Man I found a channel similar to mine with half my subs do some careless dad videos and now they have more subs than me. So i gave in and just renamed mine to careless dad. Hopefully yt will re-index with new info. Ive been a fool!
By the way Im loving the tummy ache thumbnails.
Ye cool hope if works. But the 'careless dad' kws are pretty much dead now from what I can see. It was a micro trend, I can't see it growing much. Plus I've gotten tons of hate and abuse comments from it (deleted of course never made public), I'm lukewarm on any more videos. May try another 1 or two, will see.
Going forward, I am seriously considering registering trademarks for unique ideas - imagine the creators (was it Family Fun Pack?) of Giant Surprise Eggs trademarked "Giant Surprise Eggs" with USPTO for the video class. How many hundreds of millions of $$ have those videos generated across the platform, and how many top channels have grown to dizzying heights making those giant eggs? Just 1% royalty would have set them up for life. Going forward, I'll be trademarking unique ideas. Sure it's $250 a pop, but all that's needed is 130k views to breakeven on the filing fee, so it's well worth it. In fact, I'm filing two applications today for concepts I have out already ;-) ....[DOUBLEPOST=1483234297,1483233627][/DOUBLEPOST]
You shouldn't feel too bad about people making similar videos. We are naturally territorial and protective of our work. But I've come to realize some channels should not be seen as competitors. This YouTube thing is more like an economy where the more participants you have, the more views there are floating around raising everyone up. And you could catch some of those views from your copycats. you will normally only get an x number of views with your one video. But if there were 10 other channels making 2 videos that are similar to yours and if other conditions are favorable, then they could help increase your views. Because you would earn your normal x amount of views PLUS views sent to your video from the suggested section of up to 20 other videos.
If anything, you should actually want this form of copycat because some of these channels would be sending you extra views. This always isn't the case. But think of the thousands of small channels copying bigger channels and making similar disney videos. Collectively They are sending tons of traffic to those big channels through their suggested section.
You are spot on. Our most successful HK Giant Egg video got plastered across a wide variety of HK content. If that HK content was not out there, out video could not have such a reach.
I think the point is, take a channel working their butt for 1 year with 5k subs. They come up with something original and unique that blasts them to 80k subs in 1 month and 80M views. They have a monopoly on the ideas and are known for it. Suddenly every man, woman and their kid copies it. Then there are 200 copies and the keywords are saturated. The original creator won't get much traction with new release videos on that idea.
I liken it to the first Harry Potter novel. Thank God for Copyright law. Imagine before JK Rowling released the second novel, there were 120 copies of her story-line floating around taking up shelf space. You can't have a remotely close story-line to Harry Potter, the publishers will sue you. I see an original video idea not much different to this. The creator has the right to their work being protected. Whether the creator is an author, videoperson, artist, or anything else.[DOUBLEPOST=1483234766][/DOUBLEPOST]
Okay so I have my own opinion on copying which is totally hypocritical.
I did a Sharpie DIY (which is very popular on blogs and youtube) and put my own spin on it and "copied" Chip from Beauty and the Beast. Disney technically has the rights to it. So they could flag me on it, and I am fully aware of it... But its my most successful video and I'm really proud of coming up with this recreation which I had never seen anyone do before.
Then I started noticing a bunch of people making Chip mugs, and doing really well with it. Technically I shouldn't feel upset because the design isn't mine. But the techniques, and the style are the same. And their commentary is very similar. So I feel cheated (again it's hypocritical).
Whenever I get "inspiration" from a blog, or channel, I always credit the owner. I made bath bombs in one video, and obviously didn't come up with those recipes. So I credited the blog owner in my video and the description. And I put my own spin on the recipe as well.
Theres a very thin line of plagiarism and inspiration. There is one video that I really want to make but its full on copying someones design from a T-shirt, and putting it on a canvas. I'm trying to contact the owner before making this video. The way I think about it, is if it were my content, would I want credit? Try to make it your own idea if you can. If it is "copying" and you don't get rights to it, it is technically illegal.
I think someone like Disney, Pixar, Peppa Pig, could easily get their trademarks taken off Yt, or claim royalty from it. They don't because it's free advertising and brand awareness. Sure they lose some revenue from the scammers uploading scraped Peppa Pig episodes, but overall the benefits far outweigh the costs. They are highly capitalized companies that can easily absorb the costs of loss of views on cable.
Ma & Pa creators working from home are a different case. Having their ideas plagiarized brings very limited benefits, and the costs far outweigh the benefits. Many, if not most, small channels struggling for growth would be very lucky to have 1 to 2 ideas per year that get high views and traction. Having others take that idea and run dozens or hundreds of videos off it basically kills any chance for Ma & Pa to breakout with that idea, as the platform quickly becomes saturated with copies.
