Reposters are Reposers

Perhaps some people do it for that. But another good reason to repost is that reposts are funny, and often make really good memes.

I thought the whole point of making a meme was to get it repeated, disseminated, and spread to as wide an audience as possible. I can't even imagine any valid definition of "meme" that doesn't include the possibility of reposting them.

But I thought a repost was the stealing of an idea and recreating the image and submitting as your own...

A person doesn't "own" the idea in his/her meme, so there's no such thing as "stealing" it.

A person who doesn't want someone else to take his/her idea and run with it shouldn't put that idea on the internet.

When I make a meme, it's either a joke that I want people to see, or a point of view that I want to influence people with. If someone reposts it, that means the joke or the point of view spreads better. That's the whole point of memes. If it's good enough for me to post, it's good enough for anyone else to post too.

That's my take on it.

Yeah, I definitely disagree there. The "meme" is the overall concept or image "Bad Luck Brian" or "Good Guy Greg" -- the punchline or idea text IS "owned" by the person creating it. So while yes, it's being shared on the internet, it's still the idea of the person who created it and therefore "reposting" it by taking the text and recreating it as your own is without any doubt plagiarism. Probably not actionable by any means legally, but certainly is a "Scumbag Steve" thing to do.

Now to what you're saying, reposting, i.e. resharing of the original created meme image to spread it around, then that's certainly a cool thing to do. Because proper credit is given to the person who created it instead of someone who just lifted someone else's idea and managed to market it better.

I found the conversation. :)

Your notion about people owning meme content is wrong. Jokes belong to everyone.

It's like if someone's at a family dinner, and tells a joke, and somebody pipes up, "But Uncle Joey told that joke 2 years ago! You can't tell the joke without giving Uncle Joey proper credit!" you would say that person has missed the whole point.

It's exactly the same with people who complain about reposts. They have missed the whole point.

Memes are not short stories, or poems, or oil paintings, or record albums, or anything of the kind. Memes are recycled jokes that belong to everyone (and no one). Even on this site, we use anonymous handles rather our real names anyway. By definition, memes are meant to be spread and propagated, to the point where nobody knows who created it. That is their intended purpose. In fact, until that happens, it's probably not correct even to call them "memes."

So, there is nothing unethical about reposting a meme. The opposite is true. To repost a meme is to fulfill a meme's intended purpose, and therefore is the best and most ethical thing to do.

However, lying is always unethical, of course. So if people ask you about how the meme was made, and you intentionally deceive them about the process, then that's wrong - but that's a separate issue: an issue of private conscience.

If a person reposts a meme, and doesn't give misleading information about the making of it, that person has done nothing wrong, and has in fact honored the purpose for which that meme was created.

Unfortunately for you, what you say above is simply your opinion and not the reality. A end work meme IS exactly the same as a poem, short story, painting, etc. It IS a created work of art and subject legally to copyright protection the moment it is created. (please keep in mind this is technically speaking, as I said before, I don't see this ever going to court -- which is why people are comfortable stealing other people's works).

Your example is not accurate either. It's more akin to Uncle Joey telling the joke and then five minutes later someone says the same joke to the same crowd and claims they made it up. That's the fair and accurate example for this site.

So yes, when the choice is between reposting (sharing) and reposting (Stealing) the correct, ethical, and moral response is to share -- never to steal the content and repost it.

You were doing so well with this last week, I hate to see that you've regressed back to this incorrect position.

I'm open to reason, if you can show me why what you're saying is right, and what I'm saying is wrong.

But you haven't, as far as I know, provided any basis for your assertion. You're saying that a meme is like a short story, poem, painting, etc, but you haven't said why you think that's the reality.

That seems to be one of the foundational differences in our outlook and starting assumptions. The reason why I believe that the example you gave (about someone telling the joke 5 minutes later, and explicitly telling others they made it up) is not accurate to this site, is because submitting a meme is not making the claim that you made it up. I don't see people making that claim.

I appreciate your reply.

Actually, the onus is completely on you to prove that this particular type of created work is exempt from copyright and intellectual property laws and regulations. It is, by default, the property of the creator at the moment it's created unless there is a special exemption in the law for "memes". All created work is covered.

Why is the onus on me? I don't understand that part.

The responsibility is on you. Copyright laws extend to all created works. You can look that up. You're saying they don't apply to memes, so it's in your court to prove that point. I've already shown in the other thread where passing off someone else's work as your own is covered as plagiarism. So it's on you to prove that memes are exempt from that as well.

I'm not passing the buck, it's just very basic debate. I have disproven your opined claim. You have not backed up that claim with any facts or evidence.

Just to be clear - what opined claim of mine are you saying you have disproved here? I see assertions, but no disproof of any specific claim.

I also noticed that you haven't backed up your claim (that memes are should be counted as created works, and therefore subject to copyright laws) with facts or evidence, either. "You can look that up" isn't providing evidence.

But let's just say, for the sake of argument, that memes are created works, and that copyright laws should apply to them (I'm not granting that in reality, but just for the sake of argument).

Your point is that passing off someone else's work as your own is plagiarism.

When someone submits a meme, that person does not make a statement one way or the other about whether that work is their own or not. Therefore, in the normal course of things, someone reposting another person's meme would not be liable for any kind of plagiarism at all, since they have made no specific statement of authorship (even granting the hypothetical idea that memes are created works subject to copyright laws).

That's why there can be nothing unethical, even theoretically, about reposting a meme: the person reposting it isn't making a claim of authorship.

Here's an example of one such reposted meme, so you can see what I mean about not making a claim of authorship, if you have time. If you read the comments you'll notice that there is a comment that makes a statement about plagiarism, and the original meme is linked in the thread also.

Here is the link:
imgflip.com/i/r8tcs

I also want to reiterate that this is all hypothetical, anyway. I don't believe that copyright law is appropriate to bring up for this discussion. I don't believe memes are intended to be an individual's own created work. That may not sway you, and that's fine, but that's where I stand on it until I'm given a reason to believe otherwise. You yourself said it wouldn't be actionable.

It won't let me reply to your comment below (seems to be a site limit on nesting levels).

I'm not sure why you're getting confused on this.

I create an original meme. It's my created work. It is covered by copyright and intellectual property protection. That's the law. It's not your opinion or mine. It's fact. It's not an assertion.

http://www.copyright.gov/title17/

You claim that memes don't fall under this protection, yet have offered zero proof to back up that claim. I have not disproved your claim. I have however, proved mine with law and definition. Your personal opinion is that it's not true, but that is where the only assertions lie in this discussion.

You cannot prove something does not exist. There is no proof dinosaurs still exist for example... but likewise there is no proof that they do not. It's a logical distinction. Likewise, I cannot prove your opinion is wrong... but it's up to you to prove it's right and therefore against the existing proof cited that my view is right.

1. Memes are created works.
2. Created works are protected by copyright and IP laws.
3. Stealing someone elses creative work and promoting as your own is plagiarism.
4. Memes therefore are protected works and stealing them is plagiarism.

There, that's spelled out logically and correctly. If you want your opinion to matter, you have to cite proof which denies one or all of these points of fact.