Do you want to make money on YouTube? Millions of creators are earning a very good living from the platform by uploading content that drives huge views and engagements. Whether that income is from advertising revenue, merch sales, or brand deals, we keep you updated with best practises and ideas.

How To Make Money on YouTube

Do you know how to do keyword research so you understand what videos people are actually searching for on YouTube? Do you know how to create a custom YouTube thumbnail? Do you know how to create a Playlist on YouTube?

vidIQ has a ton of tips that will help every creator maximise their video content. We publish content every week to keep you up to date with all the best practices.

YouTube Tips & Tricks

YouTube Shorts content is set to explode! 

All the latest tips, tricks, and rock-solid advice you need for this new feature.

YouTube Shorts

Ask any YouTuber and they will tell you that generating significant views and subscribers isn't easy. But with the right strategy and tools, any video creator can build an engaged subscriber base when they understand what those subscribers want to watch.

Appealing to an audience to watch content you are passionate about making is just the first step, you need to know how to reach them and get your videos discovered. Our guides to how to guide more views on YouTube will give you the best tips to succeed on the platform.

How To Get More Views on YouTube

Six months ago, we told creators to experiment with YouTube Shorts. We advised them to film vertical videos under 60 seconds (as the requirements suggest), post them to YouTube, and create a featured section on their channel to house the content.

Why did we suggest this? In just a few weeks, we saw channels getting thousands of views from Shorts. They mostly came from the YouTube Shorts shelf, a display area where different Shorts are featured. By the time a creator’s video left the shelf, it would have hundreds, thousands, or millions of views.

That’s how powerful Shorts are. With them, you can gain more subscribers in two weeks than you’ve had all year. Without them, you’ll miss a valuable opportunity to get discovered on the platform.

How to Create a YouTube Short: The Complete Beginner's Guide

If you want to know exactly why that is, watch our latest video about Shorts and the competition that’s quickly surrounding them.

The best time to post a Short was months ago. But if you hurry, you can still reap the benefits of creating content that gets played millions of times.

Need a push to get started? Here are three undeniable reasons to experiment with Shorts.

Reason 1: Creators Are Still Getting More Views and Subscribers From YouTube Shorts

The first reason is a little obvious but worth repeating. Extra views from Shorts have helped many channels grow, and they’ve got the numbers to prove it.

. In September 2020, he had 40k total channel views. After posting original, 3D-animated Shorts, he now has more than 3M subscribers and almost 2B views.

How This YouTube Creator Got 1.5 Billion Views In Just 80 Days

Jake isn’t the only creator to reap the benefits of Shorts. There’s also MrBeast, a popular creator who grew his 

 to 4.79M subscribers. Professional YouTube channels such as 

 have Shorts with more than 200k views each. Members of the vidIQ community have seen explosive growth, and some TikTok creators have successfully transitioned to Shorts.

You could be next if you act now. Shorts are viewed 3.5B times each day, so there are plenty of people willing to watch your videos.

Reason 2: Pretty Soon, You’ll Have to Compete With Creators From the U.S.

Did you hear the news? Beginning in March, U.S. creators will get a beta version of the in-app Shorts camera.

The announcement came from Neal Mohan, chief product officer at YouTube. On Feb. 17, he shared the news in a 

“Currently, Shorts is available in beta in India. Since the beginning of December, the number of Indian channels using Shorts creation tools has more than tripled... In the coming weeks, we'll begin expanding the beta to the U.S., unlocking our tools to even more creators so they can get started with Shorts.”

To be clear, anyone can post a Short today. As long as a video is vertical and under 60 seconds, YouTube will recognize it as a Short. What Mohan is mentioning above refers to a TikTok-style camera that’s only available in India. With it, creators can record, edit, and post Shorts directly inside the app, adding music and other special effects to their content.

When the U.S. market gets the Shorts camera, things are going to get very competitive. More creators will have tools for creating better Shorts. Plus, thousands of people who never posted a Short will do so just because there’s a new feature encouraging it.

In the coming weeks, it’s going to be harder to do what creators like Jake, MrBeast, and LegalEagle have done. Rather than wait, it's better to experiment with Shorts right now.

Reason 3: If YouTube Monetizes Shorts, You Can Make More Money

Right now, there’s no way to monetize Shorts. The Shorts display area doesn't support ads, and advertisers may not want to appear on a seconds-long video.

But if you think about YouTube’s history, things are always changing at the company

Just because creators aren’t making money from

Shorts today, that doesn’t mean they won’t in the next five or 10 years.

