Invitation to earn revenue from your YouTube videos...any thoughts?

thesillydave

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i recieved this from youtube the other day. has anyone gotten this? used this? is there a downside to doing this? do they look at the copywrites a little more closely? i cover all sorts of songs, and no, i never have gotten permission...i am just wary. any thoughts or ideas? overall, i can't imagine any of my vids having enough views to make anything! just curious! thanks!
 
I have received this invitation on a non-uke (iPhone app review) account, but I was eventually denied when they went through their due diligence (checking how many views your videos have, how many videos you have, what kind of videos you have, how often you upload, etc). I'm not sure if the invitation is sent to every YouTuber, or if it is just sent to those with a high number of views. To give you an idea of my account at the time of invitation (BobMcGray) my top video (now gone due to copyright violation) had around 130,000 views, and I had two in the 10,000's, but most were in the hundreds/thousands.

I think that copyright would not matter, but only to an extent. I have seen many YouTube partners showing iPod app review videos without the consent of the app makers, so I'm not sure why my video was taken down and theirs aren't.

Just in case you didn't get this link in the email you received, it should have a lot of answers:
http://www.youtube.com/partners
 
The "my videos" page had this on top of it yesterday and I finally clicked on it. I've seen/heard of it before so I kind of knew what was going on.

I read the thing and it said "MAKE SURE IT'S YOUR OWN WORK" more or less. No covers...period. Which makes sense because you would be making money on someone else's property.

That takes care of me.

So unless you're an original artist, it's not happening.
 
I read the thing and it said "MAKE SURE IT'S YOUR OWN WORK" more or less. No covers...period.

What about for someone like Julia Nunes? She has a mix of covers and originals, so I'm pretty sure she would only receive money on her own works. Either that or she's not a partner, in which case I would be very surprised.
 
I think everybody must be getting this email. I've got about a dozen videos up and the most views on any of them is a couple of hundred and they sent me the email this week.
 
What about for someone like Julia Nunes? She has a mix of covers and originals, so I'm pretty sure she would only receive money on her own works. Either that or she's not a partner, in which case I would be very surprised.

That's a good question... I'm just going by this:

Which videos are NOT eligible?

Your video is not eligible if it contains content that you didn't create or get permission from its creator to use. You need to be able to show written permission for the following video elements:
  • Audio: recorded music, live performances, cover songs, background music, etc.
  • Visuals: images, logos, software, video game footage, etc.
  • Any other content you don't own worldwide commercial usage rights to.
Examples of videos that are NOT eligible

  • Your video contains a song you purchased for personal use (e.g., bought on iTunes or in a store) but didn't obtain a commercial license.
  • You found a video on the Internet and you cannot prove that it's in public domain.
  • You are only singing words of your favorite copyrighted song
  • You have used content from someone else without permission, but you haven't yet received a copyright notice on your video.
  • You edit together or "mash-up" other works
  • You only use 30 seconds of a song or video clip
  • Your video does not provide proper attribution or credits as required by a license.
 
Ha! My channel is all original works. BUT NO INVITATION! So, I guess maybe a small number of views DOES count against you. My most is 750ish.

Ah well................
 
I received the invitation from Youtube as well. The only way you can earn revenue, is to monetize your videos, and then an ad will be placed on your page and what not. Youtube observes the amounts of hits you recieve, and that is basically it lol ;) however if you upload a lot of videos that are your own work and you get a lot of views, you "could" become a partner which is quite nice!
 
I've had the invitation, for some of the review videos I do, but have ignored it. Nice to know more about it so thanks for the thread!
 
I've been a partner for a few years now, and mind you, I do a lot of covers.

If it hasn't changed from when I joined, basically not much changes.
You may get a few enhanced options on your account, such as being able to add more graphics to your channel and have the auto-play function on your vids (not sure whether these features are still exclusive to partners, or regular members can do them too.)

When you upload a new video, you have the option of putting advertisements on that video. ie: if you choose to submit that video to earn revenue, it must be all-original, etc.

If you select not to have it submitted for revenue, then your video would just be uploaded normally as before without the copyright shenanigans.

I only turn on revenue for my original work, and just upload covers without the revenue on. Haven't run into problems yet.
 
