distinct channels, the massive me-
dia company has one of the largest
platforms out there. Subsequently,
it has become intensely appealing
to anyone looking to make it big
in the field. Creators around the
world would jump at the chance
for a position at BuzzFeed in the
hopes of making content under
the BuzzFeed brand.
However, as soon as someone
signs on, anything they make no
longer belongs to the creator; it
now belongs to BuzzFeed.
The practice of signing off
intellectual property to a com-
pany you’re working for is by no
means a new one, or even inher-
ently problematic. If you work
for a video game developer, and
you work to develop a video game
as part of the job, that’s going to
belong to the developer, not to you.
That’s about as far as an anal-
ogy will go, though, thanks to the
definitively personal aspects of the
content that has been signed off to
BuzzFeed from their creators.
BuzzFeed is known for its
whimsical quizzes and click-baity
listicles, but it has also become so
much more. The video producers
there have created moving pieces
about personal struggles with deep
meanings, anecdotes and advice
and have even developed entirely
new techniques that revolutionized
the digital media industry. Top-
down text-based cooking tutori-
als? That internet staple was the
brainchild of a BuzzFeed employee.
A former BuzzFeed employee.
OPINION
Well. There goes BuzzFeedSimilarly, all of this content that was so distinctly
tied to the creators is property of the company itself,
and BuzzFeed is continuing to profit off of these
works even after brutally severing the people who
brought them to life. Even after being let go, some
producers are still appearing in backlogged videos,
allowing the company to rake in the views and ad
money from the personal works of their ex-employ-
ees. Series that were pioneered by creators no longer
at BuzzFeed have continued on with new cast mem-
bers, while the people who made these projects pos-
sible are entirely separated from what they worked so
hard to cultivate.
BuzzFeed laying off their creators while retaining
the rights to their work and even working to further
the projects of ex-employees sends a dangerous
message to those remaining in the company and all
hopeful digital content producers out there: If they
look to a massive company to further their career,
they run the risk of losing it all at the whims of an
emotionless corporation.
Digital media is still a veritable Wild West, but
measures need to be put in place to protect creators
and their rights to their own work. It’s simply un-
ethical and unfathomable for a company to send the
people who made their success possible into unem-
ployment while still profiting, in perpetuity, from
the ground they’ve laid.
Tom Grennell is an avid consumer and creator of adequate-quality
content and is always looking for his next ridiculous project.