As I look back, in the rear view mirror, to this year 2020, it’s certainly been a year like none other. Who could have imagined a global pandemic that would shut down not only cities and communities, but whole countries. As we say good bye to 2020 and step into 2021, even through all the challenges that we’ve had to go through and changes that we’ve had to adjust to, I’m incredibly grateful for making it this far.
I’ve not created as many YouTube videos as I would have liked to, but I’m grateful for whatever I’ve been able to accomplish and many people that I’ve been able to help through my videos as well as answering hundreds of questions from subscribers and viewers. I dedicate this video to all my YouTube subscribers and viewers.
Even through all the challenges, this is still a very special season and a great time to take a moment and acknowledge your support and love during this year. I’ve enjoyed creating tutorial videos and reviews in 2020 and I hope to continue doing so in the new year 2021. This holiday and Christmas season many of us will be spending it away from our loved ones, but whatever you do, I encourage you to take the time to celebrate this special season with family and friends, even if it’s virtually.
I take this opportunity to wish you and your loved ones a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. Make the best of your time with your near and dear ones. And as we close 2020, my hope and prayer is that the New Year 2021 will be your best yet. Wishing you happiness, hope, peace, love and much success in all your endeavors.
In closing, I would like to give a BIG shout out with a heart filled with gratitude, to my subscribers and viewers from all over the world, for your continued support this year. Always remember that I appreciate you very much and want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for the visits, likes, shares, comments and of course for subscribing. It means a whole lot to me.
At the time of this writing, I’ve uploaded over 700 videos, have almost 18,000 subscribers, and over 7.2 million views across my YouTube channel. One of my goals each year is to always improve my video creation skills and focus on creating quality content, this year was no different. I hope to continue creating and sharing quality video content in 2021. Thank you once again…stay safe and blessed!
CREDITS: Viddyoze and Movavi logo and screenshots are copyright protected, used with permission | Commercial rights to use video backgrounds, images, graphics and animations unless otherwise mentioned | Microsoft, Windows, and the Windows logo are trademarks, or registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries | Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.
If you're a YouTube creator, YouTuber or whatever we call ourselves - you know those of us, who have an active YouTube channel and create video content regularly.
Well, you must have come across the important notice posted by YouTube on COPPA compliance. There were a couple of messages, one of them was:
"Important: All creators are obligated to take action to comply with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act and/or other laws. Review your channel and video settings."
Many YouTube creators are very concerned about what these new changes mean to them in terms of their current content as well as going forward. More importantly what it means to their revenue generated through their video content. Well, before we dive into the details, let me briefly talk about COPPA and why YouTube needs to be in compliance with COPPA.
What is COPPA?
COPPA or Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, which is managed by the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) is a law designed to protect the privacy of children under 13. This privacy Act was passed by the US Congress in 1998 and took effect in 2000. I won't get into all the details about COPPA, but you can read about it to learn more about the Act.
Why YouTube Needs to be in Compliance with COPPA?
Well, in simple terms - YouTube has been naughty and the FTC slapped them with a record fine of $170 million for alleged violations of COPPA. As per this FTC Press Release on September 4, 2019, the violation was related to YouTube "illegally collected personal information from children without their parents’ consent."
The settlement not only requires Google and YouTube to pay the massive fine of $170 million, but also requires that Google and YouTube make necessary changes to their business practices and systems in terms of data collection and privacy.
Some of these changes include mandatory labeling of content intended for younger audiences, and stopping the collection of data on videos intended for children. In this official blog post, YouTube outlined these new data practices for children's content on YouTube.
YouTube has always held their stance that their platform was intended for people over 13 years of age. However, as per the press release “YouTube touted its popularity with children to prospective corporate clients,” said FTC Chairman Joe Simons. “Yet when it came to complying with COPPA, the company refused to acknowledge that portions of its platform were clearly directed to kids. There’s no excuse for YouTube’s violations of the law.”
And so here we are, as YouTube creators having to deal with the consequences of Google's and YouTube's negligence and lack of responsibility. Further down in this blog post, I will discuss some of the key changes and how it affects YouTubers as well as what we can do as content creators on YouTube to fight this or at least make our voices heard.
What do these Changes Mean for YouTube Creators?
First of all, these changes take effect in January 2020. However, YouTube has already started the process of informing and alerting YouTube creators about the changes that need to be made to their channel and videos.
