YouTube Monetization Rules are Stupid

So, I got the extremely unfortunate news today that my YouTube channel is not eligible for monetization, not because I haven't reached the threshold for subscribers and views, but this:

So, pray tell, YouTube, how is it that one of the most profitable people on your website (Pewdiepie) is profitable because he makes let's play videos of video games and you're just cool with that still? If you're going to make a rule, it's gotta apply to everyone. 

And yes, I upload AMV's too, but they aren't the bread and butter of my channel and I'm not making money off of them anyway. The good majority of my work does not contain copyrighted content. All of my commentary and gameplay is mine. 

I know this is probably just going to be viewed as a half-cocked rant but I'm just super angry about YouTube's double standards at the moment. I've been fighting this uphill battle to get my channel's monetization status back since February and it's absolutely ridiculous. If I could stream and do things that way, I would. But I work full time and go to school. Recording videos, however short or long, is the only content I can be consistent with.

Do NOT think I'll stop making videos. I will. I absolutely love bringing content to my subscribers, however few I have, and I'm not about to quit on them now. I'll keep re-applying and bugging the crap out of whoever until they give the status back that never should have been taken away to begin with. I never got my money from when I was monetized either, so I'll be on them about that too. 

Dear YouTube: game on. I'm a very patient person. I'll do whatever it takes, as long as it takes. 

@Major ArleneYou know that YT is shit and it will keep being shitty thanks to those stupid requirements........lol.....if you call it like that----hahahahahaha 

^{yeah...it's not funny at all my friend.}                      

YT has been known to have shitty requirements for new content creators and they get worse and worse as time goes on
 

1 hour ago, Major Arlene said:

So, pray tell, YouTube, how is it that one of the most profitable people on your website (Pewdiepie) is profitable because he makes let's play videos of video games and you're just cool with that still? If you're going to make a rule, it's gotta apply to everyone. 

Vinesauce joel mentioned during a stream that YT grants some "special" status to some accounts were those accounts aren't hit as bad with copyright claims and monetization as the regular accounts, i wouldn't be surprised if that's true tbh

I think that most of these YouTube brouhahas lately are just a symptom of bigger problem, which is that the ad-supported model of web services sucks and we need something better.

Go through your "Video Manager" and look if you have a "Copyright Notices" tab there, perhaps that could open up some into why you may have been rejected for monetization. Personally, I don't think it's even worth monetizing at all at this time and point on YouTube right now.

1 hour ago, DMPhobos said:

YT has been known to have shitty requirements for new content creators and they get worse and worse as time goes on
 

Vinesauce joel mentioned during a stream that YT grants some "special" status to some accounts were those accounts aren't hit as bad with copyright claims and monetization as the regular accounts, i wouldn't be surprised if that's true tbh

The thing about it though is that I've had my channel for five years. I'm by no means new, although small, sure. But it shouldn't matter.

That would not surprise me either. I'm guessing maybe it's verified accounts or the like. It doesn't make it any less shitty, though.

44 minutes ago, Glaice said:

Go through your "Video Manager" and look if you have a "Copyright Notices" tab there, perhaps that could open up some into why you may have been rejected for monetization. Personally, I don't think it's even worth monetizing at all at this time and point on YouTube right now.

I've acknowledged all copyright notices, accepted that I'm not going to get money from those videos, about 100 out of 1400+ uploads, which is less than 10% of my content. If I wasn't monetized in the first place, I wouldn't care, but since I was monetized and met threshold requirements shortly after they took effect, I'm irritated. And it took five freaking months of my channel being in limbo to tell me this. I don't even want to think about how long it'll take for them to get to my application when I reapply. I'm hoping if I show I'm insistent on being monetized, they'll accept it. But yeah. The whole point is that at the bottom of the list they list video games as copyrighted material, if this includes commentary and gameplay that is your own, that is a load of crap. 

1 hour ago, ETTiNGRiNDER said:

I think that most of these YouTube brouhahas lately are just a symptom of bigger problem, which is that the ad-supported model of web services sucks and we need something better.

Agreed wholeheartedly. I've had several videos flagged as "not advertiser friendly" when I was still monetized, which irritated the crap out of me. It was a very arbitrary and inconsistent flag and I was constantly disputing it. 

I don't even have any copyright strikes! This is what irritates me the most. My channel has had NO strikes against it ever, so why am I getting punished now? I could understand if I had copyright strikes or other violations, but I've had none. So... what gives?

