7 ms·

Vice Media Had YouTube Shut Down My Gaming Channel Without Contacting Me

148 points by thinkingemote 8y ago

dewey 8y ago
Channel seems to be back? Or am I missing something, clicking on the "old channel" link seems to show a bunch of videos.
- goda90 8y ago
  I think it literally might have just gone back up. The discord is discussing it this very minute.
  - jerf 8y ago
    Somebody tell the author about youtube-dl.
    - AdmiralAsshat 8y ago
      Even at the highest quality, you'd only be getting Youtube's post-compression copies of the videos, no?
      - cr0sh 8y ago
        Yes...but right now the author doesn't even have that much, so anything should be a win...
      - stordoff 8y ago
        Better than nothing. If the user still has access to the account, Google Takeout lets you download the original videos IIRC.
- ehsankia 8y ago
  It irks me how, with most of these take down controversies, the creator doesn't even try contacting Youtube anymore. They go straight to making a big fiery video and post it on all social media sites. They always have bold claims with zero proof. I don't understand how the author can just assume the cause and intent of this take down when he hasn't even contacted Youtube yet. To me it sounds like a misunderstanding or bug.
  - MiddleEndian 8y ago
    Seems like the most effective way to get one's channel back.
  - highace 8y ago
    Have you ever tried contacting Google?
    - craftinator 8y ago
      Yes! It's a completely awesome and dehumanizing experience, and achieved nothing.
  - reificator 8y ago
    I've heard multiple content creators express their displeasure with effectively not being able to get a response via any support channels. These are people with plaques on their walls from YouTube for meeting subscriber thresholds, not a dude with 2 views on all their videos. If you have years of experience sending support queries to /dev/null, at what point is it okay to just start assuming it's a waste of time? 2 attempts? 10? 50?
  - CaliforniaKarl 8y ago
    Near the end of the post, the author does say: > I haven’t heard back from YouTube yet on the appeal I submitted. To be fair, we don't know how much time has elapsed between submitting the appeal and making the Medium post.
    - 8y ago
djsumdog 8y ago
Every single content creator needs to host all their videos on something that is more under their control. People need to learn how to setup PeerTube instances. I realize people are afraid they close loose subscribers/revenue, but trust me, the people who prefer PeerTube are most likely running adblockers anyway. Always host your video on an alternative network you pay someone for and have regular backups of. The time is coming when YouTube will not be a viable place for creators.
- yesco 8y ago
  >The time is coming when YouTube will not be a viable place for creators. Looks to me like it already is.
  - diminoten 8y ago
    Tell that to the thousands of creators who pay their bills with YouTube money...
    - theandrewbailey 8y ago
      "The future is already here. It's just not evenly distributed yet." Before the first adpocalypse, more people could live off Youtube revenue than do now. Youtube is going through the third or fourth adpocalypse. Those who can still live off Youtube are lucky, and should be looking to diversify their income. For everyone else, there's places like Patreon.
      - ergothus 8y ago
        I love this phrase
      - kingo55 8y ago
        There are stages of adpocalypse? Surely ad blocking would mimic the slow growth rates of browser adoption.
        8y ago
amanaplanacanal 8y ago
> I don’t keep backups of my content I think I see the biggest problem here.
- reificator 8y ago
  Part of the appeal for YouTube is that there's no storage limit or associated costs. I've spoken to YouTubers who started off keeping backups but quickly realized it was nowhere near cost effective for them to do so. And even if you do pay enough to keep those backups around, there's no way to back up the links themselves. For some videos it doesn't matter whether you reupload them or not, if it's not available at the original link it might as well still be dead.
  - nerdponx 8y ago
    Backblaze B2 is $0.005 / GB / month [0]. 1 TB of backup is $5 / month. Downloads are $0.01 / GB, so a one-time recovery of 1 TB is $10. How much raw content (in GB) does a typical Youtube content creator actually have? [0]: https://www.backblaze.com/b2/cloud-storage-pricing.html https://www.backblaze.com/b2/cloud-storage-pricing.html
    - reificator 8y ago
      I don't know the numbers exactly, but I can look at one in particular. Looks like an average of 7 videos a day at 30-60 minutes each and 60fps/1080p. That's for the last year or two at least, and overall they've been doing this for the last 8-9 years. Oh, and 4 weekly 3 hour vods exported to YouTube for archival, should be approximately the same quality settings.
      - GuiA 8y ago
        > 7 videos a day at 30-60 minutes each I think you're looking at a very extreme end of the spectrum here. Is this channel a large company focused on pushing out content? Because I have a hard time imagining how an independent creator can churn out an average of 5 hours of video a day, every day, for years on end - unless they're just wearing a GoPro and streaming their daily life. Most YouTubers I follow seem to post a 10-20 minutes video a few times a week, and even that probably counts as very active. E.g. PewDiePie, likely the most successful creator on Youtube at the moment, posts a ~15 minute video every day.
dragonwriter 8y ago
> Vice Media Had YouTube Shut Down My Gaming Channel Without Even Contacting Me Shouldn't the complaint be “YouTube shut down my gaming channel at Vice’s direction without even contacting me.”? Though I'm not sure even that is a particularly valid complaint given the authors admission that he was probably infringing the trademark: because in that case, as soon as YouTube was aware of what was going on, it was also quite likely knowingly violating trademark, and the only option that did not involve risking incurring liability was to stop doing that. Now, if there was a contractual relationship which exposed YouTube to parallel liability risk for cutting of a channel for potential infringement improperly, then they'd have to carefully weigh their action, but like every online service provider of broad public services, they've structured their contracts well to minimize liability risk for actions against their users based on site policy or legal compliance issues even when the decision is ultimately erroneous, so there's a definite assymetry in disputes even where the who is in the right is a 50/50 tossup from the info available to YouTube. Or even where the complaining party is most likely wrong, as a small risk of large damage is still a significant risk.
- ehsankia 8y ago
  Note that the author has zero proof of any of this. He just knows that his channel was deleted, and assumes everything written there. The correct approach would've been to contact Youtube and understand the situation. Since the content has nothing to do with Vice, I honestly don't see why Youtube would want to take down the content. Seeing that the channel is back up, it seems like it was indeed a misunderstanding and it has been resolved.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    > Note that the author has zero proof of any of this ml Well, yeah, I was focussing on problems with the complaint under the assumption, made for the same of discussion, that the authors interpretation of the factual events were entirely accurate.
  - tyingq 8y ago
    "Seeing that the channel is back up, it seems like it was indeed a misunderstanding and it has been resolved" A more cynical view would be that contacting YouTube has little effect. Being publicly noisy with speculation works better.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
Animats 8y ago
This is why I have "ANIMATS" as a registered trademark.
danso 8y ago
This discussion seems as good as any to post this related tweet: https://twitter.com/megtra/status/1101294091214573568 https://twitter.com/megtra/status/1101294091214573568 > Hey @YouTube you just booted me out of my youtube & all my google accounts for "impersonating" someone. My legal name IS Meghan Trainor. My website: http://meghantrainor.com http://meghantrainor.com with several decades of articles about my work. I can't even access the form to correct this! Help! (Meghan Trainor is also the name of a popular singer/songwriter) To YouTube's credit, they are responding via that Twitter (after 12+ hours). Amusingly they ask her to "send us a link to your channel URL or a video that you've posted in the past" and she can't because her Google account was also apparently suspended.