As per the settlement, YouTube agreed to create and implement a system that requires YouTube creators to clearly identify the content that is meant for children. This is required because targeted or personalized ads cannot be placed on these videos.
YouTube has already implemented these changes in YouTube Studio. Essentially, YouTubers have two options to identify their videos as "Made for Kids" or "Not Made for Kids". The first option is at the global (or channel level); and the second option is at the video level. In the video below, Lauren, the Head of Family Partnerships at YouTube, discusses the new changes as well as provides instructions on how to use the channel and videos settings to identify your videos.
Another change that will be implemented by YouTube is a machine learning system that will automatically identify videos that are clearly deemed for children. However, they will initially rely of YouTube creators to mark their videos as "Made for Kids" or not. In the video below Lauren also highlights factors to take into consideration to help identify videos that are "Made for Kids".
In this video above, Lauren also highlights some of the other changes that will affect your videos that are marked as "Made for Kids". For example, YouTube will limit the data they collect from these videos in order to comply with COPPA.
Some other features that will no longer be available, on "Made for Kids" videos are the comments section, info cards, and end screens. Also, these videos will no longer have personalized ads, which could mean a decreased ad revenue.
What can YouTube Creators do to Fight Back?
My take on this is that this is not our fault as YouTube content creators, but looks like we are having to bear the brunt of it. And I think it's important to have our voices heard because it will impact the way we create our content and negative impact this can have on the revenue generated through our video content.
I completely understand and support the importance of privacy and especially protecting children. However, I believe that the responsibility that COPPA has put on YouTube content creators is unreasonable and unacceptable in my humble opinion.
My content and channel is not targeted towards kids, but still some of my videos may have to be labeled as "Made for Kids" because they may be deemed for a younger audience. It should be the responsibility of parents to restrict the websites they access including YouTube.
So what can we as YouTube content creators do to have our voices heard? Well, first watch this video below from J House Law who used to be a civil litigator. This video will help you get a good understanding from a YouTube creator's perspective and what we can do to make our voices heard.
As per the video above, here are some of the recommendations made, along with suggested talking points for creator and viewers. You will also find a link below to see comments already submitted by other YouTube creators and viewers:
This is a very serious matter and will affect some YouTube creators more than others. But, in general, this seems to be an overreach by the government trying to take more control of our lives. On this ending note, I'm reminded of this quote from Ronald Reagan "The most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help."
I encourage you to take it upon yourself to act and make your voices heard by doing the above and sharing this with others to do the same. Together we can make a difference. Thanks for stopping by!
CREDITS: Google and the Google logo are registered
trademarks of Google Inc., used with permission | Microsoft, Windows, and the
Windows logo are trademarks, or registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation
in the United States and/or other countries | Logos and screenshots used with
permission from respective owners | Other company names may be trademarks of
their respective owners.
YouTube has been consciously working on helping creators with various tools to enhance their content creation experience.
One big issue has always been about content being stolen from creators and re-uploaded to other channels without permission.
I know this firsthand because I have experienced this myself and have had to manually file video take-down notices.
This can be very frustrating because if you do create content yourself, you know the amount of work and effort that goes into the production.
In July 2018, YouTube introduced the Copyright Match Tool to help creators protect their content. When it was first introduced, it was rolled out to creators with over 100,000 subscribers. The long-term plan was to roll it out in phases to all creators in the YouTube Partner program.
As per YouTube, this tool has gone through a lot of testing and is now being rolled out to more content creators. Earlier in March 2019, I received an email from YouTube indicating that I now had access to this tool and could check it out.
MY FIRSTHAND EXPERIENCE
When I checked out the copyright match tool, I wasn't surprised to see that 8 of my videos were re-uploaded without my permission. To manually check YouTube for re-uploads of your videos can be a tedious task. And then once you find videos that have been stolen or used without your permission, you need to file a take-down notice.
So based on using the copyright match tool firsthand, I can say that this is a blessing and a great tool to have in your content creation toolbox. When I checked all the 8 videos that were re-uploaded, all of them had a 100% match. You can watch this video below, to see the copyright match tool in action and what options are available to content creators.
HOW DOES COPYRIGHT MATCH TOOL WORK?
Essentially, once content creators upload their videos to their channel, YouTube will scan their platform to see if it finds matches to similar or same videos that have be re-uploaded.
