YouTube is a money machine for Google. While actual numbers are hard to come by, it’s estimated that the online video hub brings in upwards of $15 billion annually.With that much money at stake, it’s not surprising that its business model continues to put profits over people.
YouTube content is often offensive, violent and awful
In 2015, following the on-air murder of a television reporter and her cameraman, gruesome videos of the event were quickly posted on YouTube with with ads alongside. I wrote a post about it at the time:
Ads for Chile’s Restaurant and Aria Resort appear on clip of WDBJ murder.
It’s no secret that YouTube slaps advertising on pretty much anything without regard for subject matter or ownership, but making money off of last week’s on-air murder of WDBJ-TV reporter Alison Parker and her cameraman Adam Ward is a new low. A source tipped me off to the fact that a number of opportunistic (and shameless) YouTube “partners” have uploaded and monetized clips of both the station’s live broadcast and the video taken, (and uploaded to Twitter) by the deranged murderer as he executed the two journalists during a televised live-shot for the morning news.
4 years later, it’s as if nothing as changed.
This week Andy Parker, the murdered reporter’s father, wrote an emotional piece for the Washington Post describing how YouTube/Google’s business practices continue to damage his family to this day.
After establishing a foundation to support arts programs for underserved children in Virginia and advocating for gun safety to prevent events like that which took his daughter’s life, his family has become the target of conspiracy theorists.
They have taken the gruesome footage of my daughter’s murder, edited it into videos selling these lies and flooded YouTube with hate-filled diatribes maligning my family.
The vitriol directed at me and my family has been unbearable. So I was outraged to discover that recommendation algorithms for YouTube and its parent company, Google, have bolstered these conspiracy theories.
Parker puts blame for this clearly at the Google’s door, “As much as I want to blame the sick creators for the pain I feel, I blame Google even more. By surfacing this content and profiting from the data Google collects from those who view it, Google is monetizing Alison’s death and our family’s pain. “
Of course the Parker family’s experience is only example one in a long list of bad behavior by YouTube. In the past, the company has monetized everything from terrorist training videos to scenes promoting the sexual exploitation of children.
Algorithms making kiddie porn easy to access and money for YouTube
Just this past month, YouTube’s algorithms have come under more direct fire for “facilitating the sexual exploitation of minors” after YouTuber Matt Watson posted a video demonstrating how YouTube’s suggested videos took users to a series of videos showing children in various states of undress which featured comments with links to child pornography could be found. Watson told ArsTechnica:
“YouTube’s recommended algorithm is facilitating pedophiles’ ability to connect with each other, trade contact info, and link to actual CP [child pornography] in the comments,” Watson reported. “I can consistently get access to it from vanilla, never-before-used YouTube accounts via innocuous videos in less than ten minutes, in sometimes less than five clicks.”
Wired also ran an extensive report on YouTube’s ongoing porn video monetization problem and how pedophiles use its comment section as a virtual bulletin board.
Videos of children showing their exposed buttocks, underwear and genitals are racking up millions of views on YouTube – with the site displaying advertising from major cosmetics and car brands alongside the content.
Comments beneath scores of videos appear to show paedophiles sharing timestamps for parts of the videos where exposed genitals can be seen, or when a child does the splits or lifts up their top to show their nipples. Some of the children in the videos, most of whom are girls, appear to be as young as five. Many of the videos have hundreds of thousands, if not millions of views, with hundreds of comments.
Of course, when confronted with such evidence Google belatedly responds, but only in the short term. For a company with such massive reach and resources, why can’t safeguards be put in place to prevent such behavior? They certainly have the means. What the company lacks is the will. Clearly, for Google/YouTube, it pays to look the other way.
YouTube prefers money to the moral high road
We’ve seen this YouTube’s approach to online piracy of films and music for years and despite repeated calls for change, we’ve only seen these insidious tendrils of exploitation for the sake of profit continue to grow, not recede. Will Washington ever wake up? Well, maybe.
Today Senator Elizabeth Warren announced that if she’s elected president she will break up the big tech companies like Google and Facebook. In Medium post published today describing her plan she characterized the issue this way:
As these companies have grown larger and more powerful, they have used their resources and control over the way we use the Internet to squash small businesses and innovation, and substitute their own financial interests for the broader interests of the American people. To restore the balance of power in our democracy, to promote competition, and to ensure that the next generation of technology innovation is as vibrant as the last, it’s time to break up our biggest tech companies.