I have copyright notices in several videos but I'm not interested to monetize my videos. I purely make videos as a hobby and not as a job. 

Sadly, YT doesn't give a fuck of what you, me and other minor users says about it simply because it tries to "force" you to meet those ridiculous steps to be a major YTber, which it should be the complete opposite...

*sigh*

I think crap like this is why so many YouTubers (at least the ones I watch) are using services like Patreon.

I've only had a few spats with copyright notices in the past (2013-2014) and it was just for using Doom 64/PSX Doom music, not claims from Aubrey himself but from his publishing company. I just deleted the videos and the notices went away. I just am very careful on what music I use for my videos and this is how I still maintain a clean slate and not bothering with monetizing anything I have.

But why not stick the AMVs on another video platform like Bitchute or PewTube where you won't be in YouTube's crosshairs?

Patreon is the way to go these days, imo. Comes with the added benefit that, if you ever use another platform that isn't YouTube, you can take your monetization model along with you right away.

Of course you can also just try "winning" against YouTube, but chances are they just don't give a damn about your channel, because like many others you're probably not interesting enough for them from an ad-revenue POV. Which sounds pretty harsh, now that I read that again, but I have no way to describe the problem you're facing any better, sorry.

Honestly I don't know how YT makes money anyway. Surely anyone sensible runs Ublock Origin, Ghostery and DeCentralEyes and never sees a YT ad anyway...

Oh wait... there are still people using IE6 on PC or unmodded Chrome on their phones... le sigh...

But yeah... go with Patreon.

All right, so I found your channel and skimmed through the last year's worth of videos. It looks like your WAD reviews and other live gameplay/commentary videos should be fine. Those anime and music mashups however are probably not OK, and if anything those are what's keeping your channel from getting approved for monetization. I am not sure if it's possible to resubmit your channel for review again via the standard means, but if it is, I would get rid of the infringing videos to be on the safe side.

Another option is to tweet out to @TeamYouTube on Twitter. On multiple occasions people have reached out to them after getting declined, only to be granted monetization afterwards. Keep in mind that actual humans are reviewing channels for monetization approval and mistakes can be made. That said, I'd get rid of the obvious copyright infringement before reaching out. YouTube still treats Let's Plays and other similar types of videos as fair use even though I suppose they are technically in a legal grey area, but stuff without commentary like your mashups are examples of obvious copyright infringement. Personally, I'd consider taking them off your channel completely and re-uploading them to a side channel that you don't care about monetizing. You might even gain a larger following for those by splitting them out, since people that are into them might not care about your DOOM videos, which seems to make up a majority of your content these days.

Also, I'll second the Patreon suggestion. It's a good way to monetize without having to go through YouTube. Although, monetizing on YouTube does have its perks, like taking in the direct donations on live streams if that's something you do.

a good portion of youtube's most popular channels are gaming centric, and with twitch as a competitor and essentially gaming-only and incredibly popular, I don't think youtube can afford to actually enforce that last bullet point.

More likely is that amv thing that @Glaice pointed out is the major holdup

Kill the AMV content, that's what I'll say and that's what @amackert and @Vorpal are also suggesting. That and the "Lyrics" video of KMFDM music, that's obviously copyrighted content. I'm not sure constantly reapplying would be the best of ideas, especially in a very short time.

I say fuck YouTube monetization.  That ad revenue shit is a thing of the past.  If you are a content creator and you put out good quality content, open up a Patreon account.

14 minutes ago, Maser said:

I say fuck YouTube monetization.  That ad revenue shit is a thing of the past.  If you are a content creator and you put out good quality content, open up a Patreon account.

This. I follow a couple of channels I follow and two particular have been screwed by YouTube, one majorly and the one not as much. They have resorted to using Patreon primarily and using Twitch as secondary income.

38 minutes ago, Maser said:

I say fuck YouTube monetization.  That ad revenue shit is a thing of the past.  If you are a content creator and you put out good quality content, open up a Patreon account.

I disagree. If making money off what you do is important to you, I say it's best to have your eggs in as many baskets as possible.

1 hour ago, amackert said:

 

I disagree. If making money off what you do is important to you, I say it's best to have your eggs in as many baskets as possible.