Once a match has been found, it will be reported in the Matches tab of the Copyright Match Tool. It will list down relevant details about the re-uploaded video like: the links to the re-uploaded and original videos; channel name and link; the percentage match of the re-upload; and various actions you can take.
WHAT ACTION CAN YOU TAKE FOR RE-UPLOADED VIDEOS?
There are 3 main actions that content creators can take regarding the re-uploaded videos:
(1) Move to Archive: if you don't want to take any action. This will place the entry in the Archive tab where you can access it later, if you wish.
(2) Contact Channel: allows you to send a pre-written email message to the channel owner alerting them about the copyright violation.
(3) Request Video Removal: allows you to submit a legal request to YouTube to take down the video. There are 2 options available - one provides a 7-day notice for the channel to remove the video; and the second option requests immediate take-down which could also result in a copyright strike.
WHAT TO DO BEFORE TAKING ACTION?
Before you take any action on the re-uploaded videos, it's best to check the re-uploads in question, and then decide your course of action. Bear in mind that original content can be used by others without asking permission if it's used under "Fair Use".
In my case, all of my videos were full uploads as is they were originally created by the person re-uploading them. So this is not considered "Fair Use" and so I requested immediate take-down.
Overall, I'm impressed with this tool because even if I had manually checked YouTube, I would probably not caught most of these videos. Also, YouTube was very prompt in taking immediate action after my submitting the take-down notices.
Do you have access to the Copyright Match Tool? If so, have you had any matches and taking action? Please feel free to chime in and provide your feedback in the comments section below...thanks!
CREDITS: Google and the Google logo are registered trademarks of Google Inc., used with permission | Images and graphics used in this video are public domain via Pixabay, unless otherwise mentioned | Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.
YouTube has made
some recent changes in the past couple of months so viewers and YouTube users
can have a better experience. Some of these changes include more relevant
videos in the Home Page feed for viewers who are signed-in YouTube. You can now
better organize your video content into various sections as well as showcase
different Playlists.
One of these
changes includesthe introduction of a
new “responsive” layout. YouTube content consumers use various types of digital
devices with different screen sizes like TVs, laptops, tablets, and
smartphones. The new responsive One Channel YouTube
layout will make it possible for YT content to shrink and fit into all these
different screen types.
To help YouTubers
implement these changes and leverage from these new features, the YouTube Creator
Academy organized a free online course. This two-week course, Maximize Your Channel, and was held between June 3 to
June 17, 2013. I attended this online course and found it useful. I’ve already
implemented many of things I learned during the course and am in the process of
implementing others.
Some other new
features that YouTube has implemented recently are: you can now receive an
email notification once your video has completed uploading to YouTube. Also,
the new Publish button helps you hold off on publishing your video until you’re
ready. Until, the video is published, it will show as a private video. This is a
good feature because you may not want the video to be public until you’ve
completed filling out all the other information pertaining to the video.
YouTube has also
implemented a pilot program to help some YouTube Partners offer paid channels.
All these paid channels, currently have a 14-day free trial. In late May 2013,
YouTube also announced the Social Star Awards which will be presented to the
most popular in social media.
I like most of
these changes, especially the ones related to the new One Channel YouTube
layout. You can take a look at my channel by visiting AJGodinho’s YouTube Channel, to see some of the new
One Channel layout features.
The use of Video Communication online has increased tremendously in the past few years. As per stats, people prefer watching videos rather than reading long text messages and print.
This rise in the popularity of using video to communicate with one another has brought about many useful video communication platforms.
Whether you want to video chat with friends and family, or send video email; create YouTube video tutorials or music videos to showcase your pictures, there are many cool video applications available to use.
Many of these online video communication platforms are free to use. Over the past few years, I've used many of these video communication platforms, some of which are:
iWowWe for video email and video conferencing;
Skype for video chatting and instant messaging;
Animoto for creating music videos and greetings;
CamStudio for uploading video tutorial on YouTube;
Window Movie Maker for creating and editing videos.
The above video applications can be used, both, for personal as well as business purposes. I've written a review of each of the above mentioned video platforms on this Squidoo web page. It includes video overviews of each of the above applications.
I've enjoyed using these videos communication platforms. Video is here to stay, so learn how to use these video tools to effectively communicate online.
