Law Commons^™

“Going Viral” By Stealing Content: Can The Law Cure The Problem Of Viral Content Farming?, Sara Gates

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

Part I introduces the concept of viral content farming, examines its origins, points out how it differs from aggregation, and consid-ers the purpose behind the practice. The Part looks at how compa-nies such as Google and Facebook have responded, and examines the overall impact on journalism and the Internet. Part II presents a possible ethical solution within the journalism industry and consid-ers resolutions in the law by describing the “hot news” misappro-priation doctrine and copyright law. Part III scrutinizes three pro-posals and discusses why copyright law is the most appropriate solution to the problem, then analyzes content farming within the …