It's likely YouTube isn’t doing this for free. With content as popular as Shorts, the platform could be searching for ways to monetize it as we type.

Before that happens, put yourself in a position to earn Shorts revenue. If you start posting them now, you can increase your chance of monetizing that content.

Use These Tools to Start Leveraging YouTube Shorts

Even if you decide to post a few Shorts, you’ll need a way to measure their impact on your channel. When you 

, you’ll find two powerful tools within the Chrome extension – one for tracking Shorts views and another for researching popular Shorts on YouTube.

This dashboard is on the top right corner of all YouTube pages. Hover your mouse over the menu to discover how many Shorts views your channel earned in the last 48 hours. For easy access, click the box beside this metric to add it to your dashboard.

This tool lets you research the most-viewed videos on YouTube for any keyword. To access it, go to the YouTube Studio and click 

Type #Shorts into the search bar, then filter the results to show channels with 1,000 or less subscribers. This will show you all of the small channels on YouTube getting tons of views with Shorts. You can use this as motivation to start posting your Shorts or an idea generator for future Shorts.

Shorts are doing well on YouTube. They’re going to be around for a long time, so don’t wait to post your first vertical, less-than-a-minute video. Do it now to reap the benefits before creators in both India and the U.S. can do the same.

Is it too late to capitalize on the viral nature of YouTube Shorts? No, not yet. But in the coming weeks, it may be harder to stand out with short video content.

3 Reasons to Upload YouTube Shorts Before the Competition Gets Tough

Tax Day is April 15th if you are resident in the US, and If you're lucky enough to make any kind of income from YouTube you have just a few days left to file your personal income tax return including your Schedule C for any self-employed earnings you received in 2019. If you haven’t filed yet, we confirm 10 types of expenses you can deduct if you are a YouTuber in the USA.

We spoke with Devin Weber the VP of Operations for 

. Devin is a Certified Public Bookkeeper and Enrolled Agent with the IRS. She has managed the finances for Braille Skateboarding for 6 years and is one of those rare people who enjoys preparing taxes.

 This post is intended as purely informational. You should always consult a professional tax attorney or CPA if you are unsure about your tax filings.

3 Essential Things to Know About Filing Taxes as a US-based Video Creator

Before we dive into the expenses you can claim as tax-deductible let’s take a look at some essentials that every YouTuber or video creator that’s making a living online should know:

The bottom line is if you earned more than $400 from YouTube in 2018 you need to declare that to the IRS. If your income from YouTube was more than $600 in 2018, Google is legally required to provide you with a 1099 form (

). If you’ve worked with any brands or sponsors as part of a YouTube collaboration or promotion, and you earned more than $600 from those sources, each brand or sponsor will also need to provide you with a 1099 form. Even if they do not provide you with a 1099, you know you earned that money and you should report it as part of your total receipts.

#2 There is No Gray Area for the IRS When it Comes to Declaring Income

According to Devin, far too many people claim tax deductions are a ‘gray area’ but when it comes to the IRS there are absolutely no gray areas, to them it’s “black or white" and while you as a contractor might believe you can slip questionable expenses through, the IRS is not here to play. You better be 100% confident that, if you got audited, you could argue and win the case for that expense. If you don't and you feel like you're getting away with something, don't take that chance.

An IRS audit will shine a spotlight on every part of your financial history, and uncover every penny of unreported income, and every penny of expenses that were really personal rather than business use. That is something you really, really want to avoid.

However, the IRS understands that it costs to live and to run a business as a freelancer, so there are so many deductions they allow you. At the end of the day, it’s foolish to keep any income hidden, as, in most cases, you legitimately can find deductions to balance out the majority of that income.

#3 You Can File an Extension (On Paperwork not Payment)

Filing taxes in the US can be an overwhelming experience and the 

IRS does offer the option to file an extension

 if you need it. However, if you believe you will owe the IRS money on 2018 earnings, you will still need to submit that payment on April 15th 2019 - the extension is simply an extension of time to file, not an extension of time to pay.

10 Tax Deductible Expenses for US YouTubers

For the IRS to recognize a legitimate business expense that qualifies as tax-deductible, it must be classed as both ‘ordinary’ and ‘necessary’. You can find out further information regarding these rules on the 

For any YouTuber, the process of video creation is going to come with some kind of cost, especially if that creator wants to publish content with higher production quality. Even if the creator films with an iPhone (more about that in section 4), the chances are they might progress to a dedicated camera and microphone as well as other hardware. Keep the receipts and as a dedicated video creator, you can absolutely claim back these expenses as tax-deductible.

