Tag: youtube
YouTube may launch a channel store for streaming services, report says
This $23 million YouTube music royalties heist is a huge reminder that online copyright is deeply flawed
Need an easy way to make $23 million? Have you ever considered just claiming music others uploaded to YouTube as your own and collecting the royalties?
That’s basically all two Phoenix men did to swindle Latin music artists like Daddy Yankee and Julio Iglesias out of millions of dollars in royalties, as detailed in a new piece from Billboard last week.
According to Kristin Robinson of Billboard, Jose “Chenel” Medina Teran and Webster Batista set up a media company called MediaMuv and claimed to own the rights to various Latin music songs and compositions. In total, MediaMuv claimed to own more than 50,000 copyrights since 2017, when Teran and Batista began their scheme.
In order for MediaMuv to claim these copyrights and collect royalties through YouTube’s Content ID system, the fraudulent company needed to partner with AdRev, a third-party company that has access to YouTube’s CMS and Content ID tools and helps artists manage their digital copyrights. MediaMuv created a few fake documents and provided AdRev with this paperwork in order to prove ownership over the music it claimed. From there, AdRev not only helped MediaMuv collect royalties for those copyrights but also provided Terana and Batista with direct access to YouTube’s CMS so they could claim copyrights on its own.
Teran and Batista’s four-year-long royalties heist came to an end late last year following an investigation from the IRS. According to Billboard, the two were indicted on “30 counts of conspiracy, wire fraud, money laundering and aggravated identity theft.” Teran pleaded not guilty. His trial is in November. Batista, on the other hand, took a plea deal on one count of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy. As a result, Batista provided much of the information about how the two pulled off their scheme.
As Billboard points out, Teran and Batista’s case was especially “brazen.” It’s believed to be one of the “largest YouTube music royalty scams in history.”
While the size of the heist and the breadth of the scheme may be very unique, it’s certainly a situation that many YouTube content creators have faced before. YouTube’s Content ID system, meant to help creators, has been weaponized by bad faith actors in order to make money off content that isn’t theirs. While some false claims are just mistakes caused by automated systems, the MediaMuv case is a perfect example of how fraudsters are also purposefully taking advantage of digital copyright rules.
YouTube attempts to be cautious with who it provides CMS and Content ID tool access because of how powerful these systems are. As a result, independent creators and artists cannot check for these false copyright claims nor do they have the power to directly act on them. They need to go through a digital rights management company that does have access. And it seems like thieves are doing the same, falsifying documents to gain access to these YouTube tools through these third parties that are “trusted” with these tools by YouTube.
The Billboard piece – which you should check out for even more details on this over-the-top scheme – makes mentions how Content ID scammers typically claim a portion of a song, hoping that with so many songwriters and such, a small percentage of ownership in the music may go by unnoticed. MediaMuv, however, was daring enough to claim copyright over songs in their entirety. While it’s certainly incredible that these two con artists pulled this off for so long, just think about how many more careful scammers are still skimming royalties off of an untold number of artists.
How to Clear Your YouTube Cache
Clearing YouTube’s cache helps fix issues with the platform’s app and website and lets you watch your favorite videos uninterrupted. We’ll show you how to do that on your Android phone and your desktop web browser.
Read This Article on How-To Geek ›
Hitting the Books: What goes on at a summer camp for YouTube Gaming kidfluencers
In the first days of social media, to build a personal brand online you mostly just needed a basic working knowledge of html. In 2022, however, the influencer marketing industry’s reach is estimated at around $16.4 billion. With so much money to be made, it’s little wonder that an entire support ecosystem has sprung up to help get the next generation of PewDiePies camera-ready. In the excerpt below from her new book examining the culture and business of online influencing, Break the Internet, Olivia Yallop enrolls in a summer gaming influencer camp for teens.
Excerpted from Break the Internet: In Pursuit of Influenceby Olivia Yallop. Published by Scribe UK. Copyright © 2022 by Olivia Yallop. All rights reserved.
Beginning the course bright and early on a Monday morning in August stirs memories from classrooms past, as the students — myself, plus a small group of animated pre-teen boys hailing from across the UK — go around and make our introductions: an interesting fact about ourselves, our favourite foods, two truths and a lie. A pandemic-proofed schedule means we are learning remotely, in my case prostrated on my parents’ sofa. Once logged on, we meet our course coach Nathan, an upbeat, relentlessly patient Scottish instructor with a homegrown YouTube channel of his own, on which he reviews electronic synthesisers and (he reveals privately to me) vlogs whisky-tasting.
