UESP Forums

Yeah, I could have thought of a better name for it.

Anyway, over the past few months and years, Youtube has implemented a ton of changes that has been recieved poorly. The biggest change was the Copyright bots which will flag anything, no matter how little the content it is and will claim all the cash from the user's video. For example, use a one second clip of Mario. That's Nintendo's cash now. Recently, the "Adpocpylces" has affected almost everyone that uses Youtube as a source of income. Vidoes that are deemed unfriendly for advertisers are demonitised and like copyright, it uses automatic bots. It is a poor system due to automation never being the answer to it and in a really daft move, Youtube banned the use of linking patreon at the end of the video. Granted, that doesn't do much as people can say, put the link in the video via text etc.. but it does send a message that they don't want people to use other forms of income. Oh and it seems that 10k per video is a requirement to be able to dispute it. Most of the time, it seems that it's always friendly. heck, Jim Sterling managed to get a lot of his unsuitable for advertisers videos flags removed and well, he isn't quite advertiser friendly. But I digress, it seems that Youtube is pandering to advertisers and forgetting what made the platform into a juggernaut.


Whilst fair use is acceptable, I can see why Google is doing it. Viacom sued them years ago and this seems to be their cautions approach but it can be really daft at times. E.g. Reacting to a trailer and showing said trailer that is meant for public purposes can get one flagged easily. Should it be montised or not? That's a debateable issue as i can see arguments for both sides. Stuff where one gets flagged up for using their original music is really awful.

But what Youtube really seems to lack is communication. I mean, there's no major announcements from them as far as I know and it seems that they roll out the changes without warning. Many channels have been affected(though, i do kinda feel it is part of the risk of using copyrighted material. Fair Use covers a lot but some do push it.) and Youtube seems content to ignore users unless they bring in a ton of cash. And even then, people like Piediepie get away with being racist/idiots that can do a lot more harm then good because they bring a lot of views to the site and in turn, generate a lot of cash.


But interestingly, the system can be bypassed with a method called the Copyright deadlock. basically, use as much copyright material and let the companies fight it over it.

Youtube is becoming less friendly towards video creators and more friendly towards advertisers.

I still think that this is a case of sheer volume versus what a human being can do. Copyright bots are necessary because people who hold copyright deserve protection. If you make a creative work, it should not be completely open to exploitation. Intellectual properties would be completely fair game otherwise, and nothing would be exempt from copying.

It's not perfect, but it needs to be done.

"Pandering to advertisers" is a very critical turn on the concept of "oh god these servers cost a lot of money and they need to be paid for". Advertiser-service provider interactions have been an integral part of mass media since we first started using radios. Google makes a lot of money, yeah, but I wonder how much YouTube costs to operate. Their server costs, if they have a few exabytes of storage like I imagine, would have to be in the several millions.

I'm not saying selling out to advertisers is a good thing, but this stuff costs money. Services don't go for free. That's why twitter had Vine shut down; that stuff was absolutely hemorrhaging money because they didn't have many advertising opportunities. Seven second videos don't convey that opportunity well.

Flagging "anything" seems like it's a little much. I've uploaded plenty of things that would totally breach fair use if they were for profit.

Lacking communication is kinda off as well; they provide plenty of forms to dispute these things (like here), or lots of FAQs and statements. This thing comes up a lot.

They have to protect the rights of creators, but they have to protect the rights of copyright holders too. Both parties have just as many rights to their own content as the other. It's a delicate balancing act and it isn't always perfect, especially when there are literal billions of videos on that site.

Whilst that is the reason(or seems to be Youtube's reasoning), manual reviews imply that people look at it and i think, 95% of the time, it's just fair use. However, I do agree that some of the big youtubers kinda can't claim fair use due to their videos pushing it and they are making a profit. For example, A lot of AngryJoeShow's stuff tends to show the trailer(in terms of his reaction stuff) entirely and whilst he is reacting to it, i kinda don't see it as fair use due to him using all of it. Whilst someone watching it without showing it aside from the sounds to convey their real time actions may be inside fair use.

Forms kinda are a poor way to communicate imo and Youtube getting/has a reputation for updating without any notice and doing a poor job of expressing it. Even automatic emails that details the changes would be an efficent way.

