When you go viral & how you get screwed on licensing

Dani Girl

Member
Sorry this is long but there is lots to share. I wanted to share my recent experiences with a viral video that I hope you find helpful. Also myself and some other youtubers noticed an issue with licensing that I wanted to let people know and get feedback on because its another way content creators are getting screwed.

Myself and Davison (LOLPervs) had a couple of viral videos get really big.

Mine hit hit 2 million in 2 days
Hers was something like 7 million in 4 days

**I was going to link to them but it wont let me. You can google MENTOS BIKINI and DOGS REACTION TO CANCER RESULTS if you want to see the videos

They were the kind of videos everyone picked up everywhere (talk shows news etc) so for several days we got tons of emails requesting to use the video or get licenses. It gets crazy when that happens, and if you aren't with an MCN you are on your own to deal with negotiations and take downs.

ANYWAY, it became really obvious that some shady stuff goes on and the media has found yet another way to screw content creators and here is how.

First here is a breakdown of what goes down when you get a viral video:

MCNS: You get overwhelmed with offers to join MCNs. Some I have never heard of before. Some of theme are so laughable, they are clearly trying to screw you. I got one where the guy offered me $50 for exclusive rights on my video. Sadly people actually fall for this. Some will offer sign up bonuses, all kinds of things.

BUSINESS OFFERS: You will get random people from random business dot com wanting to buy your video or somehow get rights to your video.

TV MEDIA: TV media are really good about doing things right, if they want to use your video, they do it the right way by paying a license fee. The challenge is negotiations and most of them will major low ball you. This is the one situation where having an MCN is a good thing because they deal with all that.

NEWS: Talk show or news program that don't pay, they will at least contact you and ask and they will credit you how you want and usually embed your video on their site and share it on their social media. I haven't had any bad experiences yet with the news or talk shows, they are actually really good to work with.

WEB Media: Here is where it gets dicey. Most places are good and just embed your video. They might contact you to ask you for an interview. Some will contact you and ask for information and if they can use your video. You have to be careful with this because some of them are sneaky and they ask if they can share your video, and if you don't specify EMBED ONLY they go ahead and rip your video and put it in their own monetized players off youtube/away from content ID. I first discovered it when I saw it pop up in my news feed being shared by a big site. SO I started googling and discovered multiple sites doing this INCLUDING Yahoo homepage, HuffPost (not the news but the viral content they do), and several other big places that should know better.

DailyMail was one of the ONLY ones who paid a license fee to share my video in their own player. Everyone else did it with no permission or credit of any kind.

SO when that happens you have to issue a takedown. My takedowns say, either replace it with an embed or remove it. Problem is it takes days for them to respond, so meanwhile they are making money on your video. All of them complied because they have to by law. All of them took the video down but after a week of racking them up hundreds of thousands of views for their advertisers.

I talked to a lawyer about this. Basically the bigger places do this because they know how to abuse the DMCA takedown laws. They know that as long as they comply you can't really do anything to them.

In other words, there is no reason for anyone to license your video other than that they don't want to be hassled or have to remove it if you catch them. The bank on that most of the time people don't notice so they just get away with it and they know if you do notice you have to get a lawyer and spend a lot of money to recover and the truth is its nearly impossible to do.

So the worst that will happen to them is they have to take your video down. They have already made money on you at that point.

Curious to know if any of you have noticed this?

We were thinking that its going to have to take us watermarking across our videos like World Star does which looks ridiculous OR we all have to start getting really agressive about going after them. I also think it would benefit to have a sticky that lists media who do things ethically and who don't. It is easy enough to prove by sharing the stolen content or screenshots. I know I have all of that stored.
 
Out of curiosity, how much is a licensing fee? Is that something you get to choose yourself or is there an industry standard for this sort of thing?
 
That is one of the things we are going to include in this article and video we are making. If there was a standard, it would be much better for content creators because right now we are at the disadvantage. There is no standard perse, that is why creators are so dependent on MCNs because when you get contacted they feel you out to see how cheap they can get a license deal. I actually made friends with one of the girls who worked for one of the tv networks we worked with. After she quit there I asked her honestly how much they pay. She told me that they had $2000 budgeted for my license. I agreed to $500!

I already knew it was a game after I got my first viral video, I agreed to a couple of license deals for $150 each. Then when I signed with an MCN they got me $600-800 after they took their cut! MCNs get what they want better than we do on our own. Media know we want money and are afraid to lose out so they lowball big time. But if you go too high you screw yourself out of deals.

You also have to factor what the license entails. Is it in perpetuity, do they use it on one of their sites or all their networks. That is also a deciding factor on the cost.

So yeah its complicated. To add to that televisions shows actually give location and talent fees on top of the licensing.

But I can tell you from the feedback I am getting from other creators it seems like the fee ranges from $150-2000. That is the lowest/highest I have heard so far. I am hoping if I can get enough people sharing their experiences, we can come up with some kind of base rate chart for people to go off of. If we all insist on the same standard, they will have to start complying.
 
We've been with Maker for a little more than a year now. We've done a few clip licensing deals but most of our revenue is YouTube ads and sponsored product deals. So far we've been lucky not to get screwed over by any media companies, but between Maker and my lawyer, we're well protected.
 
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