Warren’s proposal is an important beginning. It’s long past time for the U.S. government to take action against a tech industry that has managed to avoid any semblance of regulation by repeated the tired mantra that reasonable regulation would “stifle innovation.” In fact, regulating the industry would do the opposite. It would create a fair and sustainable marketplace not dependent on the exploitation of others for its success.
Innovation takes many forms. The version of “innovation” created and currently promoted by the likes of YouTube is not necessarily one a civilized society should aspire to.
YouTube and Russian “aggregator,” piracy partners in crime?
When a bad guy steals your car stereo, to turn it into easy money, he often turn it over to a “fence” in exchange for quick cash. Wikipedia explains this criminal workflow this way:
A fence is an individual who knowingly buys stolen property for later resale, sometimes in a legitimate market. The fence thus acts as a middleman between thieves and the eventual buyers of stolen goods who may not be aware that the goods are stolen. As a verb, the word describes the behaviour of the thief in the transaction: The burglar fenced the stolen radio. This sense of the term came from thieves’ slang, first attested c. 1700, from the notion of such transactions taking place under defence of secrecy.[1]
The fence is able to make a profit with stolen merchandise because he is able to pay thieves a very low price for stolen goods…
It’s no surprise that in this digital age, criminals have turned their attention to dealing in stolen digital goods. Instead of car stereos thieves steal movies, music, etc. and, using the web advertising, convert it into income. It’s low risk way of making money and there’s a myriad of ways it can be done.
Deposed cyberlocker king Kim Dotcom did it with his Megaupload piracy pyramid scheme, but there are plenty of others who have perfected variations of this illicit business model along the way. Many, seemingly legit companies like Google have perfected the infrastructure and revenue formula so as to make it routine, right under our noses.
Most consider Google’s YouTube to be a raging success. After all, where else can you find the best cat videos or latest PR packages from ISIS terrorists in one place? It’s also a great place to “fence” stolen movies and music.
…YouTube will bring in $5.9 billion in revenue this year, rising to $8.9 billion by 2016, with 53% of that paid out to users who provide the clips.
In cases where users upload work they actually own rights to, it’s great. Problem is, a lot of those people collectively pocketing 3.1 billion–in many cases–don’t own what they upload. These leeches set up channels, upload pirated content, and make money. Of course, YouTube as enabler-in-chief still pockets the majority of the profits, rightful ownership be damned.
When placing a myriad of advertisements adjacent or on videos, YouTube makes ZERO effort to vet the content for ownership. It doesn’t require any proof that uploaders own rights; it just assumes they will honor copyright law. Yeah, just like a fence assumes that every car stereo he receives wasn’t stolen from someone else.
When posed with the question as to whether it can “determine copyright ownership” YouTube justifies this hands off approach with this carefully crafted response:
YouTube isn’t able to mediate rights ownership disputes. When we receive a complete takedown notice, we remove the content as the law requires. When we receive a valid counter notification we forward it to the person who requested the removal. After this, it’s up to the parties involved to resolve the issue in court.
Mediating a dispute once something is uploaded is NOT equivalent to vetting content ownership prior to upload, yet YouTube apologists continue to claim that to do so would “stifle innovation” and “limit free expression” online. I’m not entirely sure how cracking down on thievery stifles innovation, but it makes for a good soundbite doesn’t it? How would vetting certain content before users are allowed to profit from it limit anything, aside from criminal behavior? Oh right, it could lower profits. That’s what this is really about.
YouTube claims be the broadcaster for the 21st century, yet can you imagine NBC airing a movie and earning income from advertising in the process without having cleared the rights prior to doing so? When my documentary aired on various PBS stations I had to document ownership and submit detailed paperwork that verified I had permission to use various works of music used throughout the piece. When we produced our feature film we had to purchase errors and omissions insurance and license all the music used in order to protect the rights of other creators.
These practices are the cost of doing business in the creative world yet YouTube doesn’t have to do the same? Why are companies like YouTube, that generate income by screening created by others, considered exempt from standard broadcast practices? Why is their bad business behavior exempt? Why are such practices on internet considered sacrosanct?
For Google, protecting innovation means protecting profits
It’s no wonder the powers that be at Google/YouTube fight tooth and nail against any effort to rein in this copyright-evading cash cow. Since enforcing copyright would put a serious dent in YouTube’s profits, you can bet that Google will move heaven and earth to prevent that from happening. Their apologists (and lobbyists) have mastered the spin that warn enforcing copyright (in a meaningful way) is a threat to innovation. In Google parlance innovation is merely a code for growing profits.
