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Hiding in Plain Sight: The YouTubers' Crowdfunding Piracy (engadget.com)
Some YouTube channels are publishing full-length episodes of TV shows, rights of which they obviously do not own, and on top of this, they are trying to crowdfund their piracy efforts by asking viewers to donate some cash. From a report: YouTube creators asking for money is nothing new, be it through the site's built-in membership features or third-party services such as Patreon. But trying to profit off someone else's intellectual property isn't the same as asking for support on an original video they've created. The person who runs the Kitchen Nightmares Hotel Hell and Hell's Kitchen channel did not respond to multiple requests for comment from Engadget, but their Patreon page (named YoIUploadShows) isn't coy.
"Hey! It's not as easy as you might think to make my content, I have to look for the best quality episodes I can find, download them, convert them, edit them, render them and upload them," YoIUploadShows' Patreon page reads. "This can sometimes take at least a few hours. Especially because the downloads are usually slow and the rendering itself can take a couple hours, because I started making all my uploads in HD instead of 480p to give them a little extra clarity." It's not easy, folks, so for that he or she "would really appreciate the extra support if you have any money to spare :)"
"Hey! It's not as easy as you might think to make my content, I have to look for the best quality episodes I can find, download them, convert them, edit them, render them and upload them," YoIUploadShows' Patreon page reads. "This can sometimes take at least a few hours. Especially because the downloads are usually slow and the rendering itself can take a couple hours, because I started making all my uploads in HD instead of 480p to give them a little extra clarity." It's not easy, folks, so for that he or she "would really appreciate the extra support if you have any money to spare :)"
Do the crime.
When you "pirate" Bladerunner, you're not hurting RIdley Scott or Harrison Ford.
You're not hurting the head makeup artist, the best boy or the gaffer.
You are hurting the media megacorp, who's trickle-down model is a ripoff for everyone.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Wow, so basically this person is more or less admitting they're engaging in copyright infringement for monetary gain by indicating they wish to be compensated for their time pirating someone else's work? Damn!
I don't see this ending well for that person, this is about as blatant as you can get.
Pretty much YouTube and Patreon are going to have to hand over anything and everything they have when a lawyer comes knocking.
And if punishment is based on per infringement, the view counts are going to make this even bigger ... if they've got even a few hundred thousand views, they're fucked.
Cue the hordes of shrieking lawyers.
I want to hear how this plays out, asking for people to crowd fund you pretty much tips you into the scary end of the reaming you're gonna get for this. This is now literally someone the content owner is going want to make an example of, and in a hard way.
Good lord, this is not going to end well.
Bullshit. What is there to edit? You download the episode off Bittorrent at about 5 minutes per episode on a decent connection, upload that file to YouTube. Be honest and just say you want us to pay your connection bills + as much extra cash as you can get out of this, but don't bullshit us or seriously rethink your workflow.