Please Don't Steal My Content. Here's Why.
Hey loves!
I honestly wish that I would not need to write this post. I started writing my blog back in 2015 because I wanted to share my pictures without their value being defined by the likes they get. This website is my personal creative space. I post whatever is on my mind on here and I love interacting with you guys and sharing my content! I am a relatively small content creator on the internet and I would honestly not have expected that people would steal my content.
But it has happened to me more than once and I am disappointed to see that some people lack respect for my creative work. Every video on my channel - no matter how short - is the product of hours of work. Many pictures on my blog are the products of hours of concept-writing, picture-taking, editing and re-editing. I love getting creative on my laptop and working on these files. But I absolutely do not enjoy hunting down people who stole my content and uploaded it somewhere else.
I am aware that the platforms I use to distribute some of my content (eg YouTube, Instagram) are not available in every country. But this is not a good reason for stealing creators' content with the excuse to thereby make it more accessible. It is, however, a good reason to reach out to creators on these platforms and inform them about it and ask them for permission to help them make their videos more accessible. None of the people I talked about in the above video have asked for my permission.
They simply took my video that is worth hours of my work and uploaded it somewhere else. They are thereby preventing me from getting even a small amount of the money I invest in my channel back and it is honestly disheartening to see something like that as a content creator.
While editing the above video, I realised how emotional I was in the video and I thought about re-filming a calmer version. But I decided against this because I wanted this video to be real. I wanted you guys to see how hurtful it is for creators to see their work stolen by people who did not create it and do not have permission. I am aware that the majority of my audience never stole any of my creations from me and I am sorry that this video also reached those of you who would never even think about stealing someone's work. But if you are one of the few people who did this to me or you have done it to other creators, please know this: Every content creator works incredibly hard on their videos and they often put other things in their life on hold to create this content for you. If you love their work so much that you want to share it with more people, please respect their work enough to ask for permission. And if they say no, please respect them enough to accept it.
I prefer to keep my YouTube channel a positive space, and I will be back with a more positive video on Sunday! But I had to make this video because there are too many people out there who think it is fine to take my work. It is not fine. And I will do everything I can to get my work taken down from unofficial channels. If you would like to see my work on my official pages, you can find me here:
Snapchat: @elenahandtrack
Thank you to everyone who has supported me in creating my content - you are the reason this blog is still up. Despite the negativity I show in the above video, I am very happy that I started to be a content creator on the internet and I would do it all over again.
Lots of Love,
Elena