Twenty minutes into our induction, I realise I am already out of my depth: I have accidentally landed in a class of aspiring YouTube gamers. Within the influencer landscape, gaming is a microcosm complete with its own language and lore, each new game franchise spawning an expansive universe of characters, weaponry, codes, and customs. Whilst the students are happily chatting multiplayer platform compatibility, I am stealthily googling acronyms.
Far from the bedroom-dwelling pastime of the shy and socially reclusive, as it has been previously painted, gaming is a sprawling community activity on social media platforms. Over 200 million YouTube users watch gaming videos on a daily basis; 50 billion hours were viewed in 2018 alone, and two of the five largest channels on YouTube belong to gamers. And that’s just YouTube — the largest dedicated gamer streaming platform is Twitch, a 3.8m-strong community, which has an average of 83,700 synchronous streams — with 1.44 million viewers — taking place at any time.
Just a fraction of these numbers are users actually playing games themselves. Gaming content usually consists of viewing other people play: pre-recorded commentary following skilful players as they navigate their way through various levels or livestreamed screenshares to which viewers can tune in to watch their heroes play in real time. According to Google’s own data, 48 per cent of YouTube gaming viewers say they spend more time watching gaming videos on YouTube than actually playing games themselves.
If, like me, you find yourself wondering why, you’re probably in the wrong demographic. My classmate Rahil, a die-hard fan of Destiny 2, broke it down: ‘What makes these content creators so good is that they are very confident in what they do in gaming, but they are also funny, they are entertaining to watch. That’s why they have so many followers.’
Watching other people play video games is a way to level up your skills, engage with the community’s most hyped gaming rivalries, and feel connected to something beyond your console. Being a successful gaming influencer is also a way to get filthy rich. Video game voyeurism is a lucrative market, making internet celebrities of its most popular players, a string of incomprehensible handles that read to me like an inebriated keyboard smash but invoke wild-eyed delight in the eyes of my classmates: Markiplier, elrubiusOMG, JuegaGerman, A4, TheWillyrex, EeOneGuy, KwebbelKop, Fernanfloo, AM3NIC.
PewDiePie — aka 30-year-old Felix Kjellberg, the only gamer noobs like me have ever heard of — has 106m followers and is estimated to earn around $8 million per month, including more than $6.8 million from selling merchandise and more than $1.1 million in advertising. Blue-haired streamer Ninja, aka Detroit-born 29-year- old Tyler Blevins, is the most-followed gamer on Twitch, and signed a $30 million contract with Microsoft to game exclusively on their now- defunct streaming service Mixer. UK YouTube gaming collective The Sidemen upload weekly vlogs to their shared channel in which they compete on FIFA, mess around, prank each other, order £1,000 takeaways, and play something called ‘IRL Tinder’, living out the fever dream of a million teenage boys across the internet. For many tweens, getting paid to play as a YouTube gamer is a hallowed goal, and each of my classmates is keen to make Minecraft a full-time occupation. I decide to keep quiet about my abortive attempt at a beauty tutorial.
Class kicks off with an inspirational slideshow titled ‘INFLUENCERS: FROM 0 TO MILLIONS’. My laptop screen displays a Wall of Fame of top YouTubers smiling smugly to camera: OG American vlogger Casey Neistat, Canadian comedian Lilly Singh, PewDiePie, beauty guru Michelle Phan, and actor, activist, and author Tyler Oakley, each underlined by a subscriber count that outnumbers the population of most European countries. ‘Everyone started off where you are today,’ says Nathan enthusiastically. ‘A laptop and a smartphone — that’s all they had. Everybody here started with zero subscribers.’ The class is rapt. I try to imagine my own face smiling onscreen between professional prankster Roman Atwood (15.3m subscribers) and viral violin performer Lindsey Stirling (12.5m subscribers). Somehow, I can’t.
