Facebook has previously let you use their Rights Manager to protect video content for your pages. Now, they are introducing the same protection for images—including on Instagram.
“We want to ensure Facebook is a safe and valuable place for creators to share their content,” wrote Facebook on their announcement page.
The Rights Manager for Images uses image matching technology to help creators and publishers protect and manage their image content at scale. According to Facebook, the tool is best used for creators who have a large or growing catalog of content.
The goal is to eventually open this feature up to everyone. For now, page admins can submit an application for content they’ve created and want to protect.
In the application, you’ll be asked to fill out answers to questions like who the primary rights holder is, how would you describe your content, how often do you publish and if you’ve ever issued a copyright report on Facebook before. You’ll also be able to type in where else your page would appear online (Instagram? YouTube?)—but that’s optional.
Once an application has been approved, you can upload your photos to Rights Manager. You’ll then be able to monitor where they show up, including on Instagram pages. You’ll then be able to choose to let the images stay up, or issue a takedown—which removes the infringing post entirely. You could also use a territorial block, which means that the post stays live but isn’t viewable in territories where the company’s copyright applies.
The new update could be a step in the right direction, but Facebook has been getting a reputation of not taking content down fast enough. When American right-wing news outlet Breitbart shared a video claiming that hydroxychloroquine is a COVID-19 ‘cure’ and that masks were unnecessary to fight the virus, Facebook was under fire for keeping it up on the platform for too long.
