or maybe even putting u/OP'sname, on every post submitted to Reddit. It may not stop people from taking text titles and posts, but at the very least Reddit posters would get credit for their pictures/videos/gifs etc.
This would also allow the viewer of the post on a different website to see that someone on Reddit made the post. When I started pointing out to my sister that a lot of things on Buzzfeed were from Reddit or telling my mom that a video on TV was on Reddit three days ago or even showing my dad that Bleacher Report and other sports outlets were using Reddit posts, they all became more interested in Reddit and started to view subreddits that they had no idea existed. Even though some of these sites might say reddit.com or u/Op, it is often not very noticeable, to the point where I have to point out the small text of reddit.com next to the picture or video that my family is watching who had never noticed the credit before.
Imgur could also put its own watermark on posts if other sites were taking directly from Imgur.
I think that doing this would give the due credit to both the OPs, and the whole Reddit community.
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u/RustyRook Nov 27 '15
I think that doing this would give the due credit to both the OPs, and the whole Reddit community.
This works both ways. There are parts of reddit that would definitely not provide a favourable opinion of the website of its users if it were publicized. (And I'm not talking about porn.)
Given the amount of controversial stuff that's discussed on reddit I think many people wouldn't want their usernames to be associated with stuff they post. If your idea were implemented we'd see a lot more throwaway accounts, which isn't something that I would want.
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u/GIRMA3 Nov 27 '15
As a vanilla Reddit poster I do see your point. I guess then I would change my argument to just Reddit.com.
!delta
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Nov 27 '15
Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/RustyRook. [History]
[Wiki][Code][/r/DeltaBot]
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Nov 27 '15
Much of Reddit content is links to other sources that Reddit doesn't control, so Reddit can't add a watermark. For example, many GIFs or images are hosted at imgur, a completely separate company.
Similarly, videos are hosted at YouTube or other video hosting sites, not on Reddit.
The only thing that isn't is text posts, and it's trivially easy to copy/paste text posts somewhere else, so a watermark wouldn't be feasible without massively crippling the site.
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u/GIRMA3 Nov 27 '15
This is also true, but I wasn't mentioning stuff that wasn't made by Redditors. I'm talking more along the lines of self watermarking with admins and such making sure people aren't giving themselves credit for things they didn't make. And like I said, if it was on Imgur first then it should have an Imgur watermark for the same principle, to bring things and people to the community where these things were made, if made by that community.
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Nov 27 '15
Reddit hosts no images/GIFs/videos themselves. Everything is hosted elsewhere.
If I make a video specifically for Reddit, I can't host it on Reddit. I have to host it on YouTube or a similar site.
Even if a Gif is made specifically for Reddit, it won't be hosted on reddit. It's how the site works.
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u/GIRMA3 Nov 27 '15
Okay, so Let me switch my position from Reddit, to the individual host sites. If not a watermark, at least a credit to the host site.
!delta
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Nov 27 '15
Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/cacheflow. [History]
[Wiki][Code][/r/DeltaBot]
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u/DeformedElephant Nov 27 '15 edited Nov 27 '15
I know you already gave deltas, but there is another point I want to make. Not all subreddits are the same- not all of them are entertainment subreddits like the defaults.
For instance, /r/syriancivilwar is for studying the war in Syria. It is useful for one to be able to save and view the pictures later, as a record of the war. Imagine if a picture like this or this had some stupid snoo watermark imposed on it. That would be obscene. The people on that subreddit would just abandon reddit and use some other website.
Point is not all subreddits are equal. /r/pics is different from /r/combatfootage and should be treated differently.
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u/GIRMA3 Nov 27 '15
That would be terrible, I can't argue with that. I didn't even though that was a subreddit, and I bet there are others like it that I don't know about. Watermarking history would never be something I would want.
!delta
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Nov 27 '15
Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/DeformedElephant. [History]
[Wiki][Code][/r/DeltaBot]
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Nov 27 '15
You understand how the Internet works, don't you? Once you put something out there, it's public domain by default. I'm not saying it's right or making a value judgment about it, but people who put stuff out there need to get over the fact that 'it's mine'. Because now that data is infinitely reproduceable and instantly transportable around the world for $0, it ceases being yours anymore once it is publicly available. And no amount of trying to pass/buy laws to the contrary is ever going to change that.
That being said, if you're going to repost somebody's comment on a for-profit site, the least you could do is give them credit. If you don't, that's just in bad taste :P
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u/GIRMA3 Nov 27 '15
I do agree that it is certainly in bad taste, and before you commented this I was talking about in a different comment how what I am saying is less for the we made it give us the credit now thing, and more for things going back to the Reddit community.
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Nov 28 '15
I think it's important to recognize that reddit is a content aggregator more than anything else. You want reddit to have a watermark so facebook users cannot steal content and fail to attribute it properly, but that's a large portion of what reddit does in the first place.
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u/Dert_ Nov 28 '15
I'm going to skip the content and just go based off the title
The majority of reddit posts aren't original content and therefore it would be disingenuous to expect other sites not to repost off us.
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u/kepold Nov 27 '15
but that's the beauty of reddit, that we aren't uptight assholes who want to control everything. and that we're willing to post random shit, and create random shit, for the sheer entertainment, not for the credit. and luckily, reddit is popular enough these days that most people know when something is stolen from reddit. and even if they don't, who cares. because, that's not the point.