React FineBros type videos and Copyright?

[bb109]

I know this topic has probably done to death because reaction type videos are popular and easy to do.

I have been looking into copyright and youtube and from my research and I am still a little confused after my research into if this is ok.

So my understanding is commentary and criticism is considered fair use meaning Reaction or Review type videos should be ok.

But When i did research about finebros type videos where you have your reaction and a little square box on the top showing the full copyrighted Music video with sound playing. My research says that this is not ok and You are only allowed to show bits of pieces of it. Example. if the reaction video is 4 minutes long then you are only allowed to show 30 seconds of the song. You are not allowed to play the entire Music video even though it's on a little box like fine bros do it.

I also did research into how finebros can get away with doing this if playing the whole thing isn't allowed and i read that it has to do with their partnership programs? This part i am not familiar with as i haven't done much research about partnership programs. I do know from the little i read about partnership programs is that they are useless and take a cut of your earnings for doing nothing?

anyway back to topic, What if i disable monetization for the reaction type videos? would this make ok?

I don't care if the react videos need to have monetization disabled as my goal of doing YT isn't about money. I am thinking of doing react videos for fun and not for the revenue. I just don't want to get sued or anything so My main concern is about the legal aspects of it.

 

[TwoTakes]

I would stay clear of reacting to things that might get you copyright strikes.

The thing is, it isn't actually about what is legal or what is not. Fair Use is a thing- but it is not respected by copright holders and Youtube has to favour them by giving them the power to strike down videos, otherwise Youtube could be held liable for copyright infringing videos.

So even if you are using Fair Use in a completely above board way, you could still have your videos taken down. This has happened to really big Youtubers- its is a massive problem for Movie Review channels especially.

The best thing you can do is avoid any copyrighted music- and avoid mainstream- recent movies/ TVs. basically anything that the big companies such as Sony etc might be trying to protect from copyright. They will not watch your video to check if it is ok or not. A bot will flag it from your tags, and they will take it down- or monetize it themselves.

 

[bb109]

thanks for the reply twotakes. that kind of makes me sad a little

 

[TwoTakes]

thanks for the reply twotakes. that kind of makes me sad a little

Just be careful. Don't use long clips without talking over them- edit between bits rather than play the whole thing- use a background and give credit to the original content creator.

 

[Shakycow]

Whether something is fair use or not can only be decided in a court...and, to put it mildly, it's a very grey area.

That said, I have full faith that reaction videos would absolutely not be considered fair and would likely be laughed out of the courtroom.

Not only is a considering a reaction a commentary or critique questionable, but showing the original work's key parts is in clear violation.

The less you take, the more likely that your copying will be excused as a fair use. However, even if you take a small portion of a work, your copying will not be a fair use if the portion taken is the “heart” of the work. In other words, you are more likely to run into problems if you take the most memorable aspect of a work.
​

The whole point of reaction pieces is to show what would be considered the "heart" of the work.

The other main issue- whether you plan to monetize or not, would be that you're still stealing potential views from the original source. Once people watch a reaction, they have very little reason to go back and watch the original...something that would destroy almost any chance of them being considered fair use.

 

[subversiveasset]

I know this topic has probably done to death because reaction type videos are popular and easy to do.

I have been looking into copyright and youtube and from my research and I am still a little confused after my research into if this is ok.

So my understanding is commentary and criticism is considered fair use meaning Reaction or Review type videos should be ok.

But When i did research about finebros type videos where you have your reaction and a little square box on the top showing the full copyrighted Music video with sound playing. My research says that this is not ok and You are only allowed to show bits of pieces of it. Example. if the reaction video is 4 minutes long then you are only allowed to show 30 seconds of the song. You are not allowed to play the entire Music video even though it's on a little box like fine bros do it.

I also did research into how finebros can get away with doing this if playing the whole thing isn't allowed and i read that it has to do with their partnership programs? This part i am not familiar with as i haven't done much research about partnership programs. I do know from the little i read about partnership programs is that they are useless and take a cut of your earnings for doing nothing?

anyway back to topic, What if i disable monetization for the reaction type videos? would this make ok?

I don't care if the react videos need to have monetization disabled as my goal of doing YT isn't about money. I am thinking of doing react videos for fun and not for the revenue. I just don't want to get sued or anything so My main concern is about the legal aspects of it.

So, a few things:

1) If you're trying to use material that is copyrighted without compensating the original copyright holder for it, then ultimately you are trying to cover under "fair use". Fair use is extremely gray -- there is no set time limit (so you can't say for sure that 30 seconds is fair use), and there are really a series of tests that have to be determined in a court of law to establish fair use.

2) If you compensate the original copyright holders, then you don't have to worry about fair use. It is plausible that Finebros is successful enough that they can get licensing deals through their network for the content they use.

3) Not every youtube network/partnership program is the same. So, the big youtubers will often have really good networks that can negotiate content deals, licensing, and so on. Most youtubers do not have access to these networks -- as you say, for most youtubers, networks are useless and just take a cut of your earnings for doing nothing.

4) Disabling monetization for your videos does not necessarily prevent copyright infringement. In fact, because appropriate use of copyright requires compensating the copyright holder (if you don't fit within fair use), if you disable monetization this could leave you in a position where you're supposed to be paying royalties, but you aren't making the money to do that. Usually, when something is identified in content ID (not everything is in content ID, but a lot of music and video clips are), then what will happen in many cases is that the original copyright holders will monetize the video, but then take the monetization for themselves -- this is because copyright is primarily about ensuring the copyright holders are compensated.

 

[bb109]

So, a few things:
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thank you for your reply. very helpful