Copyright and Content Protection on Bluesky

The federated social media app Bluesky has been seeing explosive growth over the past few weeks. The service, which had just 9 million users in early September, now has well over 20 million users and is growing by approximately seven new users every second.

This has attracted nearly every type of social media user. While many of these users just hope to make connections, others are artists, writers, photographers, filmmakers, musicians and other creatives looking to share their work. 

However, not all those joining the service have the best intentions. There are also scammers, spammers and content scrapers looking to take advantage of the latest trend. 

This poses a unique challenge for Bluesky. Not only is it a small company of roughly 20 people, but its federated nature presents new challenges to enforcing its rules.

But Bluesky is not Mastodon. It is more centralized than Mastodon and offers tools and services that may help users prevent copyright infringement before it occurs.

As such, it’s worth understanding what makes Bluesky unique in protecting content and what makes it more “normal.”

The Power of Moderation Lists

One of the features that’s drawing many to Bluesky is the powerful moderation tools it provides users. 

Most of Bluesky’s tools enable users to block or moderate certain types of content. This includes everything from spam to intolerant speech or sensitive topics. However, from a content protection standpoint, the most powerful tool is likely to be moderation lists. 

These lists operate similarly to blocklists used by ad-blocking tools. They are public, curated lists of accounts to either block or mute. An artist named Franz has already created a list to block known content scrapers. According to Franz, these accounts steal content to gain clout or monetize.

This is made all the more potent by BlueSky’s “Nuclear Block.” A block on BlueSky prevents all contact and erases previous contact that took place. This means a blocked user cannot access your feed or your work.

However, there are hidden dangers and issues here. You have to trust the person who is creating the list. There have already been allegations that some moderation lists have been used to troll or slander users. But even lists created in good faith can degrade if they aren’t maintained properly. Running such a list can be a significant commitment.

Second, finding the lists isn’t trivial. Bluesky doesn’t have a built-in feature to search for these lists. You will, most likely, have to find lists on articles and pages outside of Bluesky, like this one.

Still, these tools could be a significant asset in fighting content theft. Creators can proactively block infringers from viewing their work, and the lists can also limit the traction and clout such infringers can grow.

This could harm would-be infringers on both the supply and demand side. However, it remains to be seen whether it will work as the network grows.

Skyblue and the DMCA

Since there’s no way to prevent 100% of the copyright infringements that take place on a social network, Bluesky also has a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown policy. 

The policy itself is straightforward. Interestingly, it doesn’t provide an email address to contact them. Instead, users are directed to a Google Form to file a takedown notice. While this is functional, I would have expected Bluesky to have its own form or process, especially after being open for several years.

Note: The email address at the top of the form is NOT the one registered with their DMCA agent. 

The company also has a registration under “Bluesky, PBLLC” with the United States Copyright Office (USCO). That registration does list an email, though it is unclear if that address will accept notices or simply direct users to use the form.

This is fairly standard for larger websites. The use of the form makes sense, and their registration is complete. Though I wish they had their own form system (rather than using a third party) and included more alternate names in their USCO registration to make finding it easier, there’s nothing horribly amiss or unusual.

One reason they can be more traditional is the nature of their network. Though it is a federated service using their AT Protocol, all current users are on the Bluesky network.

According to their blog post, the focus is on enabling users to move to other services that use the same protocol. They liken it to changing cell phone providers. 

However, Bluesky is currently heavily centralized, meaning that there is just one copyright policy to worry about.

Bottom Line

Bluesky is taking a very different approach to other social media platforms. The focus is on giving users control over what they do and do not see on their feeds. 

Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), Instagram and other social media platforms are heavily algorithm-driven. These sites aim to increase engagement so they can sell more advertisements.

One consequence of this is that much of what is published on those networks is an attempt to chase those algorithms. For some, this has included content theft.

We saw this on Facebook with the “freebooting” scandal. Music companies recently sued X over unlicensed music. Photographers have sued a myriad of celebrities over copyright-infringing Instagram posts. The list goes on.

Now, publishers aren’t chasing a single algorithm. Bluesky lets users choose their algorithm(s) and customize them. Will that stop copyright infringement and content theft? No, but it will change it.

Between the infrastructure changes, the addition of block lists and the other tools Bluesky offers users, there will be numerous opportunities and challenges for creators regarding copyright.

This will likely be a space to watch for many years to come.