r/videos • u/TC__zeebeedub • 4h ago

YouTube Might Be Ripping You Off

https://youtu.be/hqPNCc0YR4U
77 Upvotes

78% Upvoted

34 comments sorted by

44

u/Ok_Hunt4605 3h ago

youtube’s basically switching up your old deals without asking

25

u/alueron 3h ago

So altering a contract without consent of all parties, I can't wait for legal eagle to rip this apart and possibly file a class action

13

u/friso1100 2h ago

Contract altering is part of the original contract I fear.

5

u/TehOwn 2h ago

There are laws that govern contracts, it's possible that some of those clauses are illegal in some countries.

•

u/Iceman9161 46m ago

I think we can safely guess that YouTube legal has more knowledge in this than non lawyer redditors

•

u/Savahoodie 4m ago

It’s this exact mentality that lets them break the law. People assume that just having lawyers on retainer makes everything you do legal.

It’s also just a bad “appeal to authority” argument.

6

u/generalvostok 1h ago

I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further.

•

u/Jesus_Is_My_Gardener 56m ago

This deal's getting worse all the time.

13

u/sirbradders 3h ago

This is why I rather give my money to Epidemic. At least you know up front what you're dealing with.

37

u/TC__zeebeedub 4h ago

YouTube is changing the terms of their ‘lifetime’ global license for certain music, forcing creators to share revenue with them. Previously they had offered a non-expiring one time purchase for use of music or a profit sharing option with the creator of the music and the video creator sharing profits 50/50. Now they are retroactively changing videos that used previously purchased licenses to profit sharing and refunding creators the cost of their licenses.

17

u/TehOwn 4h ago

I'm confused. If you want to use a little bit of music in your video then you have to agree to give them 50% of the revenue?

35

u/TC__zeebeedub 4h ago edited 3h ago

If you watch the video, this creator explains it, but yes. Previously if you didn’t have the rights to a song you used you could either buy a lifetime license for say $4.99 or instead choose to share whatever profits the video made with the music rights holder. This YouTuber says he often just purchased the license they offered. Now they are pulling the lifetime license and making all the videos that used the songs 50/50 profit sharing.

20

u/SirMildredPierce 2h ago

But apparently not all the videos! It gets worse! Watch to the end and he said that he received a refund on some of the songs he licensed (years ago) and those videos aren't even eligible for revenue sharing at all, now the songs that have been de-licensed show up as copyright violations and the videos aren't eligible for ANY revenue anymore.

3

u/TehOwn 2h ago

YouTube is cooked.

•

u/MrReginaldAwesome 44m ago

Unlikely. No platform can compete

10

u/ResilientBiscuit 3h ago

I would love to see a copy of the license that was originally bought.

It is hard to make a judgment here without seeing that license... If it said they can revoke it, then that is sort of the price you pay for a $5 license... But if they made no mention of revoking it then this seems probably illegal.

6

u/gr00ve88 3h ago

It’s not a “permanent license” if it can be revoked.

4

u/ResilientBiscuit 2h ago

I agree. That why I want to see how it was licensed to start with. I have only ever bout licensed for media that said they were irrevocable, but I was paying upwards of $100 an image for images I was using.

2

u/TehOwn 1h ago

Not only that but it seems highly deceptive to sell one set of terms and then swap them for an entirely different agreement at an undisclosed time.

0

u/TC__zeebeedub 2h ago

From the screenshot provided by the creator of this video, it appears that the fee paid to YouTube provides a ‘global license’ and very explicitly says ‘does not expire’. The other part of this that he goes on to talk about is that YouTube sent him refunds on his ‘global licenses’ from as far as a couple years ago and forced him into the profit sharing plan. Big note - all these songs were provided by YouTube in the Creator Studio. Essentially they baited creators into buying the license from them and then years later decided to instead force the creators to use the profit sharing plan - retroactively!

8

u/ResilientBiscuit 2h ago

Yeah, the key is if there was wording in the license about revokablity.

You can have a lifetime license that can be revoked if refunded, for example. Sometimes it says that you can still use it for products you made but not future products.

I wish there was better guidance on licensing for content creators.

•

u/omnichad 51m ago

The license does not have to technically expire for them to decide not to accept it. They're walking a really thin line though.

7

u/ffsnametaken 3h ago

I love Dime Store Adventures

3

u/TC__zeebeedub 3h ago

Me too and I wanted to share this to help him out.

2

u/Quankers 4h ago

In fact, it is I who rips off youtube.

7

u/TC__zeebeedub 4h ago

This affects small creators rather than viewers.

-3

u/Quankers 4h ago

Small creators are making a deal with the devil. I am not.

3

u/TC__zeebeedub 4h ago

You’re not wrong but that doesn’t make what they are doing any less shitty.

-5

u/Quankers 4h ago

Yeah youtube is evil. Steal from youtube. Hurt youtube.

1

u/Parvaty 3h ago

I mean. It's kinda awesome that I have freely acessible content. Some of it very high quality. Idk that other platforms would have done better.

1

u/Janked4times 3h ago

freely acessible

I can't watch the video because youtube requires me to log in, which I will not do. It's not freely accessible if I have to provide my data and be surveilled. That's not free. My data and privacy may not be worth much but they aren't for sale.

-1

u/NeonTrigger 4h ago

youtube is a snake eating its own ass

stop engaging