Fiverr voiceover original commentary?

GlobalDayz

GlobalDayz

Active Member
I'm writing scripts for my videos & I've been planning on hiring this award winning voice actor from fiverr to narrate my scripts. Someone told me this would be considered 3rd party content... wouldn't this fall under original commentary though regardless of the fact the narrator isn't the creator of the channel? ....any feedback appreciated. Thanks
 
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Moved to the copyright / claims / legal forum. :)

Well, you need to make it clear to the voice actor that this is for a YouTube video and ask them who has the copyright. At the very least, even if they retain the copyright, by paying them to do the voice-over, they should be granting you a license to use the audio in a video. Ask the fiverr seller to grant you written permission to use the voice over in a YT video and then keep that email in your records. Honestly their whole business model is based around recording audio for videos so there is no way they wouldn't be ok with it. If nobody was allowed to use the audio in YT, then they wouldn't have a fiverr gig.
 
Crown said:
Moved to the copyright / claims / legal forum. :)

Well, you need to make it clear to the voice actor that this is for a YouTube video and ask them who has the copyright. At the very least, even if they retain the copyright, by paying them to do the voice-over, they should be granting you a license to use the audio in a video. Ask the fiverr seller to grant you written permission to use the voice over in a YT video and then keep that email in your records. Honestly their whole business model is based around recording audio for videos so there is no way they wouldn't be ok with it. If nobody was allowed to use the audio in YT, then they wouldn't have a fiverr gig.
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Hi, I've corresponded quite a bit with my voice actor so he's in the loop when it comes to what this will be for. Also I'll be getting full broadcast rights in my package so all set when it comes to that as well. My concern is if YT only considers original commentary now to be that of the actual creator. I'll make note to keep record via email as you've suggested. I greatly appreciate your suggestions.
 
Hi again @trumpdayz!

In normal practice, the copyright on a "work for hire", such as you describe here, remains with the person doing the hiring; and you the hirer would also have the right to say what uses the work could be put to. I will ask one of my Gold Level Product Expert colleagues if he or she knows how YouTube would treat this.

Have you considered doing your own narration?
 
UKHypnotist said:
Hi again @trumpdayz!

In normal practice, the copyright on a "work for hire", such as you describe here, remains with the person doing the hiring; and you the hirer would also have the right to say what uses the work could be put to. I will ask one of my Gold Level Product Expert colleagues if he or she knows how YouTube would treat this.

Have you considered doing your own narration?
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I've not considered narrating as it would completely take away from the cinematic experience I'm trying to provide...although I sure wish I had a hallmark voice to pull it off but simply put, I do not. I just reached out to a real popular Youtuber by the name Nick Nimmin who's channel is to help other content creators & asked " how he would define "original commmentary"...for ex. If I were to write scripts for my videos & hire an award winning voiceover artist from somewhere like Fiverr to narrate those scripts, would this fall under original commentary or is that out the window" & received this reply..."What is the context of the term "original commentary" used? How is it referred to in the documentation you're reading? If it's in regard to the YPP, I'm guessing you will want to provide your own commentary, and in that, they want your own thoughts on the subject matter, not re-stating another work word for word. Commentary not narration."

Quite irritated nonetheless as he's implying i'm going to plagiarize my scripts. I mean I clearly stated I was going to write scripts therefore that is my own thoughts on the subject matter..& he's suppose to be helping other creators yet can't even reply a comment properly smh..I'm at a boiling pt tbh but I would greatly appreciate a 2nd opinion from your colleague. This is the reality of being a Youtube creator, you have to seek help from fellow Youtubers most of which already think they have it all fig'd out because u can't touch base w/YT direct & get an answer to a simple question like this. It's unfortunate & discouraging to say the least. Before I spend a bunch of $$ I don't have, I'd like a straight answer for this question but if I don't get an answer soon it will be too late & i'll be taking a shot in the dark potentially flushing my budget down the drain. :down:

Does YT creator support ever reply to threads in yttalk?? Now would be a great time for someone from YT to chime in & enlighten me w/a legit answer to this question.
 