It’s a super talented creator that can upload every video they make to YouTube without any tweaking or editing. If you invest in a computer that you use to edit and upload, you can claim that purchase as part of your tax-deductible expenses - as long as the main use of that computer is for your business. Yay.

If you create or edit video content from home and have a specific area dedicated to that pursuit (i.e. a desk or a corner of the living room or bedroom), then the IRS will allow you to claim a percentage of your home costs (rent, utilities) against that.

However, it takes some working out to understand what percentage you can claim against. A very simplified example is ff your home is 1,000 square feet and, the space that you use is 100 square feet, well then 10% of all the costs of your home are going to count against your home office. You can find out more about writing off home office expenses in this 

You can legitimately claim against Internet and cell phone costs - but only the business portion of the usage. If a YouTuber buys an iPhone for $1,200 and they use it for personal stuff 40% of the time, and they make and edit their videos and upload them and answer comments 60% of the time then, they can only take 60% of that cost as an expense, not the 100%.

So many business owners make the mistake of taking 100% and that is not correct You will, if you get audited, owe money. Find out more from this 

Running any kind of freelance business carries its own supplies costs, and it’s no different for YouTubers. For instance, alongside cameras, mics, green screens, etc, a science channel may have a legitimate reason to purchase a microscope or lab equipment, while a beauty blogger might need to invest in the latest Jeffree Star palettes or Kylie Jenner lip kits as part of the reviews they upload to YouTube.

Braille Skateboarding not only invests in skateboarding equipment, but they also claim expenses for any props or extra equipment they use in shoots (

For any serious YouTuber, the process of video creation can be costly. However, different creators will have different expenses depending on...almost everything. Luckily, the IRS will let you write off supplies directly related to your business if they are ‘necessary’ and ‘ordinary’ which means that YouTubers shouldn’t be held back in purchasing equipment if it directly relates to them earning a living. Just keep every receipt and confirm on every receipt the video that particular supplies relate to. If you're unlucky enough to be ever audited and the IRS discovers a claim for, say, $300 worth of mascara, you can provide evidence via that video you created around the best mascara brands of 2018 that generated 1.2M views. The IRS will think that’s acceptable.

Office supplies also fall under this category so go ahead and claim that printer and ink, those folders and binder clips, that dry erase board, and that desk and chair.

No matter how talented a video creator you are, there will be some skills you are going to need help with as part of your YouTube journey. You may take on an assistant, or outsource help with editing, social media, costume design, bookkeeping, or 100 other things, and the chances are those businesses or individuals will require payment for their services. The good news is that you can claim against those expenses!

However, just as any company or individual you work with on a freelance basis should legally provide you with a 1099, you need to do the same for your subcontractors if you have paid them over $600 in 2019. Those individuals can then report the income on their own taxes.

Anyone you pay money to as part of being a YouTube creator is a tax-deductible expense for you, but reportable income for them (via a W9 form from them which confirms their name, address, and SSN). Remember, the IRS wants those taxes no matter who it is so if you deduct it and it goes to another person, they better report it.

#7 Travel Expenses (National & International)

There are a huge number of video creators whose sole focus is on publishing content around travel. Naturally, a good deal of expenses may be incurred as part of their business so keeping a very clear record of receipts is vital. There may be other creators who rack up expenses around travel throughout the year and may be able to make these tax-deductible if they can prove that travel was essential to the business of being a YouTube creator.

But beware - here comes one of those gray areas we talked about. To the IRS, there is a VERY clear distinction between business use and personal use when it comes to travel expenses. For instance, if you have a YouTube channel and you fly to Paris and you do an episode about the hidden gem bistro's of Paris as part of a holiday, you need to separate out the business part of it. Say, you are in Paris for 10 days and, for five of them, you're doing filming and business work, then for half of the time is business, and half of the time is fun. You can claim half of the travel expenses (50% of hotel costs, flights, etc) but you cannot claim for the whole trip if the whole trip is not dedicated to business.

Also note, the IRS only gives you a 50% tax deduction on meals and entertainment so, if you spend $100 on food, you're only going to get a deduction of $50. Again, check with your CPA if you are unsure, these are only guidelines.

