Paid views for artificial sponsor leverage?

[Acerthorn]

Now before I continue, I want to make something perfectly clear: No, I do not actually plan on doing this. Even if I did, I suck at keeping this kind of secret, which is kind of important if you're going for this kind of scam.

Anyway, I saw an ad (probably one that was targeted at me because it could tell from some cookies that I do a lot of research on growing youtube channels) that advertised paid views that promised high retention. They defined high retention as either 70% of the video's length or 50 minutes of watch time, whichever occurs first.

While this is certainly superior to other "paid views" services that only advertise views but not view duration, it still obviously is a kiss of death for aspiring youtubers. They still aren't actually engaging in your content. Youtube will notice that these viewers are just viewing but not actually staying for other content, and so youtube will assume that these people must have lost interest. It may take a little longer for youtube to pick up than if the viewer was leaving within the first few seconds, but that just means you're delaying the inevitable.

But here's the part that really made me think: The amount they charge for views appears to be less than the amount you can realistically charge sponsors, given the same number of views.

I saw a video on youtube that said that a good range to ask for sponsors is between 3-5% of your video's views within the first 30 days of it going live. So if you get 1,000 views within the first 30 days, you can ask for about $30-$50 reasonably for someone to pay you to sponsor their product in your video.

In advertising jargon, this basically means $30-$50 CPM (or "cost per 1,000 impressions").

However, the paid views service I saw only charged $5 to earn 1,000 views. They only charge $9 for 2,000 views, allowing you to save money by purchasing more views.

Are you starting to see where I'm going with this?

Assuming this service is legitimate and youtube won't simply ban your account because of it, or remove the views, then couldn't you just upload daily videos, pay $9 to get 2,000 views from them (complete with 70% view duration), and then charge sponsors, at a minimum $60 to plug their products in your videos, turning a $51 profit every day? You could eventually start buying delux packages, start getting 5-digit or 6-digit view counts on each video, and charge even more from sponsors!

Eventually, youtube may catch wind that these viewers aren't really sticking with your channel and watching other videos, and algorthmically demote your channel accordingly, but if you're turning a profit just on sponsors alone, who the hell cares?!

Again, I have no intention of actually doing this. But I just think some exceptionally sleezy people might think it's a good idea.

What do you guys think?

 

[Vedstedsen]

YouTube catches wind > Company catches wind > sues you.
The sponsors won't pay you anything unless the video was of high quality. If it was of high quality you will grow without buy hypothetical supercheatviews.

I agree with you, sleezy people might think it's a good idea. The risk is however waaaay higher than the reward.

 

[Acerthorn]

YouTube catches wind > Company catches wind > sues you.

They can't sue you unless what you're doing is illegal. The closest you could get to showing a law that you'd be breaking is fraud. But it's not fraud unless you specifically say that these views aren't paid for.

Also, when I say that youtube catches wind, I don't simply mean that they catch wind that the views are paid for. I mean Youtube simply realizes that the viewers aren't actually sticking around your channel and watching more of your content. Your channel is basically a "one and done" for a vast majority of viewers, and gets algorithmically demoted that way.

 

[ItsMeJackP]

They can't sue you unless what you're doing is illegal. The closest you could get to showing a law that you'd be breaking is fraud. But it's not fraud unless you specifically say that these views aren't paid for.

It might not be against the letter of the law, but if sponsors are giving any significant amounts of money, there'll be a contract, and that would surely include something about the views and subs they're sponsoring being real. They pay money to creators because they pull in a lot of eyeballs, and the idea is the people attached to those eyeballs will respond positively to the advert or influencer. If it turns out the figures sponsors use to make a decision are misleading, they won't be happy.

Even if it isn't technically fraud, it would be a breach of contract, which they could sue you for. So not only would you have been knocked down the algorithms by youtube, you'd have burned bridges with a sponsor.. Would that be worth it?

 

[Acerthorn]

there'll be a contract, and that would surely include something about the views and subs they're sponsoring being real.

But that contract would not be enforceable unless there's an objective definition for the word "real." Do you mean the views are not performed by bots? Well, these "paid views" services clearly advertise "real" and "organic" views, so the content creator would be protected there unless the sponsor contract specifically and clearly defines the term "real" in a way that no reasonable person could possibly interpret as being consistent with paid views.

If there is any ambiguity in a contract's terms, the terms are usually interpreted in favor of the party who didn't write the contract, which in this case is the youtube content creator.[DOUBLEPOST=1548466611,1548466477][/DOUBLEPOST]

you'd have burned bridges with a sponsor

But at the same time, do you have to go around telling them that these views are paid? You don't have to tell them that the views aren't paid for, but then again, you could just act all normal and pleasant about your youtube channel and no say anything about the source of your success one way or another. Then they'll never find out.

 

[ItsMeJackP]

But that contract would not be enforceable unless there's an objective definition for the word "real." Do you mean the views are not performed by bots? Well, these "paid views" services clearly advertise "real" and "organic" views, so the content creator would be protected there unless the sponsor contract specifically and clearly defines the term "real" in a way that no reasonable person could possibly interpret as being consistent with paid views.

If there is any ambiguity in a contract's terms, the terms are usually interpreted in favor of the party who didn't write the contract, which in this case is the youtube content creator.

But that contract would not be enforceable unless there's an objective definition for the word "real." Do you mean the views are not performed by bots? Well, these "paid views" services clearly advertise "real" and "organic" views, so the content creator would be protected there unless the sponsor contract specifically and clearly defines the term "real" in a way that no reasonable person could possibly interpret as being consistent with paid views.

If there is any ambiguity in a contract's terms, the terms are usually interpreted in favor of the party who didn't write the contract, which in this case is the youtube content creator.[DOUBLEPOST=1548466611,1548466477][/DOUBLEPOST]
But at the same time, do you have to go around telling them that these views are paid? You don't have to tell them that the views aren't paid for, but then again, you could just act all normal and pleasant about your youtube channel and no say anything about the source of your success one way or another. Then they'll never find out.

I'm fairly new to youtubing so I've obviously not seen a sponsorship contract, but I wouldn't be surprised if the wording said something like "if you have misled us by artificially boosting your views, we will take action". I could be wrong, but sponsors will be aware of such tactics, and wouldn't want to spend undue money because of them.