Kraut_and_Tea
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I need your opinion on what may be a very stupid idea.
🕑 Added 2022-01-07 08:45:01 +0000 UTCI have been discussing this for months with other youtubers and now want to inform you of this and ask your opinion. I would be grateful if you could read through this and then even vote in the poll beneath as to what your sentiment is, or even leave a comment with your thoughts, as it is a somewhat important topic.
"React content" has been making a comeback in the last two years. The basic format of "react" content is that someone films themselves or streams themselves watching the videos made by others. There are many "react" creators who actually make decent content, in particular those who are informed, did research, and constructively discuss your videos. But the overwhelming majority of "react" creators are entirely parasitic. Many do not say anything while playing your video in its entirety, some just spin around in their gamer chair, or they just nod their heads along. Some just pause the video every 5 minutes to say "yes", others just eat food, some just make weird over-the-top expressions with their face, and there have even been cases where "react" creators just started someone else's video and walked out of the room while the video continued playing.
React content had a brief stint of popularity back in 2015 and 2016. Back then it was mostly YouTubers who engaged in it. And it very quickly generated a lot of opposition by creators, in particular those whose videos were being "reacted" to. Back then the commentary youtuber iDubbz made a lengthy video critiquing "react" youtubers, and shortly after the "react" youtube community collapsed in popularity.
However, in the last 2 years "Reactors" or "Reactionaries" or whatever you want to call them, have made a big comeback. Mostly through a different platform, namely twitch. And they are far worse than those that existed on youtube, because they are very brazen. Many of them pretty much openly brag about the fact that they parasitically siphon money out of other people's work. There is even a clip of one of them openly bragging about the fact that he can do nothing but eat a sandwich while watching someone else's video, and that person can do nothing about it. This is deeply frustrating. I want to make one thing very clear, there are many twitch streamers who will watch the videos of youtubers and have very interesting and transformative conversations about their videos. But for every great twitch streamer like that, there seem to be two absolutely awful ones. There is also no way that this will be resolved on twitch through internal community policing, as it was on youtube through iDubbz. The twitch community does not police it's own behavior or practices, or at the very least does so very badly. Additionally, since it is twitch streamers who are hereby parasitically feeding off the content of youtubers, there is absolutely no incentive to stop doing such, as twitch and youtube are largely separate communities.
I have been talking with some youtubers I know about this. To those I talked to and myself, it is very frustrating every single time this happens. Some of us can spend weeks or even months working on a video. Being that youtube is the only viable and popular video platform, means we have to deal with things such as the continuing fallout of the adpocalypse, which severely restricts all of our monetizations. We are also very dependant on the fact that people actually watch our videos, themselves, on our channels, on youtube, in their browsers, to boost us in the algorithm. A "react" streamer has to do none of that. They are usually fully monetized on twitch, and basically rake in tons of advertiser revenue at our expense while simultaneously beating us down in the algorithm. Many of them do not even bother linking back to our channels or videos as they do what they do.
There is however absolutely nothing that any of us could do. Everyone I talked to about this, as well as I myself, have basically just resigned to accepting that this is a thing. That we just have to silently deal with this. And that the only thing we can do is just keep making better and better content, in the hope that the audiences of "Reactors" will one day be convinced through our quality that it is better to watch the original content rather than someone eating a sandwich while watching it.
Then something weird happened.
I fell for yet another royalty-free music scam. Some of you who have been around longer will know what those are. Basically, there are record labels that upload their music on the internet and falsely advertise it as "royalty-free". However it isn't, and their music is actually registered as copyrighted. What this means is that when a youtuber uses their music, thinking it is royalty-free, the youtube or twitch copyright bot will automatically detect the track in the video, the video will be monetized, but every single cent of revenue the video makes is sent to the record label. These scams are really nasty, and I have fallen for them a hand full of times. For example, my "Trump's biggest Failure" video, is a video where I fell for such a scam. The video is monetized but every cent of the revenue it made went to some record company that falsely advertised its music as royalty-free. It's a really nasty thing. It's people who abuse the copyright system to take advantage of and scam people. But... I noticed something. I noticed that the videos in which I had fallen for a royalty-free music scam, had considerably fewer react streamers, mostly even none whatsoever. I realized that twitch also has a copyright bot and that when a twitch streamer plays a video with copyrighted music, their stream also gets claimed, and every single cent that streamer made in revenue and donation through that stream - will go to the record company.
I sat down, opened a work folder called "React vaccine" and did some research. Eventually contacting a music producer in the United States and can now confirm that I have found what is basically a "React vaccine" for youtube channels. Basically, music has different rules in the law books regarding copyright than film footage has. You can't just listen to music while eating a sandwich on stream. You have to be far more transformative than that or even just request the license to play the track from the record company. What I found in my research is that for the cost of 50$ to 100$ I could buy a music track with full rights of ownership from a musician, I can then register that track as a copyright owner, and then use that track in each and every single one of my videos. The effect this would have is that every single time a twitch streamer does a react stream to one of my videos, all the revenue they made with that stream, will go to me. If YouTubers started doing this, this would in effect kill react streaming as a genre because it kills the financial incentive. All it would cost a YouTuber to do this would be around 100$ to 200$.