Whilst they have to protect the rights of both sides, it seems that they lean towards copyright holders and it's poorly handled imo. If they launched a service that provided a lot of perks without having to become advertisier friendly, i could see it being a success. Youtube Red is a cyncial attempt at it(if i recall, it's an ad free version but adblock renders that pointless).

I do feel that they are approaching everyone with a guilty unless proven innocent and there has been reports of false claims made by people. I do hope that the Patreon link disabling is more of a security decision then Youtube deciding it has to go.

That is how most things happen. A bot catches it and it's sent in for review. The only people who typically get auto takedowns are repeat offenders.

YTR isn't just an ad-remover. There's out-of-app play, YTR exclusive shows (a la Netflix originals), other google play services, etc. It's all integrated. AdBlock does not block out YouTube ads.

How is a form a poor means of communication? It's a direct link to address a team dedicated to reviewing these things. Would you prefer a dedicated 24/7 call center? Imagine how that would play over.

YouTube absolutely does notify people when they update their policies; which is pretty rarely. I've gotten those notification emails plenty of times. People just see 'policy' and 'terms of agreement', get bored, and immediately delete them; and then proceed to later go on about how YouTube "never told us".

I just really don't know how to put the rest of this, really. I don't want to sound like I'm licking their boots, because I absolutely do not agree with some of YouTube's decisions as a whole, but at the same time... this is literally how a business operates, by providing a service that gives them a margin of profit. They're not wrong for trying to maximize their profit, but they do risk the possibility of someone providing a service that commits fewer grievances while giving more features taking away their demographics. A bunch of people have tried, but none have succeeded, because they fail on any number of fronts; the lack of media presence YouTube has, the quality of service that YouTube has, the stream of revenue that is required to support video hosting that YouTube has.

If any enterprising entrepreneur wants to figure that out, then that's great! But no one has yet.

I just think there are far more unethical business practices than "we take steps to ensure that copyright isn't violated so that people don't sue us" in the world to be considered.

As someone who has been struck exclusively by automatic takedowns, I can confirm that this statement is essentially false. The automated system takes precedence over manually reviewed claims, which the accused have to request. Of course manually submitted takedowns exist, but they are typically used by content creators against other content creators.


Yes it does. It doesn't block ads that are integrated into the actual video, of course.


Unfortunately, this is the kind of attitude that allows YouTube to continue to deteriorate.



Just have a few videos on the subject. Here ya are:

Adblock does work, Union. I use it all the time(mainly because i used to have issues where the video would fail to load because of an advert or the advert delays the video etc..) and content creators have stated(Linkara of Channel Awesome, a comic book reviewer released a video years back explaining what effect it has on his stuff) it does harm their income. A form shouldn't be the only way Google expects people to contact them and really, updates are seemingly put up without any notification. No emails to regular users(thugh, i will admit, I only have an account for sub purposes and am likely to have stopped the email function) or it seems that way due to there being little to no reports of them doing that.

It is fair for Google to expect a profit and they do. They likely make stupid amount of cash per year just from YT alone but it seems to be making it harder to do content.

DMCA, Copyright takedowns seem to be ignored by Youtube. I've heard of some users using it as a weapon. Digital Homicide infamously tried to screw with Jim Sterling via it before well, that's an entirely different topic about how one developer destroyed themselves. Alex Mauer seemed to got away with using it as a means of harrassment and Youtube barely got involved. If a single person can target up to 100 people(I'm unsure how many they targetted) without any action being taken, then what hope does Google expect people to have with the system?

I think they should adjust the criterea for copyright bots. E.g. up the limit from a few seconds to a few minutes. A few clips that make up that much should be fair use. Instead of targetting everything that uses it. Though people that post the entire thing, they kinda have little ground to stand on when it comes to demontistation. Heck, recently, Youtuber AngryJoeShow took down a reaction video because he couldn't get Universal to back off and it was techincally the entire trailer. I kinda feel that if one shows the entire trailer with the intention of making cash off it, it is violating fair use. Though i will admit, when it comes to in depth anayalising(Mainly gaming websites do this, i think) that is a bit tricky as it is marketing and creating hype.

Though, Youtube does love to let people like Pewdiepie get away with anything. But put a rude word or say it in the vidoe, that is not friendly for advertisers.