Everyone wants their content to be shared but when does it cross the line?
We live in an attention economy where information overload, trend hypercycles and ever-evolving algorithms have reshaped how we create and consume content. Maximum engagement is the goal, so content needs to feel original and fresh, have a juicy enough hook to stop the scroll, and land fast enough to catch the zeitgeist before the next viral moment takes over.
Keeping the content machine going is relentless, fuelling a rise in AI slop and brain rot nonsense. Running out of ideas may be a common phenomenon, but copying content isn’t the fix. Over the past few months we’ve watched our own work pop up elsewhere online, from trend-led features lifted almost beat for beat to identikit Instagram captions and reposted exclusives stripped of attribution. Everyone draws from the same cultural conversation, sure, but there’s still a line between inspiration and imitation – just ask Aldi and M&S.
Intellectual Property (IP) refers to creations of the mind, including things like artistic works, inventions, designs, and brands. There are a number of protections available for people and businesses to protect their IP, ensure they benefit from it, and prevent unauthorised use by others; patents cover inventions, trademarks protect brand logos and names, and copyrights cover creative works, including digital content like website text and social media posts. But when it comes to sharing and reposting, the lines can often get blurred. Most platforms encourage native sharing but a crackdown on reuploading and copying content is coming.
Last week, Instagram boss Adam Mosseri announced the platform will begin penalising accounts that simply copy content in an effort to better support and reward original creators. “Over the next month, we’re expanding a policy we already have for Reels to cover photos and carousels too: if you mostly share content from others that you didn’t make or meaningfully edit, your account won’t be recommended to people who don’t follow you,” he said.
Instagram later clarified in a blog post what it actually considers “original”. Posting your own photography, videos or graphics obviously counts, but third-party content can still qualify if it’s materially transformed. Meme accounts, for example, often add commentary, edits, captions, voiceovers or context that create something new out of existing material. The platform says that kind of remixing is different from simple reposting. That distinction matters because repost culture has become an industry in itself.
Take clipping: the practice of chopping up podcasts, livestreams and interviews into bite-sized clips designed to travel across TikTok, Instagram and YouTube Shorts. Usually the clips focus on outrage, controversy or chaos because that’s what performs. And while clipping is often framed as “discovery”, a lot of it exists purely to game recommendation algorithms and farm engagement.
As Anthony Fujiwara, founder of clipping agency Clipping, told The Verge: “Clipping lets you abuse the algorithms of other platforms to grow your product exponentially.” Which is exactly why platforms are starting to crack down. From Instagram’s perspective, endless reposted clips clogging recommendation feeds look less like creativity and more like spam.
Still, Meta calling for originality is slightly rich considering the company has spent years borrowing ideas from rivals. Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel famously accused Meta of copying Snapchat Stories, and TikTok-style short-form video now dominates Instagram itself. Social platforms have always borrowed from one another when something works.
That’s the contradiction at the centre of all this. Platforms say they want originality, but copied content also keeps people scrolling. If thousands of reposted clips of the same podcast argument are still driving engagement, ad impressions and watch time, there’s only so far these companies are really willing to go to stamp it out. As The Verge writer Mia Sato pointed out, recommendation feeds always need something to serve up next. Even “algo-slop” helps feed the machine.
And that’s the real issue. The internet rewards speed, volume and repetition just as much as creativity. Until that changes, copying content won’t disappear – it’ll just get slightly better at pretending to be original.