Not wrong, though I'd argue that people will get annoyed quickly if you put ads on your uploaded videos and also ask for patreon money at the very same time. Keep in mind it's still the same platform on which your videos would be available, so clearly going for one or the other exclusively is a lot more "legit" than trying to double dip on the content you put out there.

In fact, many people think it's a nice bonus that people who monetize via patreon don't have these annoying ads in their videos, and that's worth something for sure.

Oh dude, YouTube monetization policy is fucking garbage.

I've had several videos showcasing a Doom mod/Rollercoaster Tycoon park/etc with commentary over it and some random fucking entity 'claims the content'. Not Nintendo or whoever, just some random jerkoffs trying to make easy money claiming they own the copyright to something that they don't, under the (correct) assumption that most people will be too confused or scared or whatever to appeal it. What's worse, when you do appeal it, it asks the so-called copyright holder to review the fucking claim. That's right, not an objective 3rd party, just "Eh we'll see if they drop the copyright claim, but if not, it's you who bites the bag". YouTube just assumes honesty on the part of the entity making the claim. That fucking baffles me - surely it's illegal, or at least a legal grey area, for an entity to claim copyright for a video (and thus claim all the ad revenue) when that entity does not, in fact, own anything present in the damn video. YouTube just doesn't give a shit and lets them do whatever they like.

Don't even get me started on content that is "not suitable for ads". It just detects random fucking words in the title, description or tags and says "Yep, this video must be X-rated adults-only content" and strips you of ads. For example the word 'poison' was in one of my Doom video descriptions, that one was stripped of ads. Another had "kills himself" referring to a player shooting themselves with a rocket. It didn't take long for me to put 2 and 2 together and realize that it's simply automated bullshit seeking out certain keywords...... Totally ignoring the fact that these words can (and usually are) more often used in an innocuous context.

So yeah, even if you do manage to get approved for monetization (about as likely as pigs flying at this point), you'll then just be looking forward to the never ending onslaught of fraudulent copyright claims and YouTube's other bullshit excuses for stripping ads off of your videos.

Patreon is a great alternative for content creators that are popular and heavily engaged with their audience, usually the ones who are entertainers for a living. For us more casual YouTubers, it's a crap chute. You'll get like 3 patrons and you alomost feel bad that 3 people who you probably know from the community anyway are forking over their cash. They should be able to keep their cash and Youtube should just run ads on my fucking content and give me the lion's share of the revenue from those god damned ads because without us content creators, the site would be literally fucking nonexistant. Hell, it'd be nice if you were given a way to properly appeal fraudulent copyright claims too.

That's all a pipe dream. YouTube is only practical as a video uploading site at this point unless you really start to build up an audience. They have a stranglehold on the video sharing market too, countless sites like vid.me, dtube and others have tried to compete and failed because they simple don't have the financial backing and sheer manpower that Google has to develop anything that actually starts to compete with YouTube. The long-short of it is, we just have to accept how YouTube does things without question, because even if we do question it, they won't listen anyway. How wonderful.

Rofl, I apologize for the huge rant. In my last 11 years on YouTube I've earned 150 dollars in ad revenue in between all the bullshit YouTube tries to put in the way of creators, small and large alike. Unless you have a devout audience and enough magical luck to avoid the fraudulent claims and ad stripping, it's far more effort than it's worth. Don't give up entirely on claiming what should be yours (ad revenue), but don't pull your hair out over it either - The way YT is now, you'll be lucky if they give you a 50 cent piece in half a years time even if you do get approved. It's garbage!

On 7/5/2018 at 4:56 AM, YukiRaven said:

I think crap like this is why so many YouTubers (at least the ones I watch) are using services like Patreon.

It's also why a lot of the ones I watched moved onto streaming where people donate for superchats.. the problem comes when there's often a lot of dead air in streams and it's less focused than a 10-20 minute video that took a week of preparation to make.

If Youtube is their primary source of income then I'm happy for them, though!

Who exactly watched ads on YouTube anyway? Like really?

3 hours ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

Not wrong, though I'd argue that people will get annoyed quickly if you put ads on your uploaded videos and also ask for patreon money at the very same time. Keep in mind it's still the same platform on which your videos would be available, so clearly going for one or the other exclusively is a lot more "legit" than trying to double dip on the content you put out there.

 

In fact, many people think it's a nice bonus that people who monetize via patreon don't have these annoying ads in their videos, and that's worth something for sure.