I just got this invitation for my uke channel. I applied and was accepted. I got the invite right around 200000 total views for all my videos. The problem is that it's my covers that get all the views and my originals barely get any. Anyway this has been basically the only validation I've received for my playing and it knocked me out of a two year slump where I barely played any music at all. I wrote 6 songs this week and I'm taking a week off work to record them all so we'll see how it goes. As far as Julia Nunes goes I noticed that the last cover she did was one of those songs that you tube has rights to, the ones that you can choose as background music when you upload your video. So maybe those are fine.
 
I didn't get the invitation, but then again I haven't actually uploaded any videos to the account yet.. :)

-Tor
 
I got an invitation, but I am getting really tired of ads, so I don't think I will participate right now. I think we get bombarded by too many adds (I am REALLY tired of seeing giant animated lower third ads on cable TV). If it were limited to just static adds on the side, maybe. If it is those pop-up-from-the-bottom viewer window ads, you would have to pay me a lot to make it worth torturing my kind viewers.

–Lori
 
I've been a partner for a few years now, and mind you, I do a lot of covers.

If it hasn't changed from when I joined, basically not much changes.
You may get a few enhanced options on your account, such as being able to add more graphics to your channel and have the auto-play function on your vids (not sure whether these features are still exclusive to partners, or regular members can do them too.)

When you upload a new video, you have the option of putting advertisements on that video. ie: if you choose to submit that video to earn revenue, it must be all-original, etc.

If you select not to have it submitted for revenue, then your video would just be uploaded normally as before without the copyright shenanigans.

I only turn on revenue for my original work, and just upload covers without the revenue on. Haven't run into problems yet.

Thanks for your info. It made the decision to monetize my videos a lot easier. I just applied today. We'll see how it goes. I mostly have just done covers but I do have a backlog of originals that I haven't made videos for yet. This may be a good time to do so.

For me, it's not about the few cents I might make. It's really about the game. It feels like a giant video game. Instead of playing World of Warcraft, I think it would be even more fun to play Youtube.
 
I just got this invitation for my uke channel. I applied and was accepted. I got the invite right around 200000 total views for all my videos. The problem is that it's my covers that get all the views and my originals barely get any. Anyway this has been basically the only validation I've received for my playing and it knocked me out of a two year slump where I barely played any music at all. I wrote 6 songs this week and I'm taking a week off work to record them all so we'll see how it goes. As far as Julia Nunes goes I noticed that the last cover she did was one of those songs that you tube has rights to, the ones that you can choose as background music when you upload your video. So maybe those are fine.


Good luck with your efforts!
 
What about for someone like Julia Nunes? She has a mix of covers and originals, so I'm pretty sure she would only receive money on her own works. Either that or she's not a partner, in which case I would be very surprised.

From my personal observations, it seems some people if they are popular enough, are immune to Youtube's copyright police.
 
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Well, I signed up and received the approval within half an hour, which makes me think the approval may be an automated process, and in my case, probably has very little to do with the view count of my videos. Most of my originals are in the 3 figure range. However, I decided to have the proceeds (paltry as they most likely will be) mailed to the Nature Conservancy. Don't know if that was a factor or not.

Now I just need to figure out how to get the ads to start displaying. I'm such a techno-phobe. :)
 
Thanks for your info. It made the decision to monetize my videos a lot easier. I just applied today. We'll see how it goes. I mostly have just done covers but I do have a backlog of originals that I haven't made videos for yet. This may be a good time to do so.

For me, it's not about the few cents I might make. It's really about the game. It feels like a giant video game. Instead of playing World of Warcraft, I think it would be even more fun to play Youtube.

Well I really look forward to our uploads. I really enjoy your vids!
 
When you get an invitation it is to YouTube's Individual Video Program (IVP). You wouldn't be considered a "Partner" Also when you do monetize videos, it will not show up as "YouTube" in your AdSense account. It will show up as "Hosted AdSense for Content". You will not get support like you would if you were a Partner. Google owns YouTube FYI. I have IVP for my main channel which isn't ukulele related. I made another account just so that I could do uke covers and not be penalized for Copyright Infringement. Here is the Google page for more info on all of the invites and IVP http://www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/answer.py?answer=181636
 
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