
The Fine Bros abandon attempt to license reaction videos after criticism - ing33k
http://www.theverge.com/2016/2/2/10892812/the-fine-bros-reaction-video-trademark-abandon
======
CryoLogic
Lots of people have been creating threads about The Fine Bros, but I think we
need to be angry at YouTube too. YouTube makes it exceptionally easy to file
takedowns, no proof of validity required.

It's literally a web form, and your videos are taken down regardless of who
requests it or why - until you prove otherwise. The process can take weeks to
months for a YouTube representative to allow you to appeal your case, and in
some situations you can't even appeal it (if you have appealed recently, etc.)

In my experience, I had a number of videos taken down by a teenager because he
wanted his (similar videos) to rank above mine in search. It took three months
to get my videos back online, the guy trolled me over email and after YouTube
put them back online (fyi, they don't compensate your revenues) - they let the
other guy who falsified his claims just keep making videos like he was
previously.

YouTube is not an open, or fair platform like it used to strive to be. It is
now very much a revenue stream where creators (who bring traffic to the site)
are often disregarded and/or considered disposable.

~~~
vinbreau
I got a take down notice from a band last year. I had posted videos of my
progress on a game I was working on wherein I used an air-raid siren I got
from the public domain. The band had a song called Air Raid that used the same
public domain sound. It was obviously not a violation of any of their music.
It took me three weeks to get that cleared up. It's too easy for people to
abuse this. Guilty until proven innocent is a terrible platform strategy.

~~~
moron4hire
I got an automated notice of a Copyright violation for a song I had added to
my video _through_ the YouTube interface, _out of their own library of free
songs_.

Just how profitable does your business have to be before you can start hiring
people? Apparently not even Google or Facebook or Apple have enough money to
hire a bunch of minimum-wage help-desk employees to police content on their
own sites.

Of course, we know it's not a matter of ability, but desire. They know people
come to YouTube to be able to find whatever content they want. Content ID and
their DMCA process is just paying lipservice to the idea that they are playing
by the rules. They _want_ this system. It keeps the new content churn high,
which keeps users refreshing the page, which gets new ads served to them.

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feintruled
This was so misjudged it beggars belief. The video is down now but if you
watch the original (ironically preserved via other Youtuber's reaction videos)
it reveals two guys who drank long and deep of the corporate Kool-aid, spewing
marketing buzzwords and railing against content thieves, oblivious to the
irony that a) they based their content off unlicensed content (fair use of
videos they got 'reactions' to) b) the reaction format predates them

~~~
exelius
IMO this is the video equivalent of a lot of the early Internet software
patents. They took something that was a natural evolution of a larger
community and tried to seize the intellectual property around it. I'm not even
sure that what they were trying to trademark would be a valid trademark.

But beyond that, WTF were they thinking? On YouTube, your viewers are younger
kids who are also creating their own videos. If they're really a fan of your
content, they're going to copy you - shamelessly. Did they really think their
viewers were just going to sign over royalties from their videos to the Fine
Bros and not be pissed off about it? Is it really a good idea as an
entertainer to go after your most dedicated fans?

~~~
dwild
They never went after their fans. That's the hypothetical scenarios most
people were afraid of. They had one angry twit against Ellen, they had some
weird take down (which didn't need theses trademarks either).

All I've seen them trying is to allow people to legitimately do a copy of
their show. I wouldn't never try to copy that format, I wouldn't be afraid to
make my own "react to" but I would try to be different, original, with the
concept. Having access to their format, their contents, etc... that could be a
good way to try, to start, a way that I wouldn't dare taking because of
copyright, but would be interesting for simply 20% of literally not much
revenue.

Stopping React World does nothing else than stopping legitimate copy...

~~~
exelius
You can do all of this today without their branding though. Or their
permission. It's not like being associated with them is going to get you much
credibility when it's an open system.

Nothing is stopping you from making a total rip off of their show and its
format today - and you don't need to get permission or pay royalties. That's
how it should be; it's not like anyone is using copyrighted characters.

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goldenkey
I had no idea who these clowns were before. I'd wager that they make some
really powerful partnerships in the near future enabled by the publicity

~~~
bdcravens
They had some big partnerships before this. They did "reaction videos" for
movies, brands, etc:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/43g6em/fine_brothe...](https://www.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/43g6em/fine_brothers_sponsor_list/)

I think the risk was losing those sponsors due to the backlash to their
licensing plans.

~~~
goldenkey
When I made my comment, it was with the knowledge of the partnerships you
mentioned above. To add some knowledge to the conversation, they also netted a
show on TruTV called Six Degrees of Everything.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Degrees_of_Everything](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Degrees_of_Everything)

I still mean what I said, they potentially will get contacted by people with
too much money on their hands, to try to capitalize on their new publicity &
media spotlight.

The publicity probably helped them if anything.. They play the whole "we are
sorry we were misinterpreted, oops, we are going to revert/retract the
trademarks and the react world idea." And no one can really say that the fine
bros were purely malice.. So you might consider it bad publicity, but really,
it was good publicity. All they had to do was retract an idea that would have
probably failed anyways.

They went from YouTube famous to actual celebrity / news famous. That's not an
easy line to cross.

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wnevets
I've never heard of them before this attempt. Any PR is good PR?

~~~
krapp
Their Youtube channel has 13 million subscribers and most of their videos top
a million views in a couple of days, with their most popular videos exceeding
30 million views. This isn't an upstart channel trying to get noticed -
Wikipedia ranks them at #16 across the entire site[0].

[0][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_most_subscribed_us...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_most_subscribed_users_on_YouTube)

