One video the former model posted back in October — “The best Halloween costume ever!!!” — was viewed 89 million times on his Facebook page.
Gibson supposedly took the video from YouTube without asking the original content creator. The issue with using people’s content without permission is that it means the original content creator won’t receive exposure or the associated ad revenue they would have generated had those views occurred on YouTube.
The Kurzgesagt video says Gibson is not the only one who does this. “A whole group of people have built their online presence around stealing other people’s work,” Kurzgesagt writes.
What makes Gibson’s example stand out is that not only is he allegedly stealing other people’s work, but it appears he has been using the videos to advertise his own, unrelated product.
After Gibson uploads the video, he adds a link to the post, which directs users to buy his latest album on iTunes.
To reach 86 million people via a Facebook ad, Gibson would have needed to pay thousands of dollars (assuming an average CPM of $0.25.) But by using people’s videos seemingly without permission, he’s getting all that exposure for free.
It’s not clear what Facebook is doing about it, either — this isn’t the first time Gibson has been accused of taking other people’s videos and uploading them to his Facebook page.
Business Insider has contacted Facebook and Tyrese Gibson’s talent agency, Red Entertainment, for comment.
While many of Gibson’s recent videos uploaded to Facebook appear to be ones he stars in or those he has filmed himself, Business Insider spotted several instances where he had posted what appears to be video content taken from elsewhere.
Like this rhino headbutting a warthog (also found here on YouTube):
And this penguin meme (also found here on YouTube):
And this hedgehog receiving a satisfying belly rub (also found here on Imgur):
Facebook said in the summer it had recently been taking steps to crack down on copyright infringement on the platform.
It uses a technology called Audible Magic to detect copyright-infringing videos, and it has a mechanism where users can flag freebooted videos.
Facebook said it was making improvements to its procedures to make it easier to remove infringing content and to keep repeat infringers off the platform.
Here’s the full video from Kurzgesagt:
This article was originally published on Business Insider. Copyright 2015.