Nathan hits play on early comedy vlogger nigahiga’s first ever upload — a 2007 viral video sketch entitled ‘How to Be Ninja’ that now has 54,295,178 views — and then a later video from 2017, ‘Life of a YouTuber’. ‘Look at that — 21.5M subscribers!’ Nathan taps on the follower count under the video. ‘It didn’t happen overnight. It took a year, 12 months of putting up content with 50 views. Don’t get disheartened. Take every sub, every view as a…’ he mimes celebrating like the winner of a round of Fortnite.
Thanks to its nostalgic pixelation and condensed frame ratio, watching ‘How to Be Ninja’ creates the impression that we’re sitting in a history class studying archival footage from a distant past: Late Noughties Net Culture (2007, colourised). In a poorly lit, grainy home video that feels like a prelapsarian time capsule, two teenage boys act out a hammy sketch in which they transform into martial arts experts, including off-tempo miming, questionable jump cuts, and a tantalising glimpse of old-school YouTube — running on Internet Explorer — that flies over the heads of my Gen Z classmates. The sketch feels like two friends messing around with a camera at the weekend; it’s almost as if they don’t know they’re being watched.
In the second video an older and now more-polished Higa — complete with designer purple highlights in his hair — breezily addresses his multi-million-strong fanbase in a nine-minute HD monologue that’s punctuated by kooky 3D animation and links to his supporting social media channels. ‘I am in one of the final stages of my YouTube career,’ he says, ‘and my YouTube life, so …’ The camera cuts to reveal his extensive video set-up, professional lights, and a team of three clutching scripts, clipboards, cameras, and a boom mic behind the scenes, all celebrating exuberantly: ‘That means we can get out of here right?’ asks one. ‘Yeah, it’s really cramped back here…’ says another, ‘I have to poop so bad.’
‘What’s the difference between these two videos?’ Nathan prompts us. ‘What changed?’ The answers roll in quickly, students reeling off a list of ameliorations with ease: better lighting, better equipment, a better thumbnail, slicker editing, a more professional approach, background music, higher audio quality, and a naturalistic presentation style that at least appears to be ad-libbed.
‘What makes a good video more generally?’ asks Nathan. ‘What are the key elements?’ When he eventually pulls up the next slide, it turns out Nathan wants us to discuss passion, fun, originality, and creativity: but the class has other ideas. ‘I heard YouTube doesn’t like videos lower than ten minutes,’ offered Alex. ‘There’s many things that they don’t like,’ Lucas corrects him. ‘The algorithm is very complicated, and it’s always changing. They used to support “let’s plays” [a popular gaming stream format] back in 2018, and then they changed it, and a lot of Minecraft channels died.’ Rahil pipes up: ‘They find as many ways as possible to scrutinise your video … if you do many small things wrong, you get less money, even though YouTube is paid the same money by the advertisers. So you should never swear in your videos.’ ‘No, demonetisation is different,’ corrects Fred.
There is something fascinating and incongruous about watching pre-teens reel off the details of various influencer revenue models with the enthusiasm of a seasoned social media professional. The fluency with which they exchange terms I’m more accustomed to encountering on conference calls and in marketing decks is a startling reminder of the generational gulf between us: though they may be students, they’re not exactly beginners on the internet.
As the conversation quickly descends into technocratic one- upmanship, Nathan attempts to steer our analysis back to entry level. ‘Once you reach 1,000 subscribers,’ he enthusiastically explains to the class, ‘that means you can monetise your channel and have ads on it.’ A heated debate about the intricacies of YouTube monetisation ensues. Nathan is corrected by one of his students, before another pipes up to undercut them both, and suddenly everyone’s talking all at once: ‘Most YouTubers make money from sponsorships, not advertising revenue, anyway,’ offers one student. There is a pause. ‘And merch,’ he adds, ‘the MrBeast hoodies are really cool.’
‘Okay then,’ says Nathan brightly, shifting the slide forward to reveal a list of attributes for creating successful content that begins, ‘Attitude, Energy, Passion, Smile’, ‘what about some of these…’
Looking at my notes, I realise Nathan’s original question, ‘What makes a good video?’, has become something else entirely: what does YouTube consider to be a good video, and thus reward accordingly? It’s a small elision, admittedly, but significant; good is whatever YouTube thinks is good, and interpretations outside this algorithmic value system aren’t entertained. His prompt about creative possibilities has been heard as a question about optimising the potential of a commodity (the influencer) in an online marketplace. ‘It’s all about value,’ he continues, unwittingly echoing my thoughts, ‘what value does your video bring to the YouTube community? How are you going to stand out from all the other people doing it?’
