Published: 2025-12-06
Last Updated: 2025-12-06
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Sharing content is an activity that is often marketed as a national pass time. There are social media platforms that allow users to excerpt any content from any other user and repost it as their own. While this has a context in the business world, there is usually content licensing and an agreement. How this would read in a courtroom is that the platform does allow these behaviors, but the user can also request that their content not be used in a certain manner. The social media platforms can not override this provision of law. All of this is based on copyright law and the advancements of the sciences and arts. There might also be economic freedoms that certain users reserve in participatig in a social media platform.
Globally, copyrights are a big issue. Its how countries drive their economies. Very few people are needed to run clothing shops, general goods, or eateries. In fact, in many countries these are only open temporarily every few years or limited to tourist areas. While these businesses do make money and have their own vibrant economies, they are more of a support infrastructure for living in the area.
Sharing is not always driven by economy, it can be driven in free speech or socialization. However, the same laws that protect sharing driven by economy, protect the users content from being used without permission, associated with an undesired context or concept, or translating it to a different language or way of speaking. It requires permission so that the content producer or content subject is not misrepresented.
Comparatively to other business models, writing a book can drive a national economy for 10-15 years if it is an o.k. book. Many books we read today are derivatives of books from over 200 years ago, some managed by a family estate, some by corporate government, and some by a provincial government as seen in the United States recently.
Excerpting without permission can seem harmless, and it is encouraged as a normal human behavior by some states. However, it can lead to big problems with human development. Various things are covered by copyright; building schematics, roads, bridges, computer code, electrical systems, theater, movies, t.v. shoes, video profiles, books, blogs, coursework, and audio. Photos and history archvives are covered by copyright. Technically even government work can be covered by copyright. While some people would object, it provides accountability.
The chemical formulas used to make our beverages, food supplies, and medicines are all covered by copyright. These are things people wouldn't want to misrespresent or explain in an incorect context. Note that omitting or not disclosing is usually not considered misrepresentation.
The rules of copyright are often mistated in the United States and this is viewed as being done intentionally and on purpose by its policy makers. Many social media participants have 0 incentive to produce content for no compensation, but they participate anyways. Countries have a word for this type of behaviors by policy makers. Its viewed as a possible time mismanagement.
Coincidentally, the social media companies are to provide a platform for the experession of free speech, and for economic opportunity. This means the content belongs to the social media user and the platform has a license to manage the content on their platform. The managers of the social media platform are then to document their time and effort and to make proposals on a favorable compensation for their efforts. Initially, all of this was developed with public funding and privately funded platforms still have those initial agreements in place.
This is a good example of requesting permission that a lot of people ask about.
When excerpting it is a good practice to ask for permission or to follow an agreement. The agreement may be with the person publishing a blog, video profile, or coursework. Instead of deffering to the platform agreement which may not be substantial to the requirements for using certain content, the person defers to the content publisher who can provide an actual agreement. Platform agreements over the last 15-25 years have been mostly invalidated in economic courtrooms. This is a good practice to follow because their license allows them to distribute content on their platform.
Some people will have an about page, contact form, web page, podcast, or video that explains there rules to use their content. If its for an opportunity, most people will want more details and the standard agreement may or may not cover this context. It depends on their own requirements for allowing excerpts of their content. If they don't have a standard agreement, using the contact form is the best way to ask. It may take a few weeks or a few hours, you never know unless you ask.
considerations
Lots of people allow excerpting their content for free. It may not be all the content they publish but they have specific things they allow to be excerpted or they may have a web portal specifically for free content they allow to be excerpted. These dedicated web portals are becoming rarer and most often managed by the government. People deposit content there for use by the public.
Questions to ask?
Asking these questions when looking for content to share and before posting can help avoid any misunderstandings. It can also make the platforms easier to understand and safer to participate in.
Its important to understand that for educational purposes and with credit and attribution are often misrepresented. If someone is not a teacher, they have litle reason to share someone elses content for educational purposes. Normally, this is a small excerpt of a large volume of work with references and attribution to the larger volume. Recently, it just requires that the small excerpt does not infringe on economic rights, that it is standardized information, and that the shared information is similar to a marketing excerpt that does not disclose the full volume of work or concepts. It indicates the context of the work, but does not necessarily disclose source, it can provide some details about state for that volume of work. For example, it tells you who founded the work or something about their industry when it was founded but does not disclose whether the excerpt came from a corporate archive, a library, encyclopedia, or blogger with permission.
Often times publishers have an agreement available if there are questions about the content but they are not required to publish their agreements. These are most often only reviewed in court.
Attribution is normally used when someone shared something, often complex, that someone found interesting. They excerpt a small portion, maybe something impactful, hopefully its not too educational, and briefly explain what the excerpt is and why it was impactful, they also indicate the source of where that data came from. Some places, or persons, don't require detailed attribution, its up to the data producer. Its normally obvious to people familiar with the topic what the source is or what the source may be. The person sharing may have an economic interest in not disclosing the source of their data and it may be with agreement. This means the attribution will vary, but the rest of the rules remain in place, such as misrepresentation. For example the source may indicate an artist name but not an exact event or specific work that was used in producing a work. It may omit all the people that contributed to the original work and reference the artist only.
From here, things get into licensing, that's usually for opportunity or for specific use. Like if someone wants to license a work to upgrade their home. They are not required to share the modifications with the entire city. They may want to discuss that with the city manager if someone insinuated it was required. They may want to license part of a movie to make a play in an auditorium they rented. This would be licensing even though it still seems like an excerpt.
Excerpts are normally for sharing and licensing is normally for use or opportunity. There is some overlap but people normally don't pay for excerpts. There can still be rules in place to make sure the source is respected in sharing or modifying information.
Share responsibly, and don't forget the rules on excerpts.