KatsBits Community

General Category => Blog => Topic started by: kat on March 03, 2014, 08:46:05 PM

Title: YouTube & Not Approved for Monetisation
Post by: kat on March 03, 2014, 08:46:05 PM
Tip for YouTube vLoggers. If you don't want to have Google's monetisation bot poking around your content do not use any of the suggested video "Tags" that pop up at point of upload.

Recently one of KatsBits recently uploaded videos (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUzj-_Sjp-I) was "not approved for monetisation" by YouTube* (note: issue has been partially resolved. Ed). One has to wonder 'why?' given the video in question is a simple time-lapse capture of yours truly mouse-fudging the production of a normal map texture using Corel Photo-Paint, nJob and Blender. It's ostensibly "informational" and/or "educational" in nature and does not "[reverse engineer, lend, sub-lease or license, materially misrepresent, etc. etc. etc.]" the applications used as per their respective EULA's.

So why does such content get flagged or come to the notice of YouTube's Content ID system?

No-one really knows, exactly, how the system works, but from observation it appears attention is triggered through the inclusion of one or more YouTube/Google suggested video "Tags" - these are collated keywords or search terms Google/YouTube thinks a person might use to find a given video on a given subject, so are suggested at the slightest prompt.

In this particular instance only one such tag was used; "Corel PHOTO-PAINT (Software)" - ironically, if a person was searching for videos on, about, or using Corel's Photo-Paint application (http://www.corel.com/corel/product/index.jsp?pid=prod4260069), they would likely simply use "Corel Photo-Paint" or "Photo-Paint", not "Corel Photo-Paint (software)" as that's a little verbose and beyond the needs of most.

But that's slightly besides the point because the issue at hand here is not so much that tags trigger the attention of YouTube/Google Content ID bots, but that any video caught in this vast Content ID dragnet can be flagged, seemingly without explanation, as a Terms or Service violation whilst questioning authors having the correct "commercial use rights". Copyright in other words.

One does have to wonder just how Google/YouTube is able to justify (anonymous) content flagging in this context when it's only supposed to deal with issues re-active or responsively. In other words, they are not supposed to be proactive in their efforts (by whatever means) as that implies they police their networks contrary to what's required of them for continued safe harbor, and what they have said in the past with respect to pulling infringing materials (copyright and other contentious materials).

Google is what Google does it seems. Contradictory. */me SMH.

For content authors, Rock and a hard place as they say.


Notes:
* Monetisation is a scheme through which authors of video content uploaded to YouTube can be financially rewarded through advertisement revenue sharing - authors of videos approved to carry adverts get a (small) percentage of revenue from the advert when clicked for viewing.