Do you watch YouTube? Chances are you do. Check out YouTube’s statistics page that details it’s growth and audience. Most adults between 18-49 use YouTube more than traditional TV, according to their page. (Also, I’d like to clarify I’m expert on this topic. I’m only just learning about it. There’s so much more to learn and a lot more coming, so consider this an introduction for you and me).

“YouTube has over a billion users — almost one-third of all people on the Internet — and every day people watch hundreds of millions of hours on YouTube and generate billions of views. YouTube overall, and even YouTube on mobile alone, reaches more 18-34 and 18-49 year-olds than any cable network in the U.S.” — YouTube

YouTube is a growing and changing medium that almost everyone uses. It has some of the most helpful videos, some of the strangest, and some of the biggest communities. YouTube is a big deal to a lot of people, and for some creators, it’s their source of income. Anyone can upload to YouTube, whether they do so casually or try to build an audience. It’s a whole different game than TV networks, and YouTube is trying to figure out how to handle the new developments.

I don’t post frequently on YouTube, so I wouldn’t consider myself a YouTuber. But, like a lot of people, I watch enough videos to consider myself a YouTube fan and part of the community. While we aren’t the creators, we watch the creators and feel like we know them (to some extent). YouTubers have the ability to be as closed off or as open as they want. We’re part of YouTube too, even if we don’t upload ourselves.

Anyone can upload to YouTube. So how do you handle a platform that is so widely used and anyone can upload to? Well, a lot of creators lately have been talking about the growing issue with YouTube’s copyright claim system. In short, it’s a system that automatically checks videos for possibly copyrighted material. Depending on what the infringement is, videos will either be limited in length, muted, or even taken down. It’s fantastic in theory, but in practice, it’s been damaging to some creators under fair use.

Matthias, a user known for reading your comments videos and comedy sketches, uploaded a video titled “YouTube Copyright Abuse Has Changed Me” back in February. In it, Matthias details his struggles as well as others with the broken system in hopes of explaining the problem and how fair use works to his viewers.

“If you even clicked on this video it does affect you because it means you watch YouTube videos.” Matthias went to college for film and studied the Fair Use clause, and went about trying to educate others as best he can in view of the copyright system. It’s been incredibly helpful for myself, and I’m sure for countless others.

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Matthias explains that a fellow YouTuber had watched several users get hit with illegitimate claims, so the user uploaded a similarly titled video with nothing but silence and a picture for 15 minutes. The video was instantly claimed, manually by a person. The whole claim was false, but it happened right away.

“Some of these videos are even being claimed by people who don’t own the original work.” Matthias stopped making parodies even though he was under fair use because of all the claims he received. I’ve even seen claims happen to my own channel, with music that is correctly used under Creative Commons licenses. Again, the copyright claim is a smart idea in thought, but it hasn’t worked out well at all.  Matthias explains the problem in much better detail than I can, as he understands it much better and illustrates it much clearer, so I recommended checking out his video.

Since the release of that video, Matthias has released two more notable videos on the topic. The first is “It’s Time Everyone Should Know This“, in which he reads comments from all his viewers asking all about copyright and fair use. It’s incredibly informative, especially in a time when everyone has some sort of social media connection. The second video uploaded to Matthias’ secondary vlogging channel, Matt & Amanda, under the title “It Broke“. Matthias now has a connection with an employee in YouTube and will be pushing all he can for more transparency from the company and a fix for the system.

Props to YouTube for trying to fix things, but YouTube seems to be moving too fast for people to keep up. There’s problems affecting a lot of people on the platform, and many solutions haven’t seemed to pop up. So if you’re a YouTuber or someone who watches anything on the site, check out Matthias’ videos. He brings up perfect points about the whole situation, and explains it clearly and succinctly.

Do you know anything about the problems on YouTube? How have they affected you? Leave a comment below.

If you want to contact me, I can be reached via Twitter @ejLadd or by my email, [email protected].

To see more from Frame Rate, check out Frame Rate: Olan Rogers’ ‘Final Space’.