This cuts to the heart of criticism against influencer training courses like this one, and others which have sprung up in LA, Singapore, and Paris in recent years: that it’s ethically inappropriate to coach young people to commodify themselves, that it’s encouraging children to spend more time online, that it’s corrupting childhoods. Influencers and industry professionals rolled their eyes or responded with a mixture of horror and intrigue when I’d mentioned the Fire Tech programme in passing. ‘That’s disgusting,’ said one agent, ‘way too young.’ (Privately, I thought this was an inconsistent position, given she represented a mumfluencer with a family of four.) ‘I respect it,’ said a Brighton-based beauty guru, ‘but I would never personally make that choice for my kids.’ ‘Crazy times we live in,’ offered a NYC-based fashion influencer, before admitting, ‘for real, though, I kind of wish I had had that when I was younger.’
The next Google, YouTube, Spotify, & Instagram in Web3 is here!
Everything is building quickly and rapidly in Web3. And here I will share with you the next big things in Web3 that will revolutionize our life!
Everything is building quickly and rapidly in Web3. And here I will share with you the next big things in Web3 that will revolutionize our life!
Many dApps (decentralized applications) seek to replace centralized ones with the arrival of decentralization. This next generation of dApps includes all of the current applications’ features as well as some new and exciting ones too!
With multiple actual real-world uses for blockchain technology, particularly Ethereum, it is clear that the Web3 period is not theoretical. The following are some web3 alternatives to present common-use apps.
(They are the next Google, YouTube, Spotify, and Instagram, but better!)
The Next Google:
Do you recall googling for something on your smartphone, then seeing an ad featuring the same thing when going through YouTube on your laptop?
Anything you do on centralized browsers, such as accessing a website, entering credentials, or buying a product, can be recorded and shared with third-party companies for marketing purposes.
This is where Google makes the majority of its money!
Obviously, this advertising strategy degrades the overall user experience. As a result, there is another browser addressing all of these concerns!
Brave is a secure internet browser that allows users to visit websites without leaving a digital footprint. It has several distinguishing qualities, including:
- There are no advertisements on Brave.
- Reward on advertisements (BAT): You can select to have adverts on the browser and be awarded in the crypto BAT (Basic Attention Token) created by Brave for watching ads.
- No digital footprint: Unlike other internet browsers, Brave does not monitor your data.
- Saving time and data: On the brave home page, you can see the amount of data and time you saved which wouldn’t be possible otherwise.
Brave is fast expanding, and people are increasingly embracing the company’s promises.
The Next YouTube:
There are several issues with centralized web2 video streaming services. Consider YouTube, for example:
- Copyright Problems
- Scam and bot comments
- Censorship of specific subjects
- Uncertainty and poor pay for creators
In India in 2020, YouTube offered only $100 — $400 for 1 million views.
Why does YouTube take up a large portion of the revenue while the entire company runs because of the video that creators create?
But what if there was something that was creator-focused rather than money-focused?
The answer is Odysee!
Odysee, unlike other tech giants, was developed by the exact same team that built LBRY, a blockchain system. Odysee functions in a fundamentally different way from YouTube, which keeps video uploads on centralized servers.
It uploads the material to the network, and devices in that network distribute the data and maintain it online, with the LBRY blockchain containing simply the location of the files.
Because the material sharing is peer-to-peer (direct) rather than through an intermediary like YouTube, the creator retains ownership and receives payment without any intermediaries taking part.
The Next Spotify/Apple Music/ YouTube Music:
This year, the music streaming business grossed more than $8 billion! And it is disheartening to see that just a small portion of those revenues are distributed to artists worldwide.
Usually, artists are paid by major labels, which means Spotify takes a part of the earnings and gives it to the label. Labels also take a portion before paying artists.
According to iGroove Music, the Spotify payment for one million listens in 2020 ranged from $850 in Argentina to $5,479 in Norway.
An artist requires 220K to 1.4 Million streams to get close to the US minimum wage ($1200).