Other companies profit too. The graphic below illustrates how the Russian aggregator, Quiz Group, either creates its own pirate puppet users, or works with them to game the YouTube monetization system by monetizing pirated movies. By joining Quiz Group YouTube users don’t need an AdSense account. In exchange for giving up 20% of any income earned, they can easily earn money when by uploading illegal content.
Ford, Microsoft, CVS, LinkedIn, Dodge, North Face, Geico and more put money in pirate pockets
On its website, Quiz Group lays claim to 5 BILLION monthly views and more than 15,000 channels. I can only imagine how many of those billions of views come from stolen goods. Advertisements, 30 seconds and longer, from LinkedIn, Ford, Dodge Ram trucks, North Face stream before the full-movie appears. Cha’-ching…money, money, money…
This pirated movie was uploaded by a user who’s part of Quiz Group, a Russian aggregator that makes monetizing YouTube videos easy.
Surely YouTube has received thousands of DMCA notices linked to videos monetized by Quiz Group, but since it only penalizes individual users (and not the masterminds) Quiz Group can continue to rake in the dough alongside Google.
Quiz Group sports its own YouTube page and claims to be “YouTube certified” and on its own website recruits with this claim, offering to cut through any copyright red tape:
…we are aware of all the problems you may face around YouTube and we know the best solutions as well. We understand how it hurts, having third party claims, facing conflicts and resolving strikes. We have been through all these stories many times and learned our lessons based on the most complicated scenarios. We have converted our experience into effective tools, you may move forward smoothly and with a high confidence, grow really fast within YouTube environment.
Clearly YouTube’s standards aren’t particularly high if they allow a shadowy this Russian piracy-for-profit model to thrive. Perhaps YouTube’s standards for “certification” mandate moneymaking over respecting copyrights owned by others ?
I attempted to “join” Quiz Group to determine how they vet affiliates. In order to be considered, I had to give them access to a Google account. It took only seconds, but not surprisingly I was rejected for not having enough subscribers (10) nor views (1,000) within the last month.
Of course I’d like to speak with a Google representatives to ask why the company develops, and sustains business relationships with self-described “YouTube” channel aggregators like Quiz Group but folks at company headquarters won’t pick up phones or respond to emails from people like me. Stonewalling is another corporate skill they’ve mastered with virtual moats encircling their shiny corporate offices in Mountain View.
After all, why shouldn’t Google look the other way when this criminal enterprise is mutually beneficial?
For the record, I easily found other YouTube users linked to Quiz Group engaged in the same scheme (see example below). Given it took me only a couple searches to find them, I don’t imagine it’s stretching the truth to assume that a good number, if not the majority of Quiz Groups affiliates are in the business of making money off pirated uploads.
I wonder how North Face, Dodge, Amazon, Microsoft, Airborne, Geico, LinkedIn, CVS and Ford feel about their advertising appearing on these stolen movies? Are they OK with YouTube, Quiz Group and this pirate making money off stolen movies (and them)?
Why don’t advertisers pressure Google to do better? YouTube could start by applying the 3 strikes policy to those, like aggregators like Quiz Group, that routinely monetize infringing content, not just penalize the (often fake) users that upload it. There are also numerous other technological safeguards that could be implemented to prevent this abuse so why don’t advertisers demand better?
We constantly hear from representatives their industry, how concerned they are about ad sponsored piracy abuse. But, as I’ve noted repeatedly on this blog, so far the advertiser’s words are a million times louder than their actions. Industry reps could exert pressure to ensure ad profits go to rights holders, but it would require some effort–obviously more than they seem willing to give.
There are also tons of YouTube pirates who bypass third party aggregators and pocket cash directly via their own AdSense accounts. This isn’t the first time I’ve written about this scenario on YouTube. Time passes, but nothing changes.
Here’s a pirated copy of Paramount’s “Sliver” starring Sharon Stone. The film has been viewed over a million times earning profits for YouTube and the user who uploaded it without permission.
YouTube finds a Safe Harbor to protect its piracy profits
Aside from the advertisers, the only other way to exert pressure to change can come from Washington. Is this dirty profit scenario was what lawmakers had in mind when they crafted the “Safe Harbor” provisions of the DMCA. It’s one thing to offer service providers (like YouTube) protection from legal liability from “consequences of their users actions”, but does that also mean it’s OK to (knowingly) profit from illegal activity?
