There's a linguist inside me all giddy, having seen the birth of a word and seeing it getting adopted into the mainstream.

(For those who don't know, the word, in the context of copyright, was invented on the excellent Hello Internet podcast - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-j-tCHzjam4)

It was adopted for this new use, but like the word "piracy" it has been around for quite awhile.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/freebooting

It's a bit more specific than piracy, since piracy today is more commonly associated with an individual stealing content for personal use, or to resell the content itself.

Freebooting is certainly more specific than piracy, but I think you may have missed the word "like" in there. GP means that the word "freebooting" itself is not new, but its new meaning in today's context is (like "pirate") new.

So basically the majority of the top Instagram accounts. I'm curious to see what they do about that, because those accounts get huge doing absolutely nothing. Especially those "travel" accounts that rip off every other photographer.

"the dubious practice where Business Pages and celebs can rip videos from elsewhere, repost the content on Facebook and grow their brands while robbing the content creators of views."

So ... that is the definition of freebooting ...

But what is the definition of "believing that freebooting, and things like it, work at all ?"

What do you mean? The evidence seems to show that it does work, although I guess it depends on what you are trying to achieve.

Although hopefully this update will stop it working.

Whether or not it works for the bad guy in this situation is an open question (maybe someone has researched it); there's certainly a perception that it does since it keeps happening.

But the commentary from those that are the victims indicate that this sort of thing could be very problematic for them. So I do hope that this and this sort of thing helps lock the bad actors out.

Nearly every large page that shows up on FB grew by poaching videos. LAD Bible, IFLS, every one of them.

Is "freebooting" related to "bootlegging"? https://www.google.com/#q=bootlegging

No, it's not. The 'boot' in 'freebooting' comes from the Dutch word 'buit' which means 'booty', the 'boot' in 'bootlegging' comes from boots you wear on your feet (in the leg of which you could hide a flask of illegal alcohol).

Isn't this Buzzfeed's business model?

Please describe exactly how BuzzFeed does this.

Oh nice! It's about time.