Monetization and Comments on Youtube.

Recently Youtube has made some ridiculous changes to their policies that has sparked outrage among creators. Not only that, but their monetization and copyright system is extremely flawed. There are so many things that need to be revised to give fair game to creators.

The most recent change has been with the nature of comments on videos. This was brought to my attention by popular youtuber Colleen Ballinger. Youtube has now begun to disable comments on all videos with children in them. This takes a toll on individual channels because theres no consumer interaction or feedback on their posts. It may not seem like a big deal, but it's actually very harmful to the channel. Without the feedback you can't know what your audience is thinking. This change comes as a way to prohibit pedophiles from leaving comments with time stamps of where you can see the children. The problem with this is that they're not suspending the pedophiles account, but instead penalizing the youtuber. When an account is reported it's often not even reviewed and therefore is not struck down. Youtube needs to figure out a different system.

Next up is the problems with monetization. Videos can be deemed, "suitable for advertisers", "not suitable for some advertisers", and "not suitable for advertisers". That affects how much money these creators are making. Youtube gets to decide on the monetization when the video is posted. One way that it can get demonetized is if there's a curse word in it. I think that's ridiculous, especially if the target audience is proven to be an older generation. It should not be stripped of its monetization for a single curse word. If the average age of a viewer is 13+, curse words should be allowed just like it's a PG-13 movie. They don't want children hearing these words, but it should not be up to youtube to monitor what you're children are watching. Creators should not be punished for swaying their content to their demographic. I know when I watch videos if the words are bleeped or cut it gets super annoying. I'm 18 years old I shouldn't have to watch a video where even the most insginificant curse word is bleeped out, it makes the video less enjoyable.

Finally is the copyright issue, this also can go hand-in-hand with monetization. The copyright claims on videos have gotten out of hand. It's basically stating that if any video has copyrighted music or videos in it, the video can be claimed. This is obviously a very useful and important tool, but it's been taken to a ridiculous level by these money hungry labels. If even 2 seconds of a song is playing in the background of a store their video can get claimed. When a video is claimed it is immediately demonetized or taken down to half-monetized. At this time, all the views you're generating are not paid and you can't get reimbursed for those views if the claim is disputed and the youtuber gets the claim lifted. You have a right to dispute it but there are a lot of flaws in that system. The first time you dispute it, it goes right to the label and they will most likely deny it to get more money. You can dispute it a second time, but there is no moderator to determine that both parties are acting fairly. The dispute just goes right back to the label, they deny it again, and on the second time around you get a strike on your channel. Youtubers have been very careful about not putting music into their videos now, but the labels still want to make money, so they kicked up their claims a notch. Now, if you even sing a lyric in your video without music, you can be claimed. That's absolutely ridiculous. The final straw I saw was with youtuber James Charles. He's had a long standing video concept called "Singing My Makeup Routine". He sings through his routine, free styling lyrics to a popular songs melody. This should legally be protected under the Parody Law and therefore allowed on youtube without getting claimed, yet it still got claimed. James lost monetization on his video and was unable to dispute it do to the flawed system even though theres a law about this concept.

Either way, youtube needs to work on their format and get out the kinks. What do you think of youtube's policies? Leave a comment below!