YouTube has a long list of terms and conditions and they are serious about it! If you don't follow their rules, you can lose your channel that you've put your blood, sweat, and tears into.
If you're just starting out on YouTube, that's great because it's going to be much easier for you to implement all of these things into your channel. However, if you've been around YouTube for a long time and produced a ton of videos, there may be a substantial amount of work involved to make your channel compliant with the long list of rules.
After reading this post, go through all of your old videos and take anything out that might not be allowed under YouTube's rulebook.
You might not have any issues when your channel is smaller. However, when your videos start to get more popular (like this video of ours), it's more likely that you're going to get a strike against your account. The reason for this is that more people are going to be seeing your video, which means more eyeballs to spot something that doesn't comply with YouTube's rules.
Don't use any content that's not yours
This one is pretty simple - if you didn't shoot a video, if you didn't play a song, or if you didn't take a picture, don't use it in your video! Unless, of course, you have a written contract saying you can use it.
YouTube's copyright hammer will come down hard on you if you're not careful. You might get a couple "Free" strikes against your account before they shut it down but it doesn't take a whole lot for this to happen.
If you're going to use a photo in your post, make sure you took the photo. If you want to use a funny clip from a Family Guy episode, don't. If you want to use your favorite Beyoncé song, don't - not unless it's you yourself performing it!
This includes background music. We, Tangerine Travels were just at a Vegan Festival in Guadalajara, Mexico yesterday shooting a video. Unfortunately, during some of the video, there was music playing in the background. It's highly unlikely that the music playing there was free for public use, so we had to do everything we could to drown out the sound of it in our editing process.
If you watch the video below, you may notice that our music is a little loud in some places. We didn't want to do this but we had to in order to avoid a copyright strike.
Let people know about affiliate links
If you have affiliate links either in your video description or within the video itself, be sure that you have a disclaimer. This disclaimer should be in the description of the video, or even in the video itself, but you should that they're affiliate links and that you may/will earn a commission if people click on them and make a purchase.
Properly source music and animations
I said above that you shouldn't use anything that isn't yours in your videos. While that is a safe advice to follow, there are websites and places online where you can get music and animations to use in your YouTube videos. Some places offer things completely free, others offer them free but with the catch that you have to give them credit in the video description, and there are plenty more who offer these services at a cost.
In this video of ours, the sources appear in the description like this:
This is not an exhaustive list of rules to need to follow but it is a start. Make sure you have these things in order on your channel otherwise you're at risk of permanently losing what you've worked so hard to grow. Stay tuned for part 2 where will touch on some additional things that you need to be aware of to avoid losing your YouTube channel.
Thanks for the insights @tangerinetravels
My YouTube channel isn't popular so I may wan to be quick to say "it's nothing to worry about", but it's wise for people to know about all of these copyright matters, now, this is a default discipline that steemit has given every steemian here which is highly commendable. However, the rewards from putting videos on YouTube, how do you deal comparing with what Dlive and DTube gives you on the go. You know it's more profitable putting your content on these, except one wants to keep/sustain the following built already on YouTube.
Again, thanks for the insights.
Wow!. The higher you climb, the wider it gets. They get to take the rules more serious as the channel get more views and popularity like yours.
I never knew all these about YouTube and this is really helpful I must tell you. I hardly use my YouTube channel but then, knowing this is an added advantage for me, an added knowledge that I can tell people as well.
Yes, original posts and contents is actually key.
Thank you for always giving us an eye opener as to how YouTube works. They are invaluable lessons which I wouldn't have known, except by experience hahahaha when they must have dealt with me. Hahaha.
Thanks guys.
This is basically the first time I am getting to know about this. So these songs are made for the listeners but not to be used by the listeners. This is probably the reason why I had to go to iTunes to get J Cole’s KOD album.
Originality is very important. There is no new knowledge. They are just improved versions. So if for any reason I’ve had to improve another persons idea then, I must source it.
Not all pictures are also free to use even if you actually sourced them. Just because a picture appears in google search does not make it free for public use. There are platforms that share free to use pictures, otherwise use your own pictures.
It’s better as I have this knowledge now. It will guide me in making post or any sort of presentation.
Gracias
Its even difficult to really get people to watch your videos, talkless of subscribing. Yoube is stressful
I didn't know much about youtube before than just to search movie and films and other videos but by reading your posts here and watching your videos I really know more about it so I just wanna say thanks to you and to @communitycoin
great information about youtube channel thanks
YouTube channel has a very difficult
I do not like this site because it is a difficult condition
You see I don’t give a damn about Youtube when I’ve got my dtube and Dlive. Let keep making rules for all I care. I don’t mean to be aggressive but truth be told
YouTube must have struck a nerve in you. Hahaha. Everyone has their preferences and even Dtube has its rules. Everything has rules, even Steemit. I have seen lot of people who stopped using Dtube due to the massive slash they get when your post pays out when you use it. Everyone has preferences my brother amd YouTube still commands higher reach and ofcourse Dtube is a welcome competition. I hope it grows too.
yes today Youtube make rules hard than before. to adcent account add is very tough.
thank you dear for a informative post.
There is no adfly links. I think this one is important to know as well
Early this year, youtube came up with a decision to knock off small content creators with less watch hour. Now youtube is here again with another one.....
I see dtube taking over.
@tangerineTravels thank you for useful information. I will try this steps you are saying, because I have been trying to upload my record videos on YouTube but when it read 3% it will stop. What else can I do? @tangerintravels. Kudos @communitycoin for the awesome post.
Thank you once more.
I'm sure correct steemian would find the law so easy to abide with.... Smile
Copycat, plagiarism and the likes is not allowed anywhere. If you cannot be creative, you should not eat the food meant for creativity.. Smile
Can't wait for the part two, @tangerinetravle and @olawalium are doing a great job here. Kudos to you guys