148 points by thinkingemote 8y ago

Channel seems to be back? Or am I missing something, clicking on the "old channel" link seems to show a bunch of videos.

goda90 8y ago
I think it literally might have just gone back up. The discord is discussing it this very minute.
- jerf 8y ago
  Somebody tell the author about youtube-dl.
  - AdmiralAsshat 8y ago
    Even at the highest quality, you'd only be getting Youtube's post-compression copies of the videos, no?
    - cr0sh 8y ago
      Yes...but right now the author doesn't even have that much, so anything should be a win...
    - stordoff 8y ago
      Better than nothing. If the user still has access to the account, Google Takeout lets you download the original videos IIRC.
ehsankia 8y ago
It irks me how, with most of these take down controversies, the creator doesn't even try contacting Youtube anymore. They go straight to making a big fiery video and post it on all social media sites. They always have bold claims with zero proof. I don't understand how the author can just assume the cause and intent of this take down when he hasn't even contacted Youtube yet. To me it sounds like a misunderstanding or bug.
- MiddleEndian 8y ago
  Seems like the most effective way to get one's channel back.
- highace 8y ago
  Have you ever tried contacting Google?
  - craftinator 8y ago
    Yes! It's a completely awesome and dehumanizing experience, and achieved nothing.
- reificator 8y ago
  I've heard multiple content creators express their displeasure with effectively not being able to get a response via any support channels. These are people with plaques on their walls from YouTube for meeting subscriber thresholds, not a dude with 2 views on all their videos. If you have years of experience sending support queries to /dev/null, at what point is it okay to just start assuming it's a waste of time? 2 attempts? 10? 50?
- CaliforniaKarl 8y ago
  Near the end of the post, the author does say: > I haven’t heard back from YouTube yet on the appeal I submitted. To be fair, we don't know how much time has elapsed between submitting the appeal and making the Medium post.
  - 8y ago

djsumdog 8y ago

Every single content creator needs to host all their videos on something that is more under their control. People need to learn how to setup PeerTube instances. I realize people are afraid they close loose subscribers/revenue, but trust me, the people who prefer PeerTube are most likely running adblockers anyway. Always host your video on an alternative network you pay someone for and have regular backups of. The time is coming when YouTube will not be a viable place for creators.

