LinkedIn — a cesspit of copyright infringement

What constitutes copyright infringement on LinkedIn?

That’s the question I’ve been asking myself recently, and I felt compelled to post this after seeing yet another blatant breach of copyright law yesterday.

Microsoft MVP Soheil Bakhshi informed followers that a PDF version of his new book ‘Expert Data modeling with Power BI’, which retails on Amazon for £35.15, had been made obtainable via a Google Drive link that was published by Jalal EL AJI in a now-deleted post.

You can imagine all the blood, guts, sweat, and tears that went into creating a 698-page paperback, only for an individual to subvert its very own existence.

It’s not clear who removed the post, but it’s likely the user succumbed after being called out for the illegal practice.

Several weeks ago, Giles Male published a post alerting us to a video uploaded by self-proclaimed ‘LinkedIn Growth Expert’ Ravi Mishra, who had amassed ~140,000 followers at the time and is currently sitting on ~190,000. The video’s authentic creator turned out to be recently-crowned MVP Farizat Tabora, who had posted it on TikTok in August last year — twice, to be exact.

Initially, no credit had been given to Tabora whatsoever. However, pressure from Male did appear to prompt Mishra to include a belated half-hearted untagged reference, also including the line: “Video rights are reserved for respective owner(s).” Is that really enough, though?

Believe it or not, LinkedIn has a set of copyright rules.

Talk about practice what you preach. This platform is becoming a cesspit of copyright infringement, and many of the perpetrators are routinely doing it on a daily basis. In some cases, they’re racking up tens of thousands of reactions but frequently receive a plethora of complimentary comments from blissfully unaware idolisers.

Have a look at the examples and see for yourself.

Original Source Details

Platform: TikTok
Author: Farizat Tabora
Date: 2022/08/22 at 16:02 UTC & 16:12 UTC
URL: https://bit.ly/3NHGBn3 (likes: 51/comments: 0/bookmarks: 25/shares: 16)
URL: https://bit.ly/3NP1n4k (likes: 50/comments: 4/bookmarks: 17/shares: 12)

Example Post A

Platform: LinkedIn
Author: Ravi Mishra
Date: 2023/04/11 11:57 UTC
URL: https://bit.ly/41fDOoi
Reactions: 30,530
Comments: 1,021
Reposts: 3,848

Example Post B

Platform: LinkedIn
Author: Alvin Foo
Date: 2023/04/14 07:01 UTC
URL: https://bit.ly/41hYRGC
Reactions: 18,235
Comments: 701
Reposts: 1,761

Data is accurate as of 2023/05/07 23:40 UTC.

This trend threatens to undermine the very fabric of content creation and turn LinkedIn into a swamp of copyright infringement.

I want to see original content creators thrive — not people piggybacking off others’ work and profiting from it.

Why are you not enforcing your own rules, LinkedIn?

Discuss.