All the time I’ll see local news stations take direct clips from YouTube (sometimes with unaffiliated watermark still attached) and just play the full thing when they’re running some story related to it. There was also that rash of TV shows about 10 years ago that were entirely just people watching clips off YouTube and commenting on them. Also other YouTube channels will use and comment on these same videos.
I distinctly remember that one YouTube video of two rabbits fighting that gets interrupted by two chickens was used by both VH1 and MTV internet clip shows all the time, and I know it was the same video because it had the same YouTube compression artifacting as the original video.
So basically when you put something on YouTube is it basically open season for anyone to use it?
Not sure on YouTube, but on Twitter it’s common to see media requests right in the Twitter comments.
Friend of mine recorded video on his phone of a man using pepper spray and robbing people on the train and posted it to Twitter, within minutes there were numerous media requests asking to use the footage, even as far away as Europe.
If the video is 100% your own content, then YouTube can’t technically force you to monetize your videos. They can be fairly persuasive, for example, by downgrading your videos in searches.
If you use a tiny bit of content from another copyrighted source, then things can get more serious. E.g., YouTube has provided “free” music to creators to use as background music. One of these included a small sample from a noted work. Suddenly, a lot of people who used that music now found their videos being monetized with the money going to the sampled music’s recording company.
Also, with 100% your own content videos, YouTube has absolutely no say or rights to you selling the video to other people. It’s not YouTube’s video, it’s yours. If Romanian state TV uses your clip without permission, you get to sue them. If 10,000 TV stations and websites use your clip, you can sue all 10,000 of them. Simple, right?
Note that if someone else embeds your YouTube video on their web site, that is not making a copy and so you can’t stop that other than by taking down the video.
Big US companies like the major networks and such make great targets for copyright lawsuits. If NBC nightly news uses your video without permission you can sue for copyright infringement and make big bucks.
Maybe.
Did you file your work with the US Copyright Office? Then you can sue NBC for real money. If not then you get a much lesser amount.
Note that using a ton of YouTube clips is common for some companies. Even the lesser copyright suits would be a hassle. So it’s smarter for them to just ask permission.