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I Love YTtalk
I see lots of members deciding to celebrate subscriber or view milestones by hosting a competition or giveaway on their channel. YouTube has some strict rules surrounding giveaways, and not adhering to those rules can result in your channel being deleted, or in some cases you can even be fined.
There are LOADS of rules, and you can read the long-winded version of it here and another bit of literature here but for some brief guidelines, look below:
Hosting
If you're hosting a video contest, the videos MUST be uploaded directly to your channel rather than submitted via video response. Entries should not be submitted via video response or to a third-party server.
If your contest accepts non-video entries, approval from YouTube must be sought first. Same goes if entry occurs on a third party website or anywhere that basically isn't directly on the channel itself.
You cannot use the YouTube embedded player to run a competition off site.
You cannot seize the rights of the videos submitted in your contest. The video rights remain that of the person who created it.
Rules
You must not ever make a regulation of your giveaway/competition leaving comments, liking or subscribing. You are welcome to ask people to volunteer, but it must not be part of the rules.
You must remember to provide a link to the full rules of the contest on the video of the giveaway.
You must provide a legally compliant privacy notice as well, stating how details of entrants will be dealt with. Any personal information provided must not be used outside the realm of the competition, even if the entrant has agreed that it is okay.
All competitions are free, nobody should ever charge to enter a giveaway.
Age Guidelines/etc
Your contest must only accept entries from people aged 18 and up (or the age of majority in the region), and the laws of their country must state that they are applicable to enter. If their laws do not state they can enter, they must be withdrawn from the competition.
And then of course there's the obvious:
Physical prizes cost money to receive overseas, so have care what your 'winner' will have to pay to receive their prize! It can be very expensive!
Never give away food or drink. It's simply untrustworthy and there is a massive chance your prize will be seized at customs anyway.
Giving away copies of things like films, CDs and games without permission from the copyright holder is technically illegal, so before holding your giveaway, try contacting the right people to see if you can score a free copy that you're permitted to give away first.
If all this seems a bit much, it might be better to simply find another way of thanking your viewers for helping your channel out, such as shout outs, guest video spots and what have you!
There are LOADS of rules, and you can read the long-winded version of it here and another bit of literature here but for some brief guidelines, look below:
Hosting
If you're hosting a video contest, the videos MUST be uploaded directly to your channel rather than submitted via video response. Entries should not be submitted via video response or to a third-party server.
If your contest accepts non-video entries, approval from YouTube must be sought first. Same goes if entry occurs on a third party website or anywhere that basically isn't directly on the channel itself.
You cannot use the YouTube embedded player to run a competition off site.
You cannot seize the rights of the videos submitted in your contest. The video rights remain that of the person who created it.
Rules
You must not ever make a regulation of your giveaway/competition leaving comments, liking or subscribing. You are welcome to ask people to volunteer, but it must not be part of the rules.
You must remember to provide a link to the full rules of the contest on the video of the giveaway.
You must provide a legally compliant privacy notice as well, stating how details of entrants will be dealt with. Any personal information provided must not be used outside the realm of the competition, even if the entrant has agreed that it is okay.
All competitions are free, nobody should ever charge to enter a giveaway.
Age Guidelines/etc
Your contest must only accept entries from people aged 18 and up (or the age of majority in the region), and the laws of their country must state that they are applicable to enter. If their laws do not state they can enter, they must be withdrawn from the competition.
And then of course there's the obvious:
Physical prizes cost money to receive overseas, so have care what your 'winner' will have to pay to receive their prize! It can be very expensive!
Never give away food or drink. It's simply untrustworthy and there is a massive chance your prize will be seized at customs anyway.
Giving away copies of things like films, CDs and games without permission from the copyright holder is technically illegal, so before holding your giveaway, try contacting the right people to see if you can score a free copy that you're permitted to give away first.
If all this seems a bit much, it might be better to simply find another way of thanking your viewers for helping your channel out, such as shout outs, guest video spots and what have you!