Before I do this, I do however want to spend time reflecting on this. I want to discuss this with friends, my patreons, my audience, and many others. I have shared this with YouTubers I talk to already, they mostly approve of it but fear that it will cause considerable drama with a lot of twitch streamers. I share this with artists, and they universally think I should do this because they have almost all at one point themselves had their artwork stolen.
Now I am asking you for your thoughts.
Here are some points of benefit and contention I came up with to discuss:
1: It has the potential to anger large segments of the twitch community and cause drama
2: If a lot of people start doing this, it will kill the react genre for good.
3: It can also be used by people who are victims of frequent response-video harassment
4: It will harm those "React" streamers who actually do good work
5: It requires the use of a controversial and much-hated copyright system
6: By doing this you are in effect turning the "parasite tactic" against the Parasite (which may not be good)
7: Th mere threat of this may result in the twitch community policing their community more
8: It is a very undiplomatic and extreme solution that leaves close to no room for negotiation
9: Specific twitch streamers whose livelihood is entirely built on "reacting" will unleash heaven and hell on those who do this
10: It could foster a more toxic attitude between twitch streamers and youtubers
11: It could also foster a more positive attitude since it would require them to work together for a common benefit
12: It will result in youtubers having the annoyance of the react streamer off their back
13: It will help small independent music creators
14: It can look really "scummy" especially if the context of the lazy react streamer is not given
What are your thoughts? My friends as a majority approved of this idea. If you approve as well, I might ask my general audience, or just start implementing it and in effect "vaccinating" my channel against "React" streamers.
Is this a good idea?
Comments
Ulimately everything you do online will or could be used against you, especially since your content is, shall we say, denouncing of those ultra-nationalistic (and other dumb) values some lesser people outside this community adhere to, so why not? I know about a month has passed since this post and you might have already decided, just wanted to voice my opinion. Should this become popular, you can say that you did it to make the comunity a better place and it would be enough, the reasonable would understand, the rest...well, why bother asking them?
Poop
I'm sure I saw a video a while ago about showing how to commission copyrighted music and get it into the content id system to protect your work to prevent someone else claiming your work. Without manual review it has the potential to harm people doing transformative work. I don't think it's good for Kraut to take risks by trying to set this trend.
Voted yes. Go do some trolling. (Maybe your patreon supporter tier can release non-vaxxed vids for constructive reactionaries)
Oxy_Cyan
I think it's 100% reasonable to do this but I also think it's important to leave the door open to reactors on how they can react on the content. Some people do good work so I guess some general agreement like "you react I get a split 50%". The very least people will now listen if the creators are holding the cards
Weedyboi
Burn it kraut, burn it all down, if entire genres start going down and twitch loses profitability they might actually make a better system
Still Want Willkie
I am not a lawyer, but I do work a lot in dealing with online copyright and the free speech implications of this. First, let me say right off the bat that this sucks. I'm a big fan of your work, and your anti-alt right stuff specifically was spectacular and really made me feel better about a lot of things. Second, sorry you got screwed over by the royalty-free music scam. It sucks in particular that this all happened within the walls of YouTube. If actual litigation had come from this, then you'd have had a good defense (provided that the music marketed itself as royalty-free). All of that out of the way, I think this is a bad idea. First, I feel like you could easily ensnare people doing actual commentary as well as those who are just being parasites. Filters are a harsh mistress, and there could be a lot of collateral damage to this strategy. Second, while I don't know enough about Twitch's internal policies and how they deal with these claims to say anything for sure, I feel like it's a half measure when there are better alternatives out there. While there have been lots of broad interpretations of fair use in reaction videos (I'm someone who is very supportive of broad fair use rights) it's still incredibly fact-intensive. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect to prevail on an infringement claim in at least *some* of these cases, but again (a) I'm not your lawyer & this isn't legal advice and (b) it depends on the use in question. I don't know enough about the regulations in Europe, but in the U.S. streaming/video platforms take DMCA takedown requests a lot more seriously than videos that are flagged internally for copyright violations. Rather than laying a "trap", it might be better to actually send an actual takedown request to people who aren't doing anything transformative with the work. Just my two cents, but DMs are open if you want to talk further.
Grey Rocket
Do it, and if people want to react to your content, they should write to you and, if you think they are a good react channel, you can tell them when the trap music appears.
I think that's actually good idea to prevent harmful people to do their reacting video... and if you would like to support (like un-harm) creative react streamer/author by splitting revenue from video and music rights with her/him (if it's even possible) ^^
Illien
Bad reacting videos are annoying, and argubly unethical, but I don't think it steals viewers, as people who watch them might not have stumbled upon the original video anyway. I like good reacting videos, and I have found amazing channels thanks to them. For me, it wouldn't be fair to screw the good ones only for the bad ones to suffer.
Do it. Why should even the well-intentioned reactionaries be uniquely allowed to create content with no investment? You can bet that the quality will improve too if they must decide if the reaction video is worth the upfront cost.
This is a great idea. I find that reacting to others' work with minimal effort is as far from fair as possible. I remember watching an (admittedly old) Kurzgesagt video about how Facebook steals videos so this may help beyond youtube and twitch. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7tA3NNKF0Q
Moreau
Honestly I think you are just undermining your own volunteer marketing department.
