Is this even allowed to be done on youtube?

[ItsBecky]

I had thought for a while to add a bit of comedy to my channel of reading fifty shades of grey out loud for my viewers (doing a video per chapter for example) and reading it completely blind as I haven't read any of the books yet.

Since I came up with this idea, I have been researching it closely and people are saying you are not even allowed to upload a video at all of you reading a book let alone monetising it, I just wanted to check whether this would at all be allowed this or any other kind of book I would decide to read in a future video, I understand if I wouldn't be allowed to monetise it which would be annoying if by some chance it got really popular but if it brings exposure to my channel i could deal with that, but am I not allowed to upload this at all? I have found some readthroughs on the internet but not half as many as I expected and I know there was a big thing with emma blackery doing a readthrough of it and having to take it all down when she first started however it did make her successful (not saying this will happen for me but this is what made me research this further)

Would just like some kind of insight thankyou

 

[Kate's Adventures]

Personally it's something I'd avoid, if your eventual plan would be to read the whole book, your viewers then don't have a reason to buy the book and that is a concern to the publishers. I think you're allowed to read small extracts within the boundaries of fair use as long as it's transformative but reading larger portions could lead to a ton of copyright strikes.

 

[ItsBecky]

Yeah that does make perfect sense I honestly didn't even think about that, the only thing i thought about was that it would be inappropriate for my younger viewers to watch but it was just an idea for my channel which I thought would make it interesting enough for people to maybe sub to me but i don't want to upset anyone by uploading it and getting into trouble, it was just an idea that's all

 

[subversiveasset]

I had thought for a while to add a bit of comedy to my channel of reading fifty shades of grey out loud for my viewers (doing a video per chapter for example) and reading it completely blind as I haven't read any of the books yet.

Since I came up with this idea, I have been researching it closely and people are saying you are not even allowed to upload a video at all of you reading a book let alone monetising it, I just wanted to check whether this would at all be allowed this or any other kind of book I would decide to read in a future video, I understand if I wouldn't be allowed to monetise it which would be annoying if by some chance it got really popular but if it brings exposure to my channel i could deal with that, but am I not allowed to upload this at all? I have found some readthroughs on the internet but not half as many as I expected and I know there was a big thing with emma blackery doing a readthrough of it and having to take it all down when she first started however it did make her successful (not saying this will happen for me but this is what made me research this further)

Would just like some kind of insight thankyou

Since 50 Shades of Grey was published in the US after 1923 (works published before this year are public domain), it would definitely *not* be OK to do this -- you would assuredly be violating copyright regardless of whether you monetized it or not. I don't know if the publisher or author is automatically checking for these things, so there might be some delay in how quickly they would find it, but it absolutely violates copyright.

However, if you were to read a book in the public domain, then since the copyright has effectively expired, you could legally do a book reading even if you did monetize it.