#8 Local Travel Expenses Related to YouTube Business

Did you know that if you travel locally on YouTube business - say, to a coffee shop to do some editing, or to Target to pick up supplies - you can claim local transportation expenses? Not only can you claim on the mileage (currently at 55 cents per mile but this differs every year), but if you keep your receipt, you can also claim for any parking expenses. Any local travel expenses incurred, even toll charges can be tax-deductible if you keep proof of payment.

#9 Subscription & Software Licencing Fees

If you are signed up for any subscription services or pay license fees for software or other items directly related to your business, then you can also claim these as tax-deductible. For instance, if you’re a beauty blogger, and you have a regular subscription to a beauty magazine, you can claim against that.

Again, it’s up to you to prove to the IRS that any licenses or subscriptions you list have a direct impact on your business. The subscription had better tie into the way that you're making income, and you need to be honest about the money you’ve spent in order to make an income from YouTube. And, if you can show that it was, you're good. Some examples of the type of expenses you can claim for include:

You can also claim against bank fees incurred as part of running your YouTube Channel which includes expenses like Wire transfers, or if you pay a monthly fee for a business bank account, or incur PayPal charges. If you sell merch, you can also claim postage and packaging expenses, and if you have a PO Box, you can claim for that too!

There is no escape from paying taxes to the IRS, but if you ethically report your income and deductions and you're not lying about anything, you have absolutely nothing to be worried about.

Like it or not, everyone should pay their fair share of taxes. We have firemen and schools and roads that get repaired because people pay their taxes. But Devin states that “you should pay your fair share but not a penny more.” and take full advantage of the tax deductibles that are available to you.

If you want to take your YouTube channel to the next level and 

 then make sure to download vidIQ. Join over 1 million other users and use vidIQ to help you research YouTube, analyze videos, audit your own channel, and take actionable steps towards success. Just 

And if you’re really serious about growing your YouTube views and subscribers, sign up for exclusive access to the 

 and learn how to launch a successful YouTube Channel in just 30 days.

10 last-minute tax filing tips for US YouTubers - make sure you claim all your deductibles!

10 Last Minute Tax Filing Tips for US YouTube Creators

We all get the same 24 hours in a day and yet some people are able to achieve so much whilst others seem to be constantly running out of time. On this episode of TubeTalk, the YouTuber podcast, we discuss the secrets of time management, an invaluable skill for a YouTube creator, with productivity expert Mike Vardy.

Mike is a writer, productivity strategist, and the founder of 

. He is the author of several books, including The Front Nine: How to Start the Year You Want Anytime You Want (published by Diversion Books) and The Productivityist Playbook.

In order to be consistent, you need to know how to budget your time. According to Mike, "productivity is about intention plus attention." What's your intention? It's to make YouTube videos. How are you going to pay attention to that? Intention to make YouTube videos without a way to pay attention to them, means you're not going to get them done.

With any complex task, creating a production schedule to break a big task into a series of tiny tasks can really help. ‘Shooting a YouTube’ can be a big project, but starting on some of the smaller projects associated with it, like keyword research for “early morning routines." is more doable.

While we all have the same 24 hours in a day, we all have different lives, and we all have different energy levels. While business isn't always personal, productivity definitely is. Mike calls this process “Time Crafting” and it's got to be personalized. You don't have to do it all. For full details on WHAT is "Time Crafting" and how to impliment it, make sure you listen to the podcast for details and working examples.

The first question you have to ask yourself is, are you just trying to get through today? Or are you trying to make a plan for beyond today? That's the question I always ask people when they're doing this. If they say, "I'm just trying to get through today," then we start with daily themes and then write down the things you know about each of those days of the week that are consistent.

Time management and productivity can be an overwhelming topic if you’re new to it, so we’re extremely grateful to Mike for his time. Check out 

 for emails and updates about Mike's time management techniques, and for information about his exciting new book on how to craft your time.

Subscribe to TubeTalk: The Video Marketing Podcast!

TubeTalk has been informing video creators amd marketers since 2014, and is one of the most respected and listened to podcasts in the online video industry. Subscribe today so you never miss an episode! You can find vidIQ's TubeTalk at:

Time management is a vital skill for a YouTube creator, and vidIQ can save you precious time by helping you research YouTube, analyze videos, audit your own channel, and take actionable steps to gaining more views and subscribers. If you want to take your YouTube channel to the next level then make sure to download vidIQ today. 

Good time management skills are critical for any YouTube creator if they want to be productive. In our new TubeTalk podcast we discuss the best techniques.

Time Management Tips and Tricks for YouTube Creators: TubeTalk Episode 157

Attention all video gaming YouTubers. Google Stadia might be super important for you so let’s take a look at this brand new feature from the platform.