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trumpdayz said:
I've not considered narrating as it would completely take away from the cinematic experience I'm trying to provide...although I sure wish I had a hallmark voice to pull it off but simply put, I do not. I just reached out to a real popular Youtuber by the name Nick Nimmin who's channel is to help other content creators & asked " how he would define "original commmentary"...for ex. If I were to write scripts for my videos & hire an award winning voiceover artist from somewhere like Fiverr to narrate those scripts, would this fall under original commentary or is that out the window" & received this reply..."What is the context of the term "original commentary" used? How is it referred to in the documentation you're reading? If it's in regard to the YPP, I'm guessing you will want to provide your own commentary, and in that, they want your own thoughts on the subject matter, not re-stating another work word for word. Commentary not narration."

Quite irritated nonetheless as he's implying i'm going to plagiarize my scripts. I mean I clearly stated I was going to write scripts therefore that is my own thoughts on the subject matter..& he's suppose to be helping other creators yet can't even reply a comment properly smh..I'm at a boiling pt tbh but I would greatly appreciate a 2nd opinion from your colleague. This is the reality of being a Youtube creator, you have to seek help from fellow Youtubers most of which already think they have it all fig'd out because u can't touch base w/YT direct & get an answer to a simple question like this. It's unfortunate & discouraging to say the least. Before I spend a bunch of $$ I don't have, I'd like a straight answer for this question but if I don't get an answer soon it will be too late & i'll be taking a shot in the dark potentially flushing my budget down the drain. :down:

Does YT creator support ever reply to threads in yttalk?? Now would be a great time for someone from YT to chime in & enlighten me w/a legit answer to this question.
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My humble opinion is that what you're doing is fine. The commentary is original - You wrote the script. It's irrelevant who is speaking. The voice actor is just an actor, reading an original script. The content would only become "not original" if you then used that exact same commentary and voice recording on other videos. That would be duplicate content. Also, YT doesn't like "text to speech" software that many channels do with that ridiculous sounding robotic voice. But that is not what you're doing either.
 
Crown said:
My humble opinion is that what you're doing is fine. The commentary is original - You wrote the script. It's irrelevant who is speaking. The voice actor is just an actor, reading an original script. The content would only become "not original" if you then used that exact same commentary and voice recording on other videos. That would be duplicate content. Also, YT doesn't like "text to speech" software that many channels do with that ridiculous sounding robotic voice. But that is not what you're doing either.
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I was thinking along those exact same lines although they were starting to get away from me due to the responses I've been receiving from various creators.. I appreciate your humble opinion. I've decided to use my inactive YT channel Twitter account to tweet direct @ many YT employees & Creator Insider in attempts to receive an official answer.. I'm awaiting replies w/my fingers crossed although i'm not holding my breath but there's only 1 way to find out. Thanks again for your opinion as it provides some reassurance in a dire time of need.
 
Let me write that email today then. Real life got in the way yesterday; and unfortunately, there are no official Creator Support members on either YTTalk or the "Offciaial Support Community". It's all User-To-User on both fora, though on the official one, there are Google Community Managers.

The Gold Level I am going to contact is a multi-product Expert; so may take a few days to get back to me. Please don't get impatient in the meantime. As you said yourself, you're reluctant to simply flush your budget down the drain!

Luck to us both!

Addendum: Email sent; I quoted your original post as the question. We see what she answers.
 
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From my POV as long as it's a person doing the commentary it should be fine. I've seen many channels changing owners, another host, other person doing commentary etc etc. Before there were many channels with several people in it... like a team. As long as it's not a robot it should be fine, it's not like YouTube really knows who owns the channel and probably won't care if the face/voice of the channel isn't doing anything wrong. It's the same with kids vlogs, you see the parent managing everything but the face of the channel is the kid.

Even YouTube has it's own channel Creator Insider where you see different people in that team (Barbara and Tom) but I'm no expert and this is my opinion.
The only thing I would suggest is that you make that person SIGN a document giving you ALL the rights for the commentary in those videos and also take into account a possible problem... audiences fall in love with personalities/voices. If he decides to quit, if he wants a raise and you say no, if he starts his own channel cause he already gathered the following in your channel... he has the right to do it and prolly will do it (Many fiver artists start there and if they get big they move to YouTube) I've seen many channels die because the audience didn't like the new host or the new voice and this is the reason why using your own face/commentary is the best way to avoid ALL these problems!
 
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