The DMCA states services providers have to “terminate” accounts of repeat infringers, but in the meantime let the tainted profits flow? It’s OK to be a criminal as long as you don’t get caught? This seems to be Google/ YouTube’s modus operandi.
I wonder if Congressman Darrell Issa, in his new role as chair of the subcommittee on the Internet, Courts, and Intellectual Property,will hold hearings on these types of nefarious business practices? He’s repeatedly voiced concern over patent trolls, what about pirate trolls? It’s been reported that discussion regarding copyright will remain the purview of the full committee, so perhaps such discussions will be handled there.
Until something changes, YouTube’s eco-system will remain a cesspool rather than a legitimate and laudable business model. For all the great stuff streaming on its pages, there’s a lot of s*&^ too…and because it’s YouTube practices business are intentionally nubilous, those who do follow the rules–like filmmakers and musicians–continue to be victimized. YouTube is the Wild West, a swamp of online fraud, where profits soar, often for those who are least deserving–morality be damned…
Last week Nintendo began notifying YouTube users that had uploaded content containing footage from its games that it would be claiming the videos for purposes of monetization. It’s fairly routine on YouTube for content owners like musicians and movie companies to claim and monetize user uploaded content which they own the rights to.
In a statement released via Game Front Nintendo officials explained their rationale this way:
As part of our on-going push to ensure Nintendo content is shared across social media channels in an appropriate and safe way, we became a YouTube partner and as such in February 2013 we registered our copyright content in the YouTube database. For most fan videos this will not result in any changes, however, for those videos featuring Nintendo-owned content, such as images or audio of a certain length, adverts will now appear at the beginning, next to or at the end of the clips. We continually want our fans to enjoy sharing Nintendo content on YouTube, and that is why, unlike other entertainment companies, we have chosen not to block people using our intellectual property.
For those familiar with YouTube’s Content ID system (explained in an earlier blog post) Nintendo’s position doesn’t seem far-fetched. However, for many Nintendo fans who earn money off uploaded excerpts of their Nintendo-based “let’s play” game scenarios to YouTube, the news was met with outrage. The Game Front story linked to a Facebook post by Zack Scott, a YouTube user impacted by Nintendo’s move. Scott wrote:
With that said, I think filing claims against LPers is backwards. Video games aren’t like movies or TV. Each play-through is a unique audiovisual experience. When I see a film that someone else is also watching, I don’t need to see it again. When I see a game that someone else is playing, I want to play that game for myself! Sure, there may be some people who watch games rather than play them, but are those people even gamers?
Now, while it is true that each gamer controls the game, it’s hard to get around the fact that the game infrastructure, graphics, characters, etc. is all owned by Nintendo. Just because one can make the game scenarios play out according to a player’s choices does not appear to trump this truth, at least not in legal terms.
For a legal perspective on Nintendo’s move I asked Terry Hart, who blogs at Copyhype and serves as Director of Legal Policy at the Copyright Alliance, for his opinion:
You are correct in that Nintendo has legal grounds to claim “Let’s Play” videos. In Red Baron-Franklin Park v. Taito Corp. (1989), the Fourth Circuit held that the operation of a video game in a public place is a public performance, one of the exclusive rights of a copyright owner. Congress added an exception to the public performance right the following year to reverse the decision (17 U.S.C. § 109(e)), but the exception applies only to “electronic audiovisual game[s] intended for use in coin-operated equipment.” Any operation of a video game to the public outside that exception is a public performance, and this would include a performance made via a site like YouTube.
For their part, gamers also argue that Nintendo will lose fans (and market share) by making such a move, but that threat seems overblown. Nintendo is not blocking the videos. Gamers will still be allowed to upload their game footage (and commentary) but it will be Nintendo–not the uploader–who reaps the financial reward.
On YouTube you’ll find any number of video/music mash-ups monetized by the artists (Justin Bieber, One Direction, Kelly Clarkson, etc.) and distributors that own or license the content. Few argue with that. Why should Nintendo-generated fan content be any different?
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YouTube has remained mum so far. They pocket their share of the ad revenue either way so it’s a wash for their bottom line.There are YouTube users who try to make money by uploading and monetizing content (like movie trailers) owned by others, but they have no legal leg to stand on. Some argue, like the gamers have, that the uploads generate more “exposure” for the content, but its an argument that falls flat. If you don’t own the material, you don’t have a right to make money off it
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As an indie film and broadcast journalism veteran, I'll share my perspectives on issues of interest to the creative community and beyond--Ellen Seidler