What is Google Stadia? It’s a new type of gaming streaming platform that doesn't require any new technology, and is available on virtually any technology already in your house, whether it be a laptop, a mobile device, even a ChromeCast. This allows you to play triple A games, with super intense graphics, at high resolution, over the internet. Yes, this is Google's answer to Cloud based gaming. Other advantages include no need for a new game controller, although there is one available, and you also can access these games seamlessly.

For example, if you're watching a YouTube video, which has an advert for a video game, you can literally click on the 'Play Now', and start playing that game instantly, and transfer it to another device instantly, starting off from where you left it on the other device.

Is Google Stadia the Future of Video Gaming?

This sounds like the future of video gaming. Now that's quite a bold statement, and it may turn out not to be true. However, if Google Stadia does become a major player in the video game market, you’ll want to be there when it kicks off right? Until now, Stadia was a word more associated with sporting venues. Now it's part of gaming culture, and already YouTube searches are being flooded by everybody giving their opinions on the new gaming platform. It's why a channel with a little over 5,000 subscribers is currently competing with the big boys, ranking number four for this search term.

When we talk about riding the wave of a trend, this is exactly what we mean. This is your very small window of opportunity to establish yourself as an authority on the subject. It's why we're making this video after all. Now by the time you see this video, it may already be too late to give your take on Google Stadia. The window of opportunity may have passed. But you also want to strategize evergreen content.

How to Make YouTube Content Around Google Stadia

For example, one video I can think of right now is 

‘Everything you need to know about Google Stadia before it's released’.

 Then when the service is launched, you want to be the first person to do tutorials around it - 

‘How to use Google Stadia, a beginner's guide.’

 That could sit there for years and years, bringing in views for your channel.

I'm telling you now, the most common questions that are going to be asked about Google Stadia, a Cloud based gaming service, are:

What controllers can I use on Google Stadia?

What games are available on Google Stadia?

I could think up of another 20 ideas all about this product, and it's not even launched yet. In fact, let's do a little bit of a friendly wager here. I bet, by this time next year, somebody is going to have a video with over 100,000 views, that is titled ‘How to use a Playstation 4 controller on Google Stadia’, or words to that effect. If you take one piece of advice away from this video, it is this. If you think Google Stadia is going to be important to you and, most importantly, your audience, start your research, make videos, get your foot in the door. This is your opportunity.

But there's also something else to consider through all of this. Stadia is a Google product, and so is YouTube. Yes, YouTube is integrated into Stadia. Let's start with Crowd Play. This allows a video creator to livestream a game through YouTube and create a lobby, where livestream viewers can actually join the game that is being played. Imagine that, joining ninjas that play Fortnite, or the diamond minecarts who play Minecraft. It's real time YouTube collaboration. In theory, this sounds amazing. In theory of course. We don't know what games will be supported just yet. I can't imagine Minecraft, a Microsoft game, being one of them.

Another feature goes by the name of State Share. This is where a player can reach a certain part in the game, whether it be a big boss or a scary part in a horror game, and then share that state through a link, on YouTube for example, for other gamers to play and experience. To be honest, in the real world, I have no idea how that's going to work, but it sounds exciting. If we step back and look at Stadia as a whole, there are still a lot of unanswered questions. We don't know what games are going to be available for it. We don't know how payment is going to work. Is it per game, or on a subscription based service? And we don't know the release date yet.

Google are going to reconnect with the community in summer, to let us know more about that. But, as a video creator, you have no excuses. You know it's coming, you should be preparing for it. It could be a revolution in the gaming industry.

If you want to take your YouTube channel to the next level then make sure to download vidIQ. It will help you research YouTube, analyze videos, audit your own channel, and take actionable steps 

Is Google Stadia the Future of Video Gaming? Possibly - and that's why YouTubers should start thinking about creating content around the streaming service right now.

Google Stadia: Why YouTubers and Gamers Should Start Getting Ready For it Right Now

So you've created some videos, and they all live happily on your YouTube channel. Then you notice that somebody else has taken your work and used it on their own channel, claiming fair use. Are they actually allowed to do that?

Can you take somebody else's music and use it in the background of your videos as long as you credit them in the description? Do you really know your rights when it comes to your content and what you can and cannot do?