I think taking the exclusivity approach might work for some, but I think it's unrealistic for others, particularly those who have a large majority of views that come from non-subscribers (i.e., viewers that find your videos via search/suggested). If you're not leveraging ads in that case, then you're losing out on significant revenue from people that will never think to support you on a site like Patreon.

For everyone else, they have the usual ways of countering that perceived "double dipping" (i.e., using an ad blocker along with ignoring things like affiliate, merch and sponsor links). On that note though, is it really double dipping if, say, you have to see ads on YouTube, yet don't support that creator on Patreon? I'd get that if you paid towards a Patreon and the creator just posted their standard ad-based videos there, but a common practice is to gives Patrons access to videos early and ad-free. For everyone else, it's business as usual.

Actually, personally speaking, I have stopped supporting a creator on Patreon because they were only offering ad-free videos at a certain tier, so I do understand that perspective. I just watch their content normally now when it hits on YouTube (they still get compensated since I use YouTube Red/Premium. No ads for me, but they get a larger kickback from Red/Premium views).

4 hours ago, Doomkid said:

What's worse, when you do appeal it, it asks the so-called copyright holder to review the fucking claim. That's right, not an objective 3rd party, just "Eh we'll see if they drop the copyright claim, but if not, it's you who bites the bag". YouTube just assumes honesty on the part of the entity making the claim. That fucking baffles me - surely it's illegal, or at least a legal grey area, for an entity to claim copyright for a video (and thus claim all the ad revenue) when that entity does not, in fact, own anything present in the damn video.

You're right. That is illegal, and it's called Copyfraud. The problem is there isn't much enforcement against this.

It should be possible to take it to the courts, but you would need some serious evidence and a damn good lawyer in all probability, assuming everything goes the way it's supposed to, and it might be possible to force Youtube (among others) to stop doing this shit.

Frankly, I hate Youtube, I use it to keep up with on let's player and upload the handful of videos I record, I'd rather have an "open-source" alternative (think Linux vs Windows) that will actually review the copyright claims and bring them to light if they're fraudulent.

But that's probably a pipe dream, as well.

3 hours ago, Memfis said:

Who exactly watched ads on YouTube anyway? Like really?

Noooooooooooooooooooooo Memfis you're not supposed to use adblock :(

Anyway the youtubers(lol) seem to make at least some money, I guess plenty of pleople watch the ads in fact.

Watching ads is how you pay for the free content. By blocking the ads, you are basically stealing the content. On the other hand, I never click on an ad because that could lead to malware.

1 hour ago, Empyre said:

Watching ads is how you pay for the free content. By blocking the ads, you are basically stealing the content. On the other hand, I never click on an ad because that could lead to malware.

Fuck ads.....really, I prefer to "steal" the content rather than watching them. And I agree that those are malicious.

1 hour ago, Empyre said:

Watching ads is how you pay for the free content. By blocking the ads, you are basically stealing the content. On the other hand, I never click on an ad because that could lead to malware.

Basically this. When you use an ad blocker, no one gets paid (not the creator, not YouTube). Servers don't run, expand, maintain, or pay for themselves. That's what the ads are for.

The fact Youtube monetization exists is awesome. I'm sorry its not easy enough for you to make money playing a 25 year old game. One of my friends likes to complain about how he used to make $3,000 per 1 million views, now he only makes $1,000. Some Youtubers are moving over to Amazon prime, but I think they have edited content rather than Let's Plays.

I have Youtube Red and I watch your channel. I do Youtube Red for the Google Play Music service, but not having Youtube ads makes it well worth the price as well.

Patreon is the real plague of Youtube. Why sit through 5 seconds of a 30 second ad when you can sit through 3 minutes of Patreon thank yous for a 3 minute video? Some Youtubers start the videos with the thank yous rather than ending with them. Others have a scrolling ticker tape at the bottom of the videos with personal messages because they have so many to thank.

10 hours ago, amackert said:

 

Basically this. When you use an ad blocker, no one gets paid (not the creator, not YouTube). Servers don't run, expand, maintain, or pay for themselves. That's what the ads are for.

More importantly, animated/video (flash, html5, javascript) advertisements are the vector by which the vast majority of malware gets on a machine, mainly due to the lackadaisical security vetting on the part of the companies serving the ads. You should care about this, and stop worrying about some random youtube celebrity getting their tenth-of-a-cent