But we all know Web3 won’t settle for it! That is why Audius is the next big thing in the music streaming industry!
Any music artist can upload and monetize material on Audius.
There are no requirements, such as being registered to a label or having a large fan base. Audius also awards Audio tokens to artists for milestones such as being in the top five weekly popular tracks and playlists.
Including over six million monthly users, the site has added over 100,000 artists. Audius provides the greatest quality sound throughout free music services, enabling 320kbps streaming and downloads.
Currently, just 12% of music business income goes to creators, but Audius hopes to increase that figure to 90%. This is feasible since there are no intermediaries and artists own their songs.
The Next Instagram:
Instagram has approximately one billion monthly active users and is among the world’s fastest-growing social networking platforms.
But the harsh truth is, that it gathers information like your location, interests, and time spent on different app parts. It compares your data across Meta’s platforms such as Facebook, Messenger, and WhatsApp before serving customized adverts.
Showtime is Web3’s solution to all of this!
Showtime is an NFT social network that allows you to find and view digital art. It’s like a decentralized Instagram for NFTs. You may create a profile and follow individuals. You may see your NFTs on any platform, including SuperRare OpenSea, Foundation, and Nifty Gateway.
This is only applicable to NFTs, although there is a strong probability that current social media may become decentralized.
There are several applications, such as Aether, Mastodon, Minds, Diaspora, and MeWe, that give a better and decentralized social media for the globe in which we control our data and are not subject to the manipulated content adverts that the present social media serves.
The content provided in this article is not sponsored and is correct upto the best of my knowledge. This article is not financial advice and we are not responsible for any action taken in response to this article!
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The next Google, YouTube, Spotify, & Instagram in Web3 is here! was originally published in Coinmonks on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
YouTube is reportedly planning to launch a ‘channel store’ for streaming services
YouTube has been working on an online store where you can purchase subscriptions for various streaming services, according to The Wall Street Journal. The Google-owned video streaming platform has reportedly been developing a “channel store” for at least the past 18 months and is currently in talks with potential partner companies. YouTube already gives its $65-a-month streaming TV subscribers the option to add access to extra services like HBO Max. The upcoming store, however, will apparently give people a way to purchase a la carte streaming services from the main YouTube app.
The Journal says YouTube is pitching its platform as a great way for companies to market their streaming services, since viewers can watch trailers for free on its website or app and then easily pay for a subscription. Partner companies will likely have to share their earnings with YouTube for purchases made within the video platform. YouTube, the publication says, is already discussing how to split subscription revenues with them, though the terms vary for each partner.
Even with the prospect of having to share revenue with partners, more streaming service are now open to the idea of bundling or teaming up. Starz chief executive Jeffrey Hirsch told The Journal that bundling streaming services with other players creates a better experience for users. Also, it puts providers’ offering in front of more people and makes subscribers less likely to cancel. In YouTube’s case, the app is already widely used and could provide paying users a single platform to manage several subscriptions. For streaming providers, making their services more readily and easily available could help them survive what analysts believe is going to be a tough year marked with losing a significant number of users.
YouTube’s “channel store” could reportedly launch as soon as fall this year, though it has yet to confirm that the project exists and that it’s already having talks with potential partners.
YouTube eyeing ‘channel store’ video market to offer other streamers – WSJ
Number of teens using Facebook crashes as YouTube becomes platform of choice
The merged Google Meet app lets you host group Spotify and YouTube sessions
Google’s merger of Meet and Duo may be confusing, but it should deliver some useful upgrades in the bargain. The company has added a live sharing beta feature that lets users of the revamped Meet share Spotify and YouTube streams during chats. You can play games like Uno Mobile and Kahoot, too. The functionality will sound familiar if you’ve tried SharePlay, but you can’t use Spotify or YouTube with Apple’s media feature.
The Meet upgrades include scheduled recurring meetings, virtual backgrounds and in-meeting chats. As with the Meet features coming to Duo, live sharing has been rolling out over recent weeks. The rebranding of Duo as Meet will take place throughout August for mobile devices, and is coming later for everyone else.
Google has pitched the Meet-and-Duo union as an adaptation to the modern realities of video calls. Live sharing clearly reflects this. I’s an acknowledgment that many people use video chats as social spaces, particularly when remote hangouts are more common than they were before the pandemic.