Remember that DVD pirating advert from the early 2000’s? “You wouldn’t steal a car. You wouldn’t steal a handbag.” Believe it or not, copying pirated memes off the internet is illegal!
Ever since their birth (thought to be as far back as 1921!) memes have been championed as an effective, low-hassle marketing strategy. What better way to draw an audience in than to give them a good laugh? Today, these timeless snaps are spread across the internet with varying captions sprinkling a little harmless comic relief amidst the otherwise, pretty gloomy media!
So you can imagine the surprise some marketers get when they’re suddenly faced with a pretty hefty lawsuit and all because of one ‘hassle-free’, ‘harmless’ post! Is nothing sacred?!
Think of it this way, as a marketer, you likely pay a monthly subscription to have full rights to images from sites such as iStock. iStock is responsible for some of history’s most famous memes: the man distracted by another woman or ‘hide the pain Harold’ (You know the ones. We won’t attach them… for obvious reasons!) When creating a meme with one of these, most of us will just right-click and save the first image that pops up on Google. Criminal activity doesn’t cross our minds, and yet we’re actually breaking the law!
Don’t Forget To Trade Mark!
It doesn’t end with memes! The scariest part is, you could even be sued over your own intellectual property. Recently, online news sources have been splattered with the shocking story of Jools LeBron, a TikTok creator who you may know better as the “demure” girl.
For those who aren’t as frequent Tik Tok scrollers, once a small-time creator, Jools Lebron went viral over the summer with her videos labeling various things as “mindful” and “demure”. overnight, her name was on the lips of big time celebrities and huge media brands like Verison and The Jimmy Kimmel Show were reaching out to her!
However, despite her “life-changing” rise to internet fame gathering speed, it all came to a sudden halt when she went to trademark her catchphrase, only to find that a total stranger had beat her to it. The legal battle she now faces as a result is neither mindful nor demure… it’s actually rather heartbreaking! A proud trans woman, Jools revealed that without the rights to her catchphrase, she may no longer be able to fund her transition surgery!
Trademarks can happen quietly and quickly and before you know it, you’re in court defending the simple use of a word! Some other words you may not know are trademarked: chap-stick, velcro, band-aid, dumpster and even adrenaline… But that’s a whole other article!
How To Use Memes Ethically (and Legally!)
So how can you avoid this? Though you probably already know the answer to this question, just like us, it’s not one you want to hear! The harsh truth is, that there are only three ways to guarantee avoiding copyright strikes with your meme marketing, both of which significantly reduce its ‘hassle-free’ nature!
Option 1: Create the meme from scratch. Take your own image, add your own caption and upload it to your socials with a completely clear conscience. While this would definitely help to paint your brand as a trail blazer, this does make it difficult to follow trends, a key part of social media marketing.
Which leads us swiftly onto Option 2: pay for your memes! It may sound like a pain, particularly if your marketing budget is already tight, but most images will barely make a dent. Shutterstock and iStock, for example, price images as low as $0.22 each and offer a variety of monthly subscriptions. (We promise this isn’t an ad!)
Option 3 is a little more technical and requires you to be hot on your legal jargon. According to RFB Law, “the law shows leniency towards certain scenarios, as outlined in s30 and s30A of the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988. This leniency extends to instances like parody or satire (under s30A), where the use doesn’t compete with the original IP but rather employs it as a reference to convey a distinct point.” In other words, if you’re going to use a screenshot or image from something else, it has to be altered enough to fall under parody or satire and can’t be used to compete with or profit off the original work. If you’re unsure, we wouldn’t risk it!
Of course, there is always option 4: just ignore everything in this article and continue as you were and while we can’t outright condone this (we shall not be complicit in your meme-related crimes!) we also can’t deny that the chances of you receiving more than a slap on the wrist are slim… unless it’s owned by Disney… never mess with Disney! Just like TV licenseslicences or downloading pirated movies, most brands will have bigger fish to fry, particularly if you’re a smaller business, but for us, it’s just not a risk we’re willing to take!
So to summarise, if you use a meme, make sure it’s legally yours, if it’s not, make sure you alter it enough to abide by the Design and Patents Act 1988, and if you’ve made a meme from scratch and it blows up, remember to trademark that baby ASAP! To avoid any more close calls, make sure you’re following along with the 4Change socials!
