Youtube but not the videos

[Boyobmas]

Just when I thought Youtube couldn't get an worse...

[Mass Distraction]

Just... Just why do people do this. Why. Why do you feel the need to be such extreme douchebags. It's almost like the whole King trying to profit on the words "candy" and "saga" and Sony trying to trademark "Let's Play" hadn't taught these assholes anything. Well done. Just well done. Dicks.

[SamuraiGaiden]

The Fine Brothers attempt at Trademarking was actually a good idea. Any large organization needs to protect their business procedures.

What everyone is missing is that they weren't trademarking React videos, per se. They were trademarking titles and specificities. So you can't totally recreate their videos, namely Elders React..., Teens React..., and Kids React...
It protected them so that nobody else could use the same, or similar, graphics as their videos.
Imagine I may make a Kids React to [Whatever] video and I use a logo real similar to theirs. Like the same as theirs, but different colors kind of stuff. And my videos suuuucks! The average Youtuber watches it and thinks, "Wow these React videos were cool before, but they have really dropped in quality. I don't think I'm gonna watch any more of them."
So because of a cheap knockoff, they will get less views. Less views is less money.

Their actual mistake was in customer involvement. They should have quietly trademarked everything and not said anything about it. Wait a few months to a year, then create their React World plan and market it as, "We want to help people make React videos." Instead of the way they did it, "Hey we just legally protected ourselves, but we want to let you in on the work so we can share in the profit." That was stupid on their parts.

And now they've gone so far as to cancel their trademarks and remove their YouTube Content ID markers, which means they have almost zero protection for their products. I can now download one of their videos, post it back up on my channel, and monetize it...and there's little they can do about it.

Before this whole fiasco did you know that the Fine Brothers did the React video things? I didn't. I knew of the React videos, I've watched a few of them, but I wasn't a subscriber and I didn't realize what channel was making them.
Their biggest mistake was moving too fast and being too open with their customer base.

To give an example...a local grocery store in my area has a deal with a local gas station. For every $50 you buy in groceries you get a few cents off per gallon of gas, up to a maximum of 30 gallons. Everybody loves it. Nobody noticed the fact that grocery store raised their prices by between 5 and 7 cents per item. You can see it. One of the franchises in a neighboring town doesn't participate and their prices are all lower, because they don't have the 'fuel overhead'.
But the store never mentioned the price increase, so nobody cares that they're actually paying more now.
The Fine Brothers should have never trusted their customers, that was just silly.

[Mass Distraction]

The problem here is that they are acting like hypocrites. Besides, trademarking reaction videos would be like trademarking let's plays. It would screw people over everywhere for an idea that is not original in any way. They can trademark their own show, sure, but they shouldn't try to trademark the concept. Trademarking specific words is even worse.

[SamuraiGaiden]

I don't really see the hypocrisy, if you can point it out, I'll comment on my thoughts of it.

Besides, trademarking reaction videos would be like trademarking let's plays.

I've never, personally, understood this argument. Does that mean you don't think you can trademark TV shows, either? Look at the reality show, Survivor. That's a trademark. Not to say you can't make a new show where you put people on an island and make them hate each other until someone wins. You just can't call it Survivor, because the show title Survivor is trademarked.
You can't make a show that follows the exact same premise as Survivor, but set in a prison, and call it "Survivor: Prison", because you don't have the rights to the Survivor name. You can, however, create that show and call it "Prison: Can You Survive It?"
And that's what the Fine Brothers were doing...trademarking a few of their react premises. If I did a Reaction video and called it "What did these kids just see? Samurai Film Reactions" then there's nothing the Fine Brothers could have done about it. But with their trademark in place if I made the same video and called it "Kids React to Samurai Films" then I'm infringing on their trademark and they can either forcefully monetize my video and take the proceeds, or get the video taken down.

Trademarking specific words is even worse.

That is...literally what trademarking is. You can't trademark an idea, only a particularly series of words/pictures/techniques. For instance, let us take a look at my own YouTube stuff. I can trademark Samurai Gaiden. So no one else could make videos and use my logo or title their videos "Samurai Gaiden".
But I cannot trademark the broad premise of "A vaguely literate scholar of Japanese history stands in front of a camera and talks about Samurai for 8-12 minutes at a time, every first Friday of the month."
Likewise you can't actually trademark a 'React video', but you can trademark the logos and titles involved with the specific premise of "Kids React to...", "Elders React to...", and "Teens React to..."; which is what they were doing.

