YouTube Algorithm Can Decide Your Channel URL Now Belongs To Someone Else

An anonymous reader writes: In 2005, blogger Matthew Lush registered "Lush" as his account on the then-nascent YouTube service, receiving www.youtube.com/lush as the URL for his channel. He went on to use this address on his marketing materials and merchandise. Now, YouTube has taken the URL and reassigned it to the Lush cosmetics brand. Google states that an algorithm determined the URL should belong to the cosmetics firm rather than its current owner, and insists that it is not possible to reverse the unrequested change. Although Lush cosmetics has the option of changing away from their newly-received URL and thereby freeing it up for Mr. Lush's use, they state that they have not decided whether they will. Google has offered to pay for some of Mr. Lush's marketing expenses as compensation.

Comments

Makes sense

[Anonymous Coward]

"Lush" is a well known brand. If people go to www.youtube.com/lush they would expect to see Lush cosmetics, not some random guy. Similar for www.youtube.com/mcdonalds. Not sure what the issue is here. He doesn't own the site.

Re:Makes sense

[squiggleslash]

No, they wouldn't expect that. They'd never go to those links under normal circumstances, unless they saw it written down.

Would you go to slashdot.org/macdonalds and expect a page about hamburgers to come up?

The only people that go to youtube.com/lush are people that have seen it written down or who have bookmarked it, which means, essentially, only people visiting this blogger.

URLs should not change meaning except in extreme circumstances. Google's inability to understand that is baffling given their position as the web's defacto gatekeeper.

Re:Makes sense

[moronoxyd]

You think there is only one company by the name of "Lush" in the whole wide world? Or even in America?
Who decides which company gets this nice short URL and which doesn't?

This is usually solved on the first come first served basis, and Google should to the same.
And since this guy was the first and has the right to us his name (he didn't go for "lushcosmetics" nor "whitehousegov") he should keep it.

This decision by Google is stupid and sets a bad precedent.
Not counting the fact that their argument that this can not be reversed is certainly an outright lie.

Re:Makes sense

[91degrees]

Who ever said anything about "do no evil"? Google's unofficial policy is "Don't be evil". Different in a subtle but significant way.

Re:Makes sense

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're going to auto-transfer ownership of names based on rights ownership, then they should include a suffix indicating the trademark group they belong to.
e.g. LushCosmetics, McDonaldsHamburgers (or McDonaldsFastFood), AppleRecords (aka the Beatles' record label) which is not to be confused with AppleComputers, etc.

p.s. I've never heard of Lush cosmetics until this article. Maybelline, Revlon, Avon: Yes, I've heard of those. Lush? No, never heard of them. But I'm a guy, so maybe that explains it.

Re:Makes sense

[Frobnicator]

Besides, "Lush" is a standard common usage word that is neither copyrightable, nor trademarkable. IANAL

It is absolutely protected by trademark.

The very fact that he had used it in commerce give it automatic, de facto trademark protections. Even if he did not register the mark, it still has protection; defending an unregistered mark has a higher burden of proof, but by his use in commerce he automatically gained several legal rights relating to trademark. If he had registered his mark, the protections would be even stronger.

But moving on from trademark, there is also the issue of YouTube's ToS agreement.

And that is where it gets REALLY interesting.

It is quite possible that Google/YouTube violated YouTube's published ToS in this. Their termination policy (part 7 of the EULA) is for (A) repeat infringement of the rules which doesn't apply here, or (B) if "YouTube reserves the right to decide whether Content violates these Terms of Service for reasons other than copyright infringement, such as, but not limited to, pornography, obscenity, or excessive length. YouTube may at any time, without prior notice and in its sole discretion, remove such Content and/or terminate a user'su account for submitting such material in violation of these Terms of Service."

While they do reserve the right to interpret their ToS, that doesn't mean they can make up reasons outside the ToS.

Never belonged to you

[Anonymous Coward]

YouTube Algorithm Can Decide Your Channel URL Now Belongs To Someone Else

Never belonged to you in the first place.

What a bunch of douchebags.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi, we are google, one of the worlds most massive computer companies, and no we cant change a database value but we will give you a couple thousand to leave it all alone.

URLs

[squiggleslash]

It's a shame Google has nobody working for them who knows what a URL does and what it's meant to do.

Maybe they can employ someone to tell them, and explain why changing URLs at random (or "algorithmically" if you'd prefer) to go to entirely different things is a problem.

Perhaps that same person can then tell them what a search engine is...

Re:URLs

[gstoddart]

Actually it is dumb of him to establish his brand based on an URL which he has no control of.

Well, this was his username on YouTube, and even if YouTube changed their URL structure, the channel registered in his name got taken away, assigned to an entity who didn't ask for it, and marked as now being the property of someone else.

This isn't like making a reference to something which should be changing ... this is saying "my channel on YouTube is Lush, and even if YouTube changes its URL, my channel is still Lush".

When YouTube basically exists to make money from showing the content other people have created, suddenly deciding after ten freaking years that the channel should be arbitrarily given to someone else is basically bullshit.

This is entirely about Google being assholes, who are preemptively trying to maximize the branding for people who didn't ask for it, and suddenly deciding that the 10 years he used that account and placed content on YouTube doesn't matter.

Sorry, but this is stupidity on behalf of Google, and has nothing to do with URLs which change. They took away his frigging account name for NO other reason than some algorithm said so.

Basically they picked the entity who they felt deserved the name, instead of the one who had been using it and had a legitimate claim to us.

It's just another example of how Google is full of shit and no longer following their "do no evil" thing -- because this is an asshole move.

Here's my two cents

[rmdingler]

Before this morning, I didn't know either Lush existed (Matthew or the cosmetic company).

Seemingly, Google the omnipotent search engine has a bit of egg on its face,

but both Lush's will benefit largely from this story's exposure.

Are computers taking over?

[jfbilodeau]

Since when did we decide that it's OK for computers to make those type of decisions--and not allow human beings to reverse it?

No it doesn't

[Viol8]

He registered the channel 10 years ago. Too bad if in the meantime some cosmetics firm with the same name has become successful. Perhaps every word in the english dictionary should be off limits just in case some firm comes along and wants to claim it as their own trademark eh?

Re:No it doesn't

[Viol8]

Thats quite a feat, subtracting 2005 from 2015 and getting 8. Hope you don't do IT for a living.

Another Name / Company dispute

[cob666]

Here we go again
Nissan v Nissan

Re:Never heard

[CronoCloud]

They're a prestige high-end brand like MAC, Nars, or Stila. You won't find their products at your local Walgreens. If my memory serves me well they're around the same vintage as those brands. They've been around longer than Youtube, that's for sure.

Avon's mostly crap, the good Avon stuff is in their Mark sub-brand.