On today's episode of TubeTalk, we talk to one of the online video industry’s leading expert on digital rights management, Rian Bosak from 

. Rian really understands content creators, really understands 

 and knows how to get those rights back to the rightful owner so the rightful owner can actually make money off the hard work they’ve poured into their content. In this podcast you will learn:

How creators can protect their ownership of video content

Why many creators are missing out on revenue due to copyright violations

TubeTalk has been informing video creators and marketers since 2014, and is one of the most respected and listened to podcasts in the online video industry. Subscribe today so you never miss an episode! You can find vidIQ's TubeTalk at:

The Expert's Guide to Fair Use on YouTube: Full Transcript

Rian Bosak:	Thank you for having me. I'm super excited to be here.

Liron Segev:	Okay, so Rian, let's start at the top. I upload my video onto YouTube. I own that video. I own that information. It's my intellectual property. Is that where we start?

Rian Bosak:	Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, I think one of the most basic things that the content creators need to understand is just what their rights are, when they own rights, what they have to do to own those rights, and kind of where that starting point is.

So, look, anytime you create something and put it into a fixed transferable format, you own a copyright. You don't have to register that copyright so there is no requirement to go to the US copyright registry office and register your content there. Once you put it into a fixed format you have created a copyright and you can do what you want with that copyright. You can sell it to someone else, you can upload it to a digital platform and put it out to the world for everyone to see. But it's really important to understand that that is a thing for you as soon as you have created something unique that you own.

Liron Segev:	Okay. So it's effectively like owning a physical thing that I could lease it out if I want to. I could give it to you to destroy. It's my choice to do with it as I please, since it belongs to me.

Liron Segev:	Okay. So now that we understand that, so I have a piece of content, I've shot my YouTube video, I uploaded it, I gave it a beautiful title and a thumbnail and all that good stuff. And then I put it out into the world. Now I still own it and if other people go ahead and share that on my behalf, I'm totally okay with it and they're not infringing on any right. In fact, we encourage them to do that. That's correct?

Rian Bosak:	Yeah, absolutely. I mean, if you want to allow people to repurpose your content, that is completely within your jurisdiction to do so.

Liron Segev:	But now we have a situation where people are maybe reacting to my content or maybe they take a piece of my content and they add commentary to that. What happens in that case?

Rian Bosak:	So this really gets into a lot of what fair use is meant to address, right? And let me give the caveat before I start down that path. Look, fair use is really up to a judge to decide. It's a defense that someone can use against a claim of copyright infringement. And if you're going to argue a fair use defense, you should always consult your lawyer prior to doing that.

That's a really important piece. It's extremely complex. There's four points to it and there's kind of a certain type of content that really fair use was meant to allow for, which is news, nonprofit, education, those sorts of things that it's harder for those type of companies to come up with the money to be licensing content, whereas if you're doing it for commercial purposes, that's a very different use of content.

So, look, when it comes to a lot of react channels, I mean, they're all over YouTube, right? Like you've seen thousands of these things. In large part they don't really fall under the exclusions for fair use. They're not really transformative. They're not really adding anything. I mean, most of the react channels that are out there kind of have an intro of somebody saying, "What's up, guys? You've been asking me forever to react to this video. So today I've got creator X, Y and Z's video up for you, and let's just hop into it."

And then they play the entirety of the video, which gets into one of the four points of fair use, which is, amounts to substantiality of the work taken. And over the course of the video they'll just be like, "Oh, wow. Oh, that's crazy. Oh man, I love that thing."

And then they come to the tail end of the video and they wrap it up with, "Well, guys, well, that video was great. Make sure that you leave a comment below about what you thought about my reaction or what you thought about the video. Smash that like button and subscribe. Let me know what you want me to react to next and I'll see you guys next time." Right?

Rian Bosak:	So, this gets into, again, the four points of fair use. What's the purpose and character of the use? Oftentimes these are people that are trying to create new content off of existing content and create a commercial base for themselves, which kind of puts everything into a little bit of a wonky balance, the nature of the copyrighted work. So was the work that you originally took out for commercial purposes? If that was out for commercial purposes and your content is out for commercial purposes, that puts them really opposed to each other.

The big question, like I said earlier, is what is the amount of substantiality of the content that has been used? If you've used the entire video and reacted to the whole video, it provides the question, "Okay, if someone were to consume your piece of content, would they need to go back and consume the other piece of content?" Which the answer, if you've used all of it, is probably no.

Which gets to the fourth point of fair use, which is effective use upon the potential market. So, basically by creating this piece of content, you've removed the need for someone else to go consume that content. So, in large part, react videos don't really fit under what fair use was meant to address kind of for all of those purposes.

