4. The Fine Bros
You knew this one would appear on this list sooner or later.
In early 2016, The Fine Bros found themselves in quite a bit of controversy. In case you’re not familiar with them, they’re YouTubers who are well-known in creating various “react” videos. Well, in January of 2016 they announced that they would be trademarking the word “react”, which is prominent in several other YouTube videos that have absolutely no affiliation with videos produced by The Fine Bros. Such videos ended up with a Content ID claim, courtesy of The Fine Bros. As you can imagine, this created quite an uproar on YouTube, with approximately 675,000 users unsubscribing from the channels.
In February, The Fine Bros posted a video stating that they had rescinded the trademark applications and the Content ID claims… but the damage had already been done.
3. Craigslist Prostitutes
Whether it’s tracking down stolen merchandise, or investigating a murder where the killer used the site to find victims, Craigslist has always been on law enforcement’s radar.
One thing Craigslist got in deep trouble for was prostitution. No, they weren’t knowingly letting prostitution rings advertise on their site. It turns out that Craigslist once had an “Erotic Services” category where such advertisements would be posted. This lead to several arrests of prostitutes and their clients. It also lead to law enforcement accusing Craigslist of empowering prostitution. The accusation has, of course, been denied by the site. However, Craigslist has since changed their “Erotic Services” category with an adult-oriented area, which is constantly monitored by employees.
A judge had even stated that Craigslist, in the end, was not responsible for prostitution ads.
2. Facebook’s Privacy Changes
Facebook might be the most popular – and widely used – social media site on the internet, had faced some controversy back in 2009.
The controversy they faced had to do with their changing the Terms of Service, which basically made users believe that whatever personal content was posted, Facebook had a right to use it in any way they deemed fit. This included if a user deleted said content. As you can imagine, this caused quite an uproar, with people calling the change a violation of privacy. Even though Mark Zuckerberg tried to calm everyone down by trying to explain the change in a clearer way, where the change just meant Facebook would share your information with your friends and nobody else, people weren’t buying it.
In the end, Facebook reverted back to their original Terms of Service.
1. Napster and Copyright Infringement
Anyone remember Napster? If not, it was an online service where users could share digital audio files in MP3 format. This was in the early days of downloading music and, at the time, seemed like a good idea… but then the controversy set in.
The creators of Napster – Shawn Fanning, John Fanning, and Sean Parker – failed to realize their new creation was a hot bed for copyright infringement. The company’s legal troubles began when Metallica found that a demo of their song, “I Disappear”, was circulating around the network. Radio stations began playing the song prior to the song’s release. As you can imagine, this resulted in Metallica filing a lawsuit against Napster. Dr. Dre also filed a lawsuit against Napster, because they refused to remove his songs from their service despite a written request.
With these and other lawsuits, Napster shut its electronic doors in 2002 after a court ruled that they had to pay music creators and copyright owners $26 million.