6 ms·

The Fine Bros abandon attempt to license reaction videos after criticism

47 points by ing33k 11y ago

goldenkey 11y ago
I had no idea who these clowns were before. I'd wager that they make some really powerful partnerships in the near future enabled by the publicity
- bdcravens 11y ago
  They had some big partnerships before this. They did "reaction videos" for movies, brands, etc: https://www.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/43g6em/fine_brothers_sponsor_list/ https://www.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/43g6em/fine_brothe... I think the risk was losing those sponsors due to the backlash to their licensing plans.
  - goldenkey 11y ago
    When I made my comment, it was with the knowledge of the partnerships you mentioned above. To add some knowledge to the conversation, they also netted a show on TruTV called Six Degrees of Everything. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Degrees_of_Everything https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Degrees_of_Everything I still mean what I said, they potentially will get contacted by people with too much money on their hands, to try to capitalize on their new publicity & media spotlight. The publicity probably helped them if anything.. They play the whole "we are sorry we were misinterpreted, oops, we are going to revert/retract the trademarks and the react world idea." And no one can really say that the fine bros were purely malice.. So you might consider it bad publicity, but really, it was good publicity. All they had to do was retract an idea that would have probably failed anyways. They went from YouTube famous to actual celebrity / news famous. That's not an easy line to cross.
CryoLogic 11y ago
Lots of people have been creating threads about The Fine Bros, but I think we need to be angry at YouTube too. YouTube makes it exceptionally easy to file takedowns, no proof of validity required. It's literally a web form, and your videos are taken down regardless of who requests it or why - until you prove otherwise. The process can take weeks to months for a YouTube representative to allow you to appeal your case, and in some situations you can't even appeal it (if you have appealed recently, etc.) In my experience, I had a number of videos taken down by a teenager because he wanted his (similar videos) to rank above mine in search. It took three months to get my videos back online, the guy trolled me over email and after YouTube put them back online (fyi, they don't compensate your revenues) - they let the other guy who falsified his claims just keep making videos like he was previously. YouTube is not an open, or fair platform like it used to strive to be. It is now very much a revenue stream where creators (who bring traffic to the site) are often disregarded and/or considered disposable.
- malka 11y ago
  Since Youtube does not seem to give a damn about it, why not doing it in reverse ? If enough people start abusing this shit, Youtube will have to do something about it.
  - CryoLogic 11y ago
    A lot of people do abuse it. YouTube is just so massive it would have to be a huge amount of people. Here's the form: https://www.youtube.com/copyright_complaint_form https://www.youtube.com/copyright_complaint_form Click "copyright infringement" and "infringing on me", add the target video's URL and it will be taken down automatically. It won't be restored until the appeal process is finished (usually several months).
    - uremog 11y ago
      So could most of youtube be automated down with this?
      - dawnbreez 11y ago
        Theoretically.
      - grecy 11y ago
        That sounds like a fun weekend project to bring attention to the problem...
      - dogma1138 11y ago
        Yes and no. While most of the content on YouTube is just "random junk" the most watched / popular content belongs to large networks, large networks work with YouTube through their content ID program which is treated slightly differently when it comes to DMCA claims. Things get slightly more tricky because videos can have Multiple content ID's tagged to them by YouTube so if you upload a video with various music clips one owner can decide to mute it while another decides to block it completely. That said if you are an original content creator once you've submitted content to YT's content ID program and you prove that you own exclusive rights for that content it pretty much protects you from the normal DMCA process.
feintruled 11y ago
This was so misjudged it beggars belief. The video is down now but if you watch the original (ironically preserved via other Youtuber's reaction videos) it reveals two guys who drank long and deep of the corporate Kool-aid, spewing marketing buzzwords and railing against content thieves, oblivious to the irony that a) they based their content off unlicensed content (fair use of videos they got 'reactions' to) b) the reaction format predates them
- dwild 11y ago
  Are they really using content unlicensed? I feel like that would be an awful risk to take when it's so easy to do a content id (they did it themselves multiple time) and take all their revenue or even simply force it to be take down. They could easily license any video for a couple hundred or a revenue sharing model.
- exelius 11y ago
  IMO this is the video equivalent of a lot of the early Internet software patents. They took something that was a natural evolution of a larger community and tried to seize the intellectual property around it. I'm not even sure that what they were trying to trademark would be a valid trademark. But beyond that, WTF were they thinking? On YouTube, your viewers are younger kids who are also creating their own videos. If they're really a fan of your content, they're going to copy you - shamelessly. Did they really think their viewers were just going to sign over royalties from their videos to the Fine Bros and not be pissed off about it? Is it really a good idea as an entertainer to go after your most dedicated fans?
  - dwild 11y ago
    They never went after their fans. That's the hypothetical scenarios most people were afraid of. They had one angry twit against Ellen, they had some weird take down (which didn't need theses trademarks either). All I've seen them trying is to allow people to legitimately do a copy of their show. I wouldn't never try to copy that format, I wouldn't be afraid to make my own "react to" but I would try to be different, original, with the concept. Having access to their format, their contents, etc... that could be a good way to try, to start, a way that I wouldn't dare taking because of copyright, but would be interesting for simply 20% of literally not much revenue. Stopping React World does nothing else than stopping legitimate copy...
wnevets 11y ago
I've never heard of them before this attempt. Any PR is good PR?
- krapp 11y ago
  Their Youtube channel has 13 million subscribers and most of their videos top a million views in a couple of days, with their most popular videos exceeding 30 million views. This isn't an upstart channel trying to get noticed - Wikipedia ranks them at #16 across the entire site[0]. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_most_subscribed_users_on_YouTube https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_most_subscribed_us...