Now there are ways in which react content can lean more towards fair use if you really are adding to the conversation about it, if you're using limited portions of the piece of content to illustrate the point you're trying to make. If you're talking about how that piece of content reflects on public affairs that are going on or that sort of thing, that can lean you more towards it being fair use.

But again, as I said when we first started this was, keep in mind this is a defense, right? So if somebody thinks that you've infringed on their copyrights, you can say that this is fair use and talk about that in a discussion with them that ultimately is really on a judge to decide if it were to get to that level of being litigated.

Liron Segev:	So the onus is on who to prove that it's fair use. Is it on me, as the person using that content reacting, or is it on the original content creator to say, "This person has used my content."

Rian Bosak:	Yeah. So, in a fair use defense, the onus is really on you to take whatever you have created. So if it's a react video, take your react video, hold it against these four points of fair use, and try to articulate why it would fit that legal exclusion under the copyright law.

Liron Segev:	Okay. So, let's just go through those four points one more time. What are the four points?

Rian Bosak:	Yeah, so the four factors of fair use are:

The amount and substantiality of the portion taken

The effect upon the potential market for the original content

All of those things really have to be balanced and factored together. There's no one smoking gun that creates it as a strong case for fair use. You really have to measure it against all four things and take that into consideration when you're trying to assess if your content could fit the legal exclusion for fair use. These are super complicated.

I mean, if you were to start to unpack some of the cases that have been litigated, it gets muddy really quick and even different judges have fallen on different sides on the same points of this.

So it really depends again, how much did you use? Was it really transformative? Did you really take this thing and talk about it and use it to illustrate an original idea or point that you have that you're trying to make?

Liron Segev:	Okay. Okay. So, it's not as simple as one, two, three and four, when I've got three out of the four, therefore I'm perfectly fine. What tools do we have at our disposal for this?

Rian Bosak:	For the standard content creator most people have is some ability inside of Video Manager to locate copies of their content. That's the very base level service that YouTube offers. And if you can do that from your Video Manager, it's what's called Content ID Light. It is a version of Content ID, which Content ID is a product that YouTube created back and launched in 2007 that allows you to deliver reference files to YouTube or copies of your videos that help you scale this intellectual property management.

Liron Segev:	Is that almost like a fingerprint of your particular copy that you know that that's your original content that you uploaded?

Rian Bosak:	Yeah, exactly. It's an exact copy into a separate server at YouTube that basically you can define to YouTube how you want copies of that content to behave. And that can be to monetize the content, track the content, block the content, or take down the content.

Now to be clear on takedowns, I think there's a big misperception that YouTube is issuing these takedowns, and this is done by "copyright parts" which is not the case in particular with takedowns. Takedowns actually require you, even when you have access to more product functionality, to fill out a form and actually issue that copyright strike. So that process can't be automated. But discovery under different policy types actually can be automated and then content is reviewed and a decision is made as to whether it matches your reference file or not, but at a manual level.

Liron Segev:	I don't have to do anything extra. In other words, if I upload my video onto YouTube, do they kind of get that fingerprint Content ID? Do they create that at that point, or do I have to go into another system and tell them, "Hey, this belongs to me."

Rian Bosak:	There's really two systems, right? One is, if you're an individual creator, there is this... you may or may not have access to it. Not everybody has access to this so it's something that you can apply for and YouTube decides, but this ability to kind of find some content.

Or, there are companies like SuperBam that can actually help you deliver full reference files into the system and have access to even more functionality that YouTube provides called manual claiming where we can help manage our copyrights on the YouTube platform.

Liron Segev: So if I'm just using the default set of tools, I may or may not have the system in my Video Manager in the New Studios, no longer Studio Beta, luckily. In the new Studio I am going to the copyright option and see if somebody else has used my content and then give them an option to either email them and ask them to remove it or issue them the notice to get off the system. However, that's not going to get everything, right?

Rian Bosak:	Yeah, no. So, Content ID definitely has some restrictions mostly based around time code. So if the match isn't long enough, Content ID won't find it. And that's why in really a robust rights management strategy, you also need to have human beings that are looking for more of your content trying to find it out there.

Liron Segev:	Okay, so now we're moving towards the SuperBam arena where, if I am maybe not an individual creator, maybe I'm part of a bigger corporate or maybe I'm in the music industry and everything is royalties and I need to be able to be paid out and pay my artist out, I'm not going to just rely on the default tools. SuperBam really is going to come in and help me in this particular case, right?