yesco 8y ago
>The time is coming when YouTube will not be a viable place for creators. Looks to me like it already is.
- diminoten 8y ago
  Tell that to the thousands of creators who pay their bills with YouTube money...
  - theandrewbailey 8y ago
    "The future is already here. It's just not evenly distributed yet." Before the first adpocalypse, more people could live off Youtube revenue than do now. Youtube is going through the third or fourth adpocalypse. Those who can still live off Youtube are lucky, and should be looking to diversify their income. For everyone else, there's places like Patreon.
    - ergothus 8y ago
      I love this phrase
    - kingo55 8y ago
      There are stages of adpocalypse? Surely ad blocking would mimic the slow growth rates of browser adoption.
      - 8y ago

amanaplanacanal 8y ago

> I don’t keep backups of my content I think I see the biggest problem here.

reificator 8y ago
Part of the appeal for YouTube is that there's no storage limit or associated costs. I've spoken to YouTubers who started off keeping backups but quickly realized it was nowhere near cost effective for them to do so. And even if you do pay enough to keep those backups around, there's no way to back up the links themselves. For some videos it doesn't matter whether you reupload them or not, if it's not available at the original link it might as well still be dead.
- nerdponx 8y ago
  Backblaze B2 is $0.005 / GB / month [0]. 1 TB of backup is $5 / month. Downloads are $0.01 / GB, so a one-time recovery of 1 TB is $10. How much raw content (in GB) does a typical Youtube content creator actually have? [0]: https://www.backblaze.com/b2/cloud-storage-pricing.html https://www.backblaze.com/b2/cloud-storage-pricing.html
  - reificator 8y ago
    I don't know the numbers exactly, but I can look at one in particular. Looks like an average of 7 videos a day at 30-60 minutes each and 60fps/1080p. That's for the last year or two at least, and overall they've been doing this for the last 8-9 years. Oh, and 4 weekly 3 hour vods exported to YouTube for archival, should be approximately the same quality settings.
    - GuiA 8y ago
      > 7 videos a day at 30-60 minutes each I think you're looking at a very extreme end of the spectrum here. Is this channel a large company focused on pushing out content? Because I have a hard time imagining how an independent creator can churn out an average of 5 hours of video a day, every day, for years on end - unless they're just wearing a GoPro and streaming their daily life. Most YouTubers I follow seem to post a 10-20 minutes video a few times a week, and even that probably counts as very active. E.g. PewDiePie, likely the most successful creator on Youtube at the moment, posts a ~15 minute video every day.

dragonwriter 8y ago

> Vice Media Had YouTube Shut Down My Gaming Channel Without Even Contacting Me Shouldn't the complaint be “YouTube shut down my gaming channel at Vice’s direction without even contacting me.”? Though I'm not sure even that is a particularly valid complaint given the authors admission that he was probably infringing the trademark: because in that case, as soon as YouTube was aware of what was going on, it was also quite likely knowingly violating trademark, and the only option that did not involve risking incurring liability was to stop doing that. Now, if there was a contractual relationship which exposed YouTube to parallel liability risk for cutting of a channel for potential infringement improperly, then they'd have to carefully weigh their action, but like every online service provider of broad public services, they've structured their contracts well to minimize liability risk for actions against their users based on site policy or legal compliance issues even when the decision is ultimately erroneous, so there's a definite assymetry in disputes even where the who is in the right is a 50/50 tossup from the info available to YouTube. Or even where the complaining party is most likely wrong, as a small risk of large damage is still a significant risk.

ehsankia 8y ago
Note that the author has zero proof of any of this. He just knows that his channel was deleted, and assumes everything written there. The correct approach would've been to contact Youtube and understand the situation. Since the content has nothing to do with Vice, I honestly don't see why Youtube would want to take down the content. Seeing that the channel is back up, it seems like it was indeed a misunderstanding and it has been resolved.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > Note that the author has zero proof of any of this ml Well, yeah, I was focussing on problems with the complaint under the assumption, made for the same of discussion, that the authors interpretation of the factual events were entirely accurate.
- tyingq 8y ago
  "Seeing that the channel is back up, it seems like it was indeed a misunderstanding and it has been resolved" A more cynical view would be that contacting YouTube has little effect. Being publicly noisy with speculation works better.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

Animats 8y ago

This is why I have "ANIMATS" as a registered trademark.

danso 8y ago

This discussion seems as good as any to post this related tweet: https://twitter.com/megtra/status/1101294091214573568 https://twitter.com/megtra/status/1101294091214573568 > Hey @YouTube you just booted me out of my youtube & all my google accounts for "impersonating" someone. My legal name IS Meghan Trainor. My website: http://meghantrainor.com http://meghantrainor.com with several decades of articles about my work. I can't even access the form to correct this! Help! (Meghan Trainor is also the name of a popular singer/songwriter) To YouTube's credit, they are responding via that Twitter (after 12+ hours). Amusingly they ask her to "send us a link to your channel URL or a video that you've posted in the past" and she can't because her Google account was also apparently suspended.