Week 5: Who the Heck Owns Anything?

 

This week, we are taking a deep dive into who owns what on the internet. To nobody's surprise, it gets pretty messy, especially once you leave the readings behind and start looking at what actually shows up on your social media feed. While I do not know exactly what you, my dear readers, have been scrolling through lately, I can almost guarantee you have encountered a meme somewhere along the way.

Many of this week's readings focused on Creative Commons and how creators can license their work to the public while still receiving credit for what they create. But that got me wondering: what happens when a memelord stumbles across that work, slaps a new caption on it, completely changes the context, and launches it back into the depths of the internet? Does the original creator still own it, or has it become something entirely new? Think on this as you continue reading my ramblings...

The internet reflects how we communicate in everyday life. I hear a story and tell it to my friends. They tell it to theirs, and before long, the whole town has heard some version of it. But was it ever really my story to begin with? Maybe I heard it from someone else and simply passed it along. And if I create my own story, but other people add details, change parts of it, or retell it from a different perspective, does it still belong to me?

The internet takes this process and cranks it up a notch. That is why I would argue the internet runs on copying. Social media trends are simply the digital version of storytelling. One person creates something, another person shares it, someone else adds their own twist, and suddenly it has reached entirely new audiences with entirely new interpretations. If nobody copies the trend and retells the story, it disappears. In a strange way, the success of an idea online is often measured by how many people are willing to borrow it. What makes this even stranger is that social media actively rewards people for copying each other. In most settings, copying someone's work is frowned upon. If I copied another student's paper, my professor would probably have a few questions. If a musician copied another artist's song note for note, lawyers would likely get involved. Yet on social media, copying is often the entire point.

Think about how many features are built around this idea. Duets, stitches, reaction videos, trending audio clips, and challenges all encourage users to take someone else's content and build upon it. The goal is not to create something completely original, but rather to contribute your own version to an existing conversation. In fact, a trend is only considered successful if enough people decide it is worth copying.

This creates an interesting shift in value. Traditional copyright focuses on ownership and control, but on social media, borrowing someone else's idea can often lead to visibility, engagement, and even fame. What's even stranger is that people do not always set out to create a trend in the first place. Sometimes a creator simply does something goofy, posts it online, and moves on with their day. To their surprise, the internet grabs hold of it and runs wild.

As more people participate, the trend evolves. New versions appear, different interpretations emerge, and eventually the original idea may become almost unrecognizable. In some cases, the trend becomes so popular that nobody even remembers where it started. The idea survives, but the creator slowly fades into the background.

This is where things start to get a little messy. When people participate in a trend, what exactly are they copying? Are they copying the content itself, or are they copying the concept behind it? There is a big difference between reposting someone's exact photo and using that same photo as a template for a completely different joke. Likewise, there is a difference between stealing a video and borrowing a format. One is a direct copy, while the other is more like taking inspiration from an existing idea and putting a new spin on it.

Memes are perhaps the best example of this distinction. Most memes are not successful because people share the exact same image over and over again. Instead, they take a familiar format and adapt it to fit a new joke, audience, or situation. The content changes, but the concept remains recognizable. Maybe that is why memes feel so difficult to "own." The individual pieces might belong to someone, but the idea itself seems to take on a life of its own once the internet gets ahold of it.

The funny thing is that I started this week thinking about memes, but I kept finding myself circling back to a much bigger question. If we generally accept that people can learn from existing ideas, remix them, and create something new, where exactly do we draw the line? As it turns out, that is the same question sitting at the center of many modern discussions about artificial intelligence.

One of the articles from this week, named Good models borrow, great models steal: intellectual property rights and generative AI, explored the ongoing debate surrounding how AI models learn and whether they are borrowing ideas or stealing them. The argument itself is not entirely new. Writers have always learned from other writers. Artists study other artists. Musicians borrow styles, techniques, and inspiration from those who came before them. Creativity has rarely existed in a vacuum.

What makes AI different is the scale. Instead of one person learning from a handful of influences, AI models can learn from millions of books, images, articles, and conversations in a fraction of the time. As a result, people have begun asking where the line between inspiration and theft actually exists.

Social media has been wrestling with this same question for years. Every meme, trend, reaction video, and challenge is built upon something that already existed. Most people would agree there is a difference between reposting someone else's work and creating something new from an existing idea, but drawing that line becomes increasingly difficult the more content is remixed, reinterpreted, and shared.

Maybe that is why the debate around AI feels so complicated. Before AI entered the picture, the internet had already blurred the line between originality and imitation. AI did not create the question. It simply forced us to ask it more directly.

We tend to think of ownership as something clear and straightforward. You made it, therefore it belongs to you. Yet the internet seems to operate by a different set of rules. Ideas spread, evolve, and take on lives of their own. Memes become trends, trends become culture, and eventually the original creator may disappear from the story entirely.

So, who owns a meme? Honestly, I am not sure there is a satisfying answer. What I do know is that every time someone shares a joke, remixes a trend, or reposts a format with their own twist, they are participating in a cycle that has existed long before social media. The internet may have amplified it, but humans have always been borrowing, adapting, and retelling stories. The only difference now is that the whole world gets to join in. 

Now, before I let you go, I will leave you with some advice my father once gave me: be careful with anything you put on the internet. You never know who will see it, where it will go, or what someone else might turn it into.