Rian Bosak:	Yeah, exactly. That's exactly what we do. So we do both sides of it where we both deliver your reference files into the system and then we have a team of people who search for more of the content and where we find that content we're able to place claims on it.

And usually you need to use manual claiming for instances where people are doing compilation videos or maybe short form clips that really don't fit the exclusion for fair use or any of the other legal exclusions that we wouldn't claim a video for. There's quite a bit of that. So it's really important that you do have both sides of it to be properly managing your copyrights.

Liron Segev:	Okay. So this is getting more in depth. With all your years of doing that and with your customer base, have you found content landing up in weird and wonderful places that we definitely would have missed if we just did our own search?

Rian Bosak:	Yeah, all the time. Again, talking about compilation videos, you see so many compilation videos out there, whether it's stuff like FailArmy where it's just a bunch of Fail videos or People Are Awesome. Those are properties that are owned by Jukin, so those are all licensed videos.

But so many other people take that type of content and repurpose it in their own version of something like that, and then blast it all over the internet, not just on YouTube, but onto Facebook and Instagram and Twitter, literally any platform they can get their hands on trying to build an audience off of that stuff.

Liron Segev:	Well, and monetize, I suppose, as well.

Rian Bosak:	Yeah. I mean most frequently these people are doing this to monetize, whether it's native on the YouTube channel that they're trying to build or they're using that as leverage to push to a website or something else, that's how people tend to repurpose content.

Liron Segev:	If I'm your client, would you come to me and say, "Look, we discovered your content here, here and here. What do you want to do?" What are my options?

Rian Bosak:	For our clients today, we help them manage their intellectual property rights on YouTube. Every time we onboard a client we have a conversation about what policies they want, what things they do want to allow, so it's very custom here, and then go ahead and implement those policies out there.

The other platforms, they actually haven't really built out a product functionality to do this kind of stuff yet. Facebook sort of has it with Rights Manager. It is takedown only, so that is something that we're really hoping that they build out better and make more available to more of their clients. But right now, today, off of YouTube, it's very difficult to manage these rights short of sending cease and desist letters and/or trying to contact the platform directly to get the content removed.

Liron Segev:	Okay. So if we go back to then focus onto YouTube, once you do find content that's out there and that content maybe now has got 500,000 views and all that revenue should have technically come to me, what can I do about this at this stage?

Rian Bosak:	In working with a rights management provider like SuperBam, whenever we make a claim, any monetization from it is go forward from there. Right? So if 500,000 views have already occurred, you can't go back and "recapture" that revenue.

But you can monetize any future views going forward from there. I mean, the option is always there if you want to reach out to the channel and try and go chase down whatever money they made, you can totally do that and you'd have the rights to it. But that can be very expensive to do and the dollars that they've made may not be significant enough to actually get to do that in all the cases.

So typically what most people do is they'll just monetize going forward and ignore what's already occurred. But part of working with somebody like SuperBam would be to mitigate those things at all. Right? If you have the content in the system, the likelihood that we're going to be able to find it before it gets to 500,000 or even 500 million views.

I mean, we have several videos that we've issued claims against SuperBam that are in the hundreds of millions of views of repurposed content. It's better to have all that stuff in the system and start from the beginning, than try to go chase down things that have already occurred.

Liron Segev:	Okay. So, essentially, if I sign up with you and you have now my reference files, the odds of somebody being able to use it elsewhere without you knowing are significantly less than if I just uploaded then react to it later on.

Liron Segev:	Okay. Now speaking of clients of yours, do you only work with large corporates, with millions of subscribers for this to make sense, or is this a platform that perhaps is open to people with smaller channels?

Rian Bosak:	Right now, today, we're mostly working with larger clients. Our average subscriber count of our client is about 3.5 million subscribers, so we're working with pretty big channels. And then we are working with some enterprise clients as well, like Group Nine and Nitro Circus.

We'd love to make it more democratic so we're working to see if there are options that have it make sense for both sides because obviously it is a business and we have bills to pay and people to pay. But it is really important I think for everyone to be able to manage their IP rights as soon as they start creating content because the reality is once you create content and put it somewhere very likely it's going to go everywhere. And that could happen in very short order.

And in some cases it's only a small percentage of what you get on your own and operated. But there's also a ton of use cases where we see that what I call user generated content or UGC views far exceed what we got on the owned and operated side of the business.

Have you ever uploaded a video to YouTube then found other creators using your work as their own? In this week's episode of TubeTalk we talk to Rian Bosak about copyright and Fair Use on YouTube.

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