Caught by the Facebook fuzz

Monday, February 2nd, 2009

I stand before you a guilty man. This weekend I received my first ever copyright infringement notice, from no lesser authority than Facebook (Scrabulous, anyone?).

My crime? I posted a video collage of Christmas photos that I’d cobbled together in Photoshop Elements 7, for which I used a cover version of Take That’s Rule The World as musical accompaniment. (You have no idea how glad I am that snow has forced me to work from home today, thus sparing me from the ridicule of colleagues for my taste in background music. It’s my daughter’s favourite song, honest chaps).

The video had been up for weeks and was only meant to be shared with a few family members, but Facebook’s sharing options went awry and it ended up being distributed to my entire Friends list.

Presumably Facebook – or the music companies – have software that scans videos on the site, and my family photo montage set alarm bells ringing.

The site immediately removed the video and sent me the following warning. “If you upload another video that infringes on the rights of a third party, our system will again remove the content,” Facebook barked, with a mandatory tickbox ensuring I GOT THE MESSAGE. “This could cause your access to the Facebook Video application to be disabled, or your Facebook Account to be disabled.”

I wait for the £16,000 bill to land on my doormat with nervous anticipation. It must have been watched by at least 12 people, after all.