Hey all,
As a quick background, my channel has been monetized since August 2021 and I have been creating long form videos since the beginning with zero strikes. As of last week, YouTube sent me an email and a notification to YT Creator App stating that my channel will no longer be monetized due to "reused content" policy. When I read this, I scratched my head thinking, "How did I violate the reused content?? I followed the YT content creator policy to the tee!". Well turns out I didn't.. not under the optics of 2022 Policy.
Here is what I found. The issue was not with any of my long form, monetized, videos - it was with my short videos. About 8-10 months ago, YT was pushing hard for content creators to produce more short videos because they wanted to steal viewers from TikTok and Instagram; they even allowed creators to "reuse other creator's work" (for shorts only) by creating a +short button on each video on YT. At the time, none of the short videos were monetized (probably because of the massive music copyright issues) and it was really unclear what was allowed and not allowed for shorts. So I decided to do some experiments by uploading some motorcycle accident videos that I found on Reddit and Instagram, I dubbed them with music from YT and an overlay text describing the video. As expected, these short videos massed only few hundred, maybe a thousand views within the first week, and then just nosedived to nothing. So I said "meh" to shorts and continued building my long form content.
Fast forward to 3 weeks ago, these short videos some how started to pick up steam and started skyrocketing to 100k to 1M views within few days. It was a nice surprise but I didn't pay too much attention to it because I wasn't getting paid from these videos. So I just continued with my long form content because I lost the motivation to spend time on short videos long time ago.
Then one morning... the email arrives and my heart sank as I read the words over and over again. I thought I screwed up huge. But when I read the new 2022 "reused content policy", the first item in the "DONT" column was "Don't use short videos from other social media websites". I said, BINGO - YT must have picked up my short videos that were becoming viral and realized that it was snipped from Reddit. And I was right. I was given two options - dispute the claim if you think YT made mistake; or delete/edit the videos and reapply for monetization. Because I clearly knew that I was in the wrong (based on new policies), I didn't have much to dispute and therefore, I chose with option 2 and deleted my 7x short videos. Now I am just waiting until the 30day period is over to reapply for monetization.
What I took away from this experience:
- always review and update your channel's repository after a new policy from YT is released
- don't upload short videos that are repeated in any other social media websites (reddit, instagram, tiktok, fb)
- continue to have a plan to stay afloat (financially) without YT
In the end, I am kind of glad that it forces me to take a month break but it upsets me that YT will treat creators this way. It would have been nicer if they gave me a nudge to warn me that some of my already non-monetized short videos were flagged in violation of YT reused content policy rather than just putting me in the dumpster while YT still gains profit from my long form videos.
Anyways - hope this helps some of you out there that experimented with shorts and don't end up where I am at.
Cheers
KSMC
As a quick background, my channel has been monetized since August 2021 and I have been creating long form videos since the beginning with zero strikes. As of last week, YouTube sent me an email and a notification to YT Creator App stating that my channel will no longer be monetized due to "reused content" policy. When I read this, I scratched my head thinking, "How did I violate the reused content?? I followed the YT content creator policy to the tee!". Well turns out I didn't.. not under the optics of 2022 Policy.
Here is what I found. The issue was not with any of my long form, monetized, videos - it was with my short videos. About 8-10 months ago, YT was pushing hard for content creators to produce more short videos because they wanted to steal viewers from TikTok and Instagram; they even allowed creators to "reuse other creator's work" (for shorts only) by creating a +short button on each video on YT. At the time, none of the short videos were monetized (probably because of the massive music copyright issues) and it was really unclear what was allowed and not allowed for shorts. So I decided to do some experiments by uploading some motorcycle accident videos that I found on Reddit and Instagram, I dubbed them with music from YT and an overlay text describing the video. As expected, these short videos massed only few hundred, maybe a thousand views within the first week, and then just nosedived to nothing. So I said "meh" to shorts and continued building my long form content.
Fast forward to 3 weeks ago, these short videos some how started to pick up steam and started skyrocketing to 100k to 1M views within few days. It was a nice surprise but I didn't pay too much attention to it because I wasn't getting paid from these videos. So I just continued with my long form content because I lost the motivation to spend time on short videos long time ago.
Then one morning... the email arrives and my heart sank as I read the words over and over again. I thought I screwed up huge. But when I read the new 2022 "reused content policy", the first item in the "DONT" column was "Don't use short videos from other social media websites". I said, BINGO - YT must have picked up my short videos that were becoming viral and realized that it was snipped from Reddit. And I was right. I was given two options - dispute the claim if you think YT made mistake; or delete/edit the videos and reapply for monetization. Because I clearly knew that I was in the wrong (based on new policies), I didn't have much to dispute and therefore, I chose with option 2 and deleted my 7x short videos. Now I am just waiting until the 30day period is over to reapply for monetization.
What I took away from this experience:
- always review and update your channel's repository after a new policy from YT is released
- don't upload short videos that are repeated in any other social media websites (reddit, instagram, tiktok, fb)
- continue to have a plan to stay afloat (financially) without YT
In the end, I am kind of glad that it forces me to take a month break but it upsets me that YT will treat creators this way. It would have been nicer if they gave me a nudge to warn me that some of my already non-monetized short videos were flagged in violation of YT reused content policy rather than just putting me in the dumpster while YT still gains profit from my long form videos.
Anyways - hope this helps some of you out there that experimented with shorts and don't end up where I am at.
Cheers
KSMC
