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Leakers — the growing cadre of folks who publish information and imagery about unreleased products prior to launch. They once enjoyed a relatively laissez-faire approach from the manufacturers they covered. Save for a so-called “nastygram” here and there (letter from a legal department).
However, as self-publication has become increasing frictionless thanks largely to the rise of social media. Alongside, ironically, the ubiquity of inexpensive, commoditized smartphones. Phone leakers, especially, have found themselves targeted more and more often. Primarily through the content takedown mechanism codified by 1998’s Digital Millennium Copyright Act. And while copyright holders have every right to protect their intellectual property if they so choose. Doing so is not without its risks. As some leakers have come to develop sizable followings among a given brand’s most strident fans.
Samsung’s zero-tolerance for leaks
Over the past three years, the smartphone industry’s largest manufacturer, Samsung, has adopted a zero-tolerance approach to product leaks in the lead up to its semi-annual Galaxy Unpacked launch events. Leakers big and small, experienced and fresh, can expect to be the recipient of a DMCA takedown request — enforced en masse by their publishing platform of choice — for almost any perceived infraction.
The forms are filled out directly by Samsung’s South Korean executives (despite the social networks’ mostly US origins) and target not only posts containing the material itself. But sometimes — as the DMCA allows — even ones merely linking to allegedly infringing content. This latter stipulation of the legislation is also what forces Google and its peers to remove some of their results.
Again, I’m not faulting the Samsungs of the world for trying to protect their intellectual property. What I am doing, however, is arguing that not only are the efforts wholly ineffective. Every Unpacked event over this crackdown period has seen an increasing volume of leaks. They ultimately prove to work against the companies’ best interests.
Primarily, this is due to the slow but methodical change in tenor around companies like Samsung, of whom leakers almost always start out as fans, But towards whom they naturally direct their ire as post after post is taken down, sometimes with disastrous consequences. Just yesterday, up and coming leaker and prolific Samsung reporter @_SnoopyTech_ had his Twitter account disabled. Likely in response to Samsung having met whatever internal threshold of DMCA requests trigger that punitive action.
None of this happens in a vacuum. Just as gracious treatment such as pre-release review units, embargoed press material, and even junkets (sponsored travel) tend to endear writers and other content creators to their subjects. Softening the coverage and pre-empting surprise PR crises. A campaign of targeting the folks who cover your company by way of leaks, may very well have the opposite effect. That is introducing a negative bias that, while perhaps not explicit, nonetheless seeps into day-to-day coverage in a way that is readily perceived by readers, viewers, and followers. The end result may very well be a shift in the narrative about a given company and its products. And those can not only damage sales, but also become very difficult to change. Just take a look at Samsung’s mobile struggles of late for example.
Companies, then, for the sake of their bottom lines, are perhaps best served by ignoring the leaks. Rising above it all and concentrating on their core competencies and mandates. Which is making and marketing great products. If they do feel a pressing need to address leaks, the best place to start should be the low-hanging fruit where the majority of leakers get their material. In the case of Samsung, this tends to be its hundreds of creative and retail partners whose own policies and practices are not nearly as protective of third-party intellectual property as they could be. There’s a very good reason that Apple is able to keep its keynotes almost leak free vis a vis first-party imagery. While Samsung’s Unpacked can feel like a gusher of leaked content as the events draw closer.
Bottom line: what you think you need to do to protect your brand can sometimes be counterintuitive. And a strategy of realpolitik in the media realm is often the most effective. If not necessarily the most palatable at first glance.