[Psychospacecow]

There isn't much to it. They handled it poorly and in a manner that is all encompassing and covers content created by people prior to themselves in similar manners. The issue comes in that they were trying to trademark a genre.

[Mass Distraction]

I don't really see the hypocrisy, if you can point it out, I'll comment on my thoughts of it.

Just look at the video I linked... They explain the hypocrisy part way better than I can. It is quite apparent that the Fine Bros' definition of "copying content" is quite ambiguous and could hurt a lot more people than it would help.

Not to say you can't make a new show where you put people on an island and make them hate each other until someone wins.  You just can't call it Survivor, because the show title Survivor is trademarked.

And this is exactly the problem. Seemingly, by their and their lawyers' definition, it seems like everything that has something to do with kids or elders or anything, really, reacting to something is a total copy of their content. Seriously, it's not like they are the first people ever to use the idea. Not even the first ones to make it successfully.

Trademarking specific words is even worse.

That is...literally what trademarking is.  You can't trademark an idea, only a particularly series of words/pictures/techniques.  For instance, let us take a look at my own YouTube stuff.  I can trademark Samurai Gaiden.  So no one else could make videos and use my logo or title their videos "Samurai Gaiden".
But I cannot trademark the broad premise of "A vaguely literate scholar of Japanese history stands in front of a camera and talks about Samurai for 8-12 minutes at a time, every first Friday of the month."
Likewise you can't actually trademark a 'React video', but you can trademark the logos and titles involved with the specific premise of "Kids React to...", "Elders React to...", and "Teens React to..."; which is what they were doing.

In theory you are correct but just look at how King and Sony's endeavor to trademark a simple word or concept ended up. It's way too easily abused and it is clear that the Fine Bros were on this path already.

And yes, Samurai Gaiden is something that could easily be trademarked. But, try to trademark the word "samurai" or the word "gaiden" seperately and you will have a bad time. They could have just gone and trademark the thing as simple phrases as "Kids React" and "Elders React" but no, they had to have to word "react". Not cool.

[Mass Distraction]

Youtube is going to be making some changes to their policies of acceptable content. This is honestly starting to seem like outright censorship. The worst part is that they are apparently attacking only certain channels while promoting others of similar (or worse) content.


Then there's this which honestly seems like an idea that they haven't really actually thought through. At all.

[SERIOUSLY THOUGH*]

Youtube is going to be making some changes to their policies of acceptable content. This is honestly starting to seem like outright censorship. The worst part is that they are apparently attacking only certain channels while promoting others of similar (or worse) content.


Then there's this which honestly seems like an idea that they haven't really actually thought through. At all.

I make it a personal policy not to watch any video on YouTube that has anyone pulling any kind of face on the thumbnail. If they could ban those, that would be nice.

[Mass Distraction]

Still better than using boobs in the thumbnail.

An update:

[Psychospacecow]

I don't know man. There's something magical about the legendary absurd face with boobs in thumbnail and an obnoxiously bright background.

[CLXcool]

This new policy is just getting worse. This appeared on my page today


The creator of Neurotically yours, had announced that his income from youtube has been pulled since it doesn't meet their new guidelines. Almost ALL of his videos don't meet their standards for content.

[tatochypz]

This new policy is just getting worse. This appeared on my page today


The creator of Neurotically yours, had announced that his income from youtube has been pulled since it doesn't meet their new guidelines. Almost ALL of his videos don't meet their standards for content.

Wow...just....wow. I'm at a loss for words. I knew the copyright bulls!#t was bad before, but this!? This is just ridiculous.

[CLXcool]

Yeah, it blows my mind on how youtube is literally shooting themselves off in the foot for this latest action. Jim(Foamy's creator) later posted this few second cartoon with his characters being censored.



Also. AlphaOmegaSin(he's got my respect) tackles on the subject as of now.

[Mass Distraction]

Oh I so wish TwitchYou would become a thing. Please Amazon, I know your paid video service is kinda terrible but with your Twitch knowledge you could do it.