Many people are violating copyright law creating user-generated products: survey

It’s always cool to make or buy a customizable shirt that’s hard to find anywhere else. Shoppers today want personalization, and brands are willing to fulfill that demand. But that may be riskier than previously thought. It turns out customers are often coming across or creating products that violate copyright law.

New data from WebPurify, a content moderation service, has found that 42% of user-generated content submitted to the company’s clients has some sort of copyright infringement. On average, WebPurify’s clients receive 21,000+ submissions with copyright infringement per day.

• One in 24 of these custom designs were found to be NSFW.
• Both of these pose risks for brands looking to offer customizable products, which consumers do want.
• More than half (53%) of young shoppers are interested in customizable clothing.

“Even one incident is enough to lose a customer’s trust, yet most brands fail to implement sufficiently robust moderation safeguards until after their reputations have been tarnished. With users demanding more personalization from brands, companies must engage both human and AI moderators to ensure protection of online customers,” Alexandra Popken, VP of trust and safety at WebPurify, said in a statement.