47 points by ing33k 11y ago

I had no idea who these clowns were before. I'd wager that they make some really powerful partnerships in the near future enabled by the publicity

bdcravens 11y ago
They had some big partnerships before this. They did "reaction videos" for movies, brands, etc: https://www.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/43g6em/fine_brothers_sponsor_list/ https://www.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/43g6em/fine_brothe... I think the risk was losing those sponsors due to the backlash to their licensing plans.
- goldenkey 11y ago
  When I made my comment, it was with the knowledge of the partnerships you mentioned above. To add some knowledge to the conversation, they also netted a show on TruTV called Six Degrees of Everything. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Degrees_of_Everything https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Degrees_of_Everything I still mean what I said, they potentially will get contacted by people with too much money on their hands, to try to capitalize on their new publicity & media spotlight. The publicity probably helped them if anything.. They play the whole "we are sorry we were misinterpreted, oops, we are going to revert/retract the trademarks and the react world idea." And no one can really say that the fine bros were purely malice.. So you might consider it bad publicity, but really, it was good publicity. All they had to do was retract an idea that would have probably failed anyways. They went from YouTube famous to actual celebrity / news famous. That's not an easy line to cross.

CryoLogic 11y ago

Lots of people have been creating threads about The Fine Bros, but I think we need to be angry at YouTube too. YouTube makes it exceptionally easy to file takedowns, no proof of validity required. It's literally a web form, and your videos are taken down regardless of who requests it or why - until you prove otherwise. The process can take weeks to months for a YouTube representative to allow you to appeal your case, and in some situations you can't even appeal it (if you have appealed recently, etc.) In my experience, I had a number of videos taken down by a teenager because he wanted his (similar videos) to rank above mine in search. It took three months to get my videos back online, the guy trolled me over email and after YouTube put them back online (fyi, they don't compensate your revenues) - they let the other guy who falsified his claims just keep making videos like he was previously. YouTube is not an open, or fair platform like it used to strive to be. It is now very much a revenue stream where creators (who bring traffic to the site) are often disregarded and/or considered disposable.

malka 11y ago
Since Youtube does not seem to give a damn about it, why not doing it in reverse ? If enough people start abusing this shit, Youtube will have to do something about it.
- CryoLogic 11y ago
  A lot of people do abuse it. YouTube is just so massive it would have to be a huge amount of people. Here's the form: https://www.youtube.com/copyright_complaint_form https://www.youtube.com/copyright_complaint_form Click "copyright infringement" and "infringing on me", add the target video's URL and it will be taken down automatically. It won't be restored until the appeal process is finished (usually several months).
  - uremog 11y ago
    So could most of youtube be automated down with this?
    - dawnbreez 11y ago
      Theoretically.
    - grecy 11y ago
      That sounds like a fun weekend project to bring attention to the problem...
    - dogma1138 11y ago
      Yes and no. While most of the content on YouTube is just "random junk" the most watched / popular content belongs to large networks, large networks work with YouTube through their content ID program which is treated slightly differently when it comes to DMCA claims. Things get slightly more tricky because videos can have Multiple content ID's tagged to them by YouTube so if you upload a video with various music clips one owner can decide to mute it while another decides to block it completely. That said if you are an original content creator once you've submitted content to YT's content ID program and you prove that you own exclusive rights for that content it pretty much protects you from the normal DMCA process.

feintruled 11y ago

This was so misjudged it beggars belief. The video is down now but if you watch the original (ironically preserved via other Youtuber's reaction videos) it reveals two guys who drank long and deep of the corporate Kool-aid, spewing marketing buzzwords and railing against content thieves, oblivious to the irony that a) they based their content off unlicensed content (fair use of videos they got 'reactions' to) b) the reaction format predates them

dwild 11y ago
Are they really using content unlicensed? I feel like that would be an awful risk to take when it's so easy to do a content id (they did it themselves multiple time) and take all their revenue or even simply force it to be take down. They could easily license any video for a couple hundred or a revenue sharing model.
exelius 11y ago
IMO this is the video equivalent of a lot of the early Internet software patents. They took something that was a natural evolution of a larger community and tried to seize the intellectual property around it. I'm not even sure that what they were trying to trademark would be a valid trademark. But beyond that, WTF were they thinking? On YouTube, your viewers are younger kids who are also creating their own videos. If they're really a fan of your content, they're going to copy you - shamelessly. Did they really think their viewers were just going to sign over royalties from their videos to the Fine Bros and not be pissed off about it? Is it really a good idea as an entertainer to go after your most dedicated fans?
- dwild 11y ago
  They never went after their fans. That's the hypothetical scenarios most people were afraid of. They had one angry twit against Ellen, they had some weird take down (which didn't need theses trademarks either). All I've seen them trying is to allow people to legitimately do a copy of their show. I wouldn't never try to copy that format, I wouldn't be afraid to make my own "react to" but I would try to be different, original, with the concept. Having access to their format, their contents, etc... that could be a good way to try, to start, a way that I wouldn't dare taking because of copyright, but would be interesting for simply 20% of literally not much revenue. Stopping React World does nothing else than stopping legitimate copy...

wnevets 11y ago

I've never heard of them before this attempt. Any PR is good PR?

krapp 11y ago
Their Youtube channel has 13 million subscribers and most of their videos top a million views in a couple of days, with their most popular videos exceeding 30 million views. This isn't an upstart channel trying to get noticed - Wikipedia ranks them at #16 across the entire site[0]. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_most_subscribed_users_on_YouTube https